Pinch Points and Power Trips

From Musk’s slow exit and Tesla’s financial nosedive to DOJ’s Supreme Court fanfic and Trump’s tantrum over interest rates, the empire of grift is cracking

Good morning! The empire isn’t just fraying at the edges anymore, it’s unraveling in real time, with a parade of grifters, gaslighters, and government contractors pulling every thread they can reach. From crashing markets to courtroom smackdowns to town halls that now require body armor, the day’s headlines are a masterclass in authoritarian unraveling

Elon Musk has announced that he’s not entirely fleeing the Department of Government Efficiency, just dramatically cutting back. Starting in May, he says he’ll be dedicating only two days a week to the Trump administration’s favorite agency of slash-and-burn governance. So no, he’s not resigning. He’s just dialing back the dystopia.

This announcement came alongside Tesla’s 71% drop in quarterly earnings, a meltdown so operatic it deserves its own Hans Zimmer score. Consumer confidence has cratered, Tesla’s reputation is toxic in half the country, and Musk, who once promised to reinvent governance, is now pitching Full Self-Driving “by the end of the year” for roughly the sixth year in a row. Investors are increasingly treating those promises like a magic trick: impressive, but ultimately built on distraction and disbelief.

DOGE, meanwhile, continues to churn out performative press releases and cartoonish metrics. The department’s enforcement-style branding and secretive contract cuts have drawn mounting legal fire, and the shine is fading fast. Musk insists he’s “refocusing on Tesla,” but with lawsuits piling up, a consumer revolt in full swing, and DOGE under scrutiny for politicized data access, it’s hard not to see this as a strategic retreat. The ship is still burning, but now the captain only visits on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is on what polite military types might call a full-spectrum unraveling. After leaking classified information via Signal to his wife, his brother, and (why not?) his personal lawyer, Hegseth is now lashing out at Pentagon staff for "betraying him" by leaking his leaks.

This morning, he's speaking at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania because nothing inspires the next generation of military leaders like a red-faced man whose voice cracks when he blames the press for his own Signal meltdown. Even MAGA’s best spin artists are quietly trying to ghost this man, who increasingly looks like what would happen if a Sunday cable host were put in charge of nukes.

Over in New York, Judge Alvin Hellerstein reminded the country that courts still matter and that federal lawyers can’t just lie about what the Supreme Court said like they’re riffing in a group chat. Yes, the Department of Justice, clearly taking cues from the constitutional scholars of Truth Social, misquoted SCOTUS in official legal filings to justify mass deportations without due process.

Here’s what the Supreme Court actually said in Trump v. JG on April 7:

“Individuals subject to detention and removal under the Alien Enemies Act are entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard in such a manner as to allow them to seek habeas relief in the proper venue.”

But in their motion, DOJ attorneys rephrased that as if they were quoting a Marvel villain:

“The Court’s ruling confirms that the Executive has the authority to remove individuals immediately under the President’s proclamation.”

A bold claim, considering the ruling says the exact opposite.

According to the DOJ’s rewritten reality, the ruling gave them carte blanche to skip formal notice, skip hearings, and treat deportation as a same-day delivery service, destination: CECOT, the Salvadoran mega-prison with a body count and a press ban.

Judge Hellerstein wasn’t having it. In court, he torched the administration’s behavior as “Inquisition-like” and “medieval,” and made it painfully clear that habeas corpus is not, as DOJ counsel suggested, a “flexible standard.” He ordered that all notices be in English and Spanish, with interpreters provided as needed, and demanded actual hearings before any removal can proceed.

The subtext wasn’t subtle: You don’t get to take a Supreme Court ruling about due process and use it to eliminate due process. You don’t get to turn a constitutional guarantee into a loophole. And no, you cannot crowdsource your legal arguments from Trump’s DMs.

As one courtroom observer put it, this was more than a ruling. It was a legal slap with a velvet gavel and a warning that the courts haven’t entirely surrendered to the dystopia. Not yet, anyway.

The far-right’s favorite punching bag just got a software update. Alex Soros is now running the Open Society Foundations, and unlike his father, he has no interest in lurking behind the scenes. He’s reshaped the $25 billion fund, dumped $100 million into Democratic efforts, and has no qualms calling out Elon Musk, JD Vance, or Project 2025 by name.

He’s more online, more aggressive, and more allergic to authoritarianism than George ever was. Which, for the Soros-obsessed fever swamp, is basically a nightmare wrapped in Wi-Fi. Good.

After a week of threatening to sack Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for not slashing interest rates fast enough, Trump now insists it was all a media invention. “Never did,” he told reporters with a straight face, apparently hoping no one remembers the Truth Social post that read: “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

The markets weren’t fooled. Nor was the Fed, which is refusing to cut rates just because Trump’s tariffs have driven inflation back above target. Trump, meanwhile, is now talking about trade negotiations as if his economic arson can be undone with a few talking points. The problem isn’t that Powell is “late”, it’s that Trump drove the car into a ditch and is mad the airbags didn’t deploy on cue.

The IMF downgraded global growth to 2.8%, and if you read between the lines, the report might as well have said: Thanks, Trump. But economist Richard Murphy doesn’t mince words. He says we’re heading for a capital flight event, a catastrophic confidence collapse where global investors start dumping dollars and fleeing U.S. markets en masse.

Why? Because Trump has created “pinch points”, tariffs, economic isolation, and political instability, that are fraying every nerve of global finance. And it gets worse: Murphy warns that Trump’s Project 2025 is deliberately dismantling the very government tools we’d need to survive the crash.

The seven companies holding up 30% of the U.S. market, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and poor doomed Tesla, could become toxic brands amid trade wars and consumer revolt. If they fall, so does everything else. And this time, there’s no bailout coming.

In Idaho, six men, including five from a private security firm, have been criminally charged after forcibly removing a woman from a Republican town hall for yelling out of turn. Teresa Borrenpohl, who’d dared to criticize Trump’s staffing cuts, is now suing for $5 million, calling it a violation of her First Amendment rights.

The GOP's response? Advising House members to stop hosting town halls altogether. When you’ve alienated the voters so thoroughly that free speech requires a security detail, maybe it’s not the meetings that need to stop, it’s the policies.

So here we are: a collapsed earnings report, a collapsing legal strategy, and a collapsing global growth forecast all wrapped in the kind of delusion that only authoritarian kleptocrats and their apologists can muster. But don’t worry, Trump says everything’s fine.

Just don’t ask Jerome Powell. Or the courts. Or the IMF. Or the woman who got dragged out of a high school gym for having an opinion.