Elon Musk set off a grenade in conservative circles this week, trashing the one big, beautiful bill Trump has staked so much on. He didn’t just throw shade — he called it a “disgusting abomination,” backed Rand Paul’s $5 trillion deficit claim, and waved the American flag emoji as punctuation. This wasn’t a random tweet. This was Musk choosing to detonate right as Speaker Mike Johnson is working the Senate hard to shepherd this bill into law. Johnson, for his part, did respond, claiming he had a 20-minute phone call with Musk where the topic never came up. But c’mon — that silence says a lot. Either Johnson’s not telling the whole story, or Musk baited him. Neither looks great.
The timing is brutal. Musk has been a reliable MAGA ally — hosting DeSantis’s launch, reshaping Twitter into a free speech battleground, becoming a key donor and message amplifier. When he turns on your signature policy, it signals open season. And it’s not just personal. Elon hates the EV credit phase-outs in the bill. He’s furious about the AI regulatory overrides that strip individual from states like California. And his businesses, from SpaceX to Starlink, all have reasons to be wary of the bill’s broader tech oversight. So what looked like a united conservative front just fractured — and it fractured loudly. This is the part of the process where fights get public. And loud. And weird.
Iowa and the 2024 Remap
It’s moments like this that make me appreciate the Iowa caucus even more. Say what you will about the process — yes, it’s clunky, yes, it can be exclusionary — but nobody works harder at retail politics than Iowans. I’ve been in diners, VFW halls, and school gyms across that state. These are folks who grill candidates, push policy details, and actually pay attention. Compare that to South Carolina, which Biden bumped to the front of the line for the Democratic primary. That move was clearly strategic — to avoid an early embarrassment — but it came at a cost. The engagement just isn’t the same. You can walk into a bar in Manchester and get into a policy debate with a random guy sipping Busch Light. That’s not happening in Columbia.
Now, there’s a window to fix it. With 2024 settled, both parties could realign the primary calendar — and they should. Let Iowa go first. Let New Hampshire follow. Put South Carolina third, Nevada fourth. Let people earn it. The current process is dominated by consultants who don’t want surprises. But surprises are good. They shake things up. They reveal flaws. They test candidates in real-time, not just in sanitized TV town halls. If you want to know who can campaign in a blizzard, let 'em face a real one. Bring back the vetting. Bring back the grit.
Deal Deadlines and Tiers of Importance
Then there’s the global chessboard. June marks the end of the 90-day tariff pause Trump announced on Liberation Day — his dramatic trade reset. That pause gave negotiators time to cut new deals, to defuse tensions. But with just weeks left, where are the deals? Trump hasn’t sealed anything. Not with China. Not with India. Not with Vietnam, or Mexico, or even Taiwan. Instead, he’s hosting white paper summits and showing off 2017 flashbacks. The branding is tight, but the substance is lagging.
Look at the scoreboard. Ukraine was inching toward peace talks — then dropped a drone strike that disabled a third of Russia’s bomber fleet. That doesn’t scream “diplomatic breakthrough.” Gaza? The American-backed aid initiative is collapsing under mutual mistrust and unconfirmed shootings. We’re left trying to guess which footage is real and which claims are propaganda. And while all this plays out, the trade environment remains stuck. Japan, South Korea, Australia — they’re locked into frameworks that don’t need rewriting. The real action would be a comprehensive tariff reset with Mexico or Vietnam, or a groundbreaking semiconductor pact with Taiwan. But so far, we’re getting press releases, not treaties.
So here’s how I see it. You’ve got three tiers of trade potential. Tier 1: countries that matter symbolically — Canada, UK, the Netherlands. Deals here look good but don’t move markets. Tier 2: mid-size powerhouses like South Korea, Japan, and Germany. All three matter for automotives, while South Korea and Japan both matter for their tech sectors. Finally, Tier 3 is where it counts: China, Mexico, Vietnam, Taiwan, India. If Trump can close one deal there, he regains the upper hand. If he can’t, he enters the summer with big talk and no wins — just in time for Senate Democrats to go on offense. Time is ticking.
Chapters
00:00:00 - Intro
00:03:10 - Elon Trashes the BBB
00:08:09 - Iowa Caucus
00:11:24 - Trump Trade Tiers
00:22:14 - Interview with Michael Cohen
00:49:52 - Update
00:50:33 - Big Beautiful Bill Senate Discussions
00:53:05 - Jaime Harrison Comments
00:55:08 - Trump China Trade Talks
00:57:23 - Interview with Michael Cohen, con’t.
01:35:36 - Wrap-up
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