This "Musk was made the fall guy for the Trump Admin" pity party is going to have a VERY SHORT shelf life.

[Miles Archer]

I don't think the image of Musk in his K-hole, cackling like a hen and swinging a chain saw, played well outside of the MAGAt base.

Project 2025 expert claims Elon Musk was deliberately played to become admin's fall guy

The author of a new book on Project 2025 suggested tech billionaire Elon Musk got played by the authors of the right-wing blueprint guiding Donald Trump's second presidency.

Musk has made sweeping cuts to the federal government from his perch as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, but The Atlantic's David A. Graham told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that White House budget chief Russell Vought and other authors of Project 2025 were happy to let him take the blame for the deeply unpopular cuts they had recommended themselves.

"You look at the layoffs of federal workers, you see attempts to close the Education Department, it's just point-by-point right from here, and I think the thing that gets missed is people talk about the policies, but it's so much, you know, a scheme for how to rework the entire shape of government, and that's something that I think maybe didn't come through during the campaign," Graham said.

Musk's cuts have proven to be unpopular so far, and host Joe Scarborough asked whether that had caught the administration off guard.

https://www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-project-2025/

[Walleye]

1. What if during the campaign he had said instead of lowering prices on day one he was going to eliminate 200,000 jobs

Don’t think that would’ve gone over very well. For some reason, the right wing doesn’t think making your living with a job in the federal government isn’t legit. Assholes.

[Maru Kitteh]

4. They think it's legit if THEY are the ones with the jobs. They didn't think good white folks,

especially good white MEN were going to be losing their jobs. That’s when they started doing double takes.

[Kid Berwyn]

2. No Duh about it.

The Feudalist Society and the Disheritor Foundation wouldn’t have it any other way.

[Lovie777]

3. Do they EVER stop lying....

this is nonsense. Next.

[mathematic]

5. Musk was absolutely used to launder longstanding GOP priorities through a "forward-thinking" veneer.

I've been saying this for months that Musk isn't doing anything that wasn't already a longstanding priority for conservatives in general and project 2025 in particular.

He's no victim though. These were Musk's priorities too, even if he was manipulated into believing he came up with them.

[MustLoveBeagles]

8. Correct

Musk might've gotten played but he's no victim

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

10. The perfect fall guy for their manifesto...

... it's not like he is going to starve for the rest of his life for "burning bridges".

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Musk got plenty out of it anyway - NLRB and CFPB data he can use to defend his companies

against litigation (if those bureaus haven't been hamstrung enough to stop them bringing cases against any company at all), data to use for his AI projects, probably data on his competitors he can use commercially. Whether he'd use the access and data he's got for hacking, blackmailing or selling, as well, who knows?

[Dock_Yard]

14. Agree -- fElon got huge piles of private citizen data out of his illegal forays

[Johonny]

7. Musk was exposed as a creepy groomer

With a warped reality of himself and the world.

He is also a fraudster every bit that Trump is. He isn't so much a fall guy as an asshole.

[MustLoveBeagles]

9. Yes

[DENVERPOPS]

12. AND, he is buddy-buddy

even more so, than Trump, with Putin.......

[nycbos]

11. In other news water is wet

[Hornedfrog2000]

13. Musk will be worth double soon

Watch. Anyone who thinks this backfired for them havent been watching the last TEN YEARS

[Johnny2X2X]

15. He's the perfect rube actually

Because he'll never admit he got played. And because he took so much joy in ruining the lives and financial wwellbeing of so many government workers.

[FSogol]

16. LOL: We meant to do that!

[GenThePerservering]

17. "I think maybe..."

So tired of this equivocation. It was pretty obvious from the beginning what was going to happen, to anyone who was paying attention.

[Fil1957]

18. He was or maybe still is the fall guy,

but as soon as he leaves or is out of the spotlight (which is already happening) people will forget about him and focus the blame where it belongs -- on the mad king. The catastrophe that is now just beginning won't really kick in until about 6 months from now, and it will be so bad, that with Musk long gone, people won't even remember what he did. Hell, they would even start buying Teslas again, except they won't be able to afford them.

[pat_k]

19. "Illegal" must proceed every reference to "cuts" or "dismantling"

Unilaterally withholding funds appropriated by Congress, unilaterally slashing budgets established by Congress, unilateral, indiscriminate mass firings that render an agency incapable of fulfilling its Congressional mandate, are all crimes.

They are violating constitutional separation of powers principles, the Take Care Clause, and various administrate laws in plain sight.

Every time we reference a cut, recission of funds, or mass firing without noting it was done in violation of the Constitution and multiple laws, we are on their turf. Every time we fail to insert the modifier "illegal" or "unconstitutional" when discussing this or that action, the implicit message is that the 47 regime is doing things that are within its power to do and we are just upset about it -- politics as usual.

We must repeat over, and over, and over, and over. Make it a habit. Repeat until you are sick to death of hearing yourself say it.

And encourage electeds who believe in the rule of law to do the same.

If we don't learn to be repetitious on the fundamental facts, we are not climbing out of this

[mucholderthandirt]

20. The second to fall, after Hegsgeth or however it's spelled. One step closer to Trump being gone.

Say hello to your new president, the couch fucker. Nothing will really change, it will just be behind the scenes, same effect in the end. My guess is all of the nonsense since November was just to soften up the country so we'd be grateful for what seems to be a return to normalcy. It won't be. They're going to get what they want, and America will never return to what it was before 11/5/24.

And I've said, we will see signs by the end of April. Still got a little more than a week left! Next surprise? The Supreme Court is going to turn on Trump. Got to have that, or we're going to get more of the madness.