Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Are Already Weaponizing Supreme Court

The nominated co-chairs of the soon-to-be Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, have pinpointed a standard that will allow them to completely remake the federal government—and it’s all thanks to the Supreme Court.

Earlier this year, the nation’s highest court ruled on Loper Bright v. Raimondo, overturning a 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council and killing a long-standing mandate that federal courts should defer to executive branch agencies’ interpretation of the laws they administered (so long as that interpretation was deemed reasonable).

In a lengthy statement Monday morning, Ramaswamy highlighted that Loper Bright will allow their department to enact the sweeping budget cuts they envision for the executive branch—which includes shrinking the federal deficit and slashing $2 trillion in spending by July 4, 2026.

“Under the old standard, federal courts deferred to agency interpretations of law when a statute was deemed ambiguous,” Ramaswamy wrote on X. “Overturning Chevron deference, combined with the Major Questions Doctrine codified in West Virginia vs EPA, paves the way for not a slight but a *drastic* reduction in the scope of the federal regulatory state. It’s coming.”

Musk quote-tweeted Ramaswamy’s lengthy post, simply replying, “Yes.”

The biotech billionaire pointed to several legal studies to back his perspective, including a 2017 study that found that Chevron had become something of a standard for determining agency interpretation, being applied to close to three-quarters of relevant cases between 2003 and 2013.

An op-ed by the duo published in The Wall Street Journal last month highlighted some specific and immediate targets for their cuts. They include slashing more than $500 million a year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which funds NPR and PBS), nearly $300 million from Planned Parenthood, and “$1.5 billion for grants to international organizations.” Musk and Ramaswamy also suggested, in vague terms, that “entitlement programs” such as Medicare and Medicaid are on the line, though they refused to acknowledge how much they intend to burn from the critical health care programs.

Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative filmmaker behind the election denialist fable 2,000 Mules, revealed that the data that underpinned his supposedly incontrovertible claims of fraudulent voting was actually a complete sham.

In the 2022 film, a Texas-based “election integrity” organization called True the Vote claimed to have reviewed cell phone geotracking data from five 2020 battleground states that traced the movements of ballot “mules” who had been paid by liberal nonprofits to stuff ballot boxes. D’Souza’s film purported that hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots had been cast, tipping the scales for Joe Biden. The movie has been widely debunked by pretty much everyone, now including its own filmmaker.

A statement from D’Souza, quietly posted to D’Souza Media’s website early Monday, revealed that the geolocation data that he called “the premise of the film” wasn’t actually real.

“During the production of this film, as a supplement to the geolocation data, True the Vote provided my team with ballot drop box surveillance footage that had been obtained through open records requests. We were assured that the surveillance videos had been linked to geolocation cell phone data, such that each video depicted an individual who had made at least 10 visits to drop boxes. Indeed, it is clear from the interviews within the film itself that True the Vote was correlating the videos to geolocation data,” D’Souza wrote.

“We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data,” the statement read.

D’Souza downplayed this particular revelation’s impact on the integrity of True the Vote, and the film altogether.

“We operated in good faith and in reliance on True the Vote. We continue to have confidence in their work and also in the basic message of ‘2000 Mules,’” he wrote, adding that he would “continue to have faith” in the “underlying geolocation data and analysis.”

It seems the statement’s main purpose was to apologize to one individual: Mark Andrews, a Georgia voter who sued D’Souza after he was falsely depicted as one of the “mules.”

“I now understand that the surveillance videos used in the film were characterized on the basis of inaccurate information provided to me and my team. If I had known then that the videos were not linked to geolocation data, I would have clarified this and produced and edited the film differently,” D’Souza said.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined in 2022 that Andrews had been dropping off ballots for members of his own family, and Andrews filed a defamation lawsuit against D’Souza, True the Vote, and the movie’s publisher, Salem Media Group Inc. The publisher issued an apology to Andrews and ultimately retracted the movie from its platforms.

“Again, I apologize to Mr. Andrews. I make this apology not under the terms of a settlement agreement or other duress, but because it is the right thing to do, given what we have now learned,” D’Souza wrote. “While I do not believe Mr. Andrews was ever identified by the film or book, I am sorry for any harm he believes he and his family has suffered as a result of ‘2000 Mules.’”

Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, was forced to leave two veterans’ advocacy groups he ran due to serious allegations against him.

The New Yorker reports that Hegseth was forced to step down from Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America over allegations of sexual impropriety, personal misconduct, and financial mismanagement.

According to a seven-page whistleblower report from Hegseth’s time as president of the CVA from 2013 to 2016, the former Fox News host was repeatedly intoxicated while working in his official capacity, even needing to be carried out of organizational events. At one point, a heavily intoxicated Hegseth had to be physically restrained from joining dancers onstage at a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.

“A Fox News contributor, with the rank of captain (at the time) in the National Guard, and the CEO of a veterans’ organization … was in a strip club trying to dance with strippers,” the whistleblower wrote.

The report also stated that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and the rest of his management team sexually pursued women who worked for the CVA and even divided them into “party girls” and “not party girls.” According to the report, the organization ignored accusations of impropriety from staff members, including one of sexual assault.

In one letter of complaint sent to the CVA in 2015, a former CVA employee said that Hegseth was drunk in a Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio bar, early in the morning of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour, chanting, “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”

The author of the letter told The New Yorker, “If you print that, I will deny I wrote it.” When told that it came from the same personal email account that he still uses, he said, “I don’t care. I’ll just say it never happened.” Hegseth was pressured into resigning from the organization in January 2016.

During Hegseth’s time in charge, Veterans for Freedom also ran up serious debts. Only one year later, VFF couldn’t afford to pay its creditors, with the group’s donors, Republican billionaires Bernard Marcus, Jerry Perenchio, and Harold Simmons, concerned over what their money was being spent on.

That concern was more than justified, as their money was apparently being spent on wild parties rife with sexual impropriety. The three donors hired a forensic accountant, and Hegseth admitted in January 2008 that the organization had $434,833 in unpaid bills, less than $1,000 in the bank, and credit card debts of as much as $75,000. The donors eventually arranged a merger with another veterans’ organization and drastically reduced Hegseth’s role.

These new revelations raise significant questions about whether Hegseth is fit to run the world’s most powerful military, particularly in light of the sexual assault allegations against him and his extreme personal views. While Trump’s team is already compiling a list of alternative nominees, it’s unknown whether Trump will double down on supporting Hegseth.

Donald Trump has tapped his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, to serve as his adviser for Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

The selection is a totally unqualified one, save for one known example in which Boulos, a Lebanese billionaire, acted as a foreign intermediary for Trump with the Palestinian Authority, meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the U.N. General Assembly while the leader of the devastated nation attempted to appeal to the pro-Israel president-elect.

Boulos also aided Trump’s 2024 campaign, helping the MAGA leader canvas for support among disillusioned Arab Americans in key swing states such as Michigan.

“Massad is an accomplished lawyer and a highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the International scene,” Trump wrote in a statement Sunday. “He has been a longtime proponent of Republican and Conservative values, an asset to my Campaign, and was instrumental in building tremendous new coalitions with the Arab American Community.”

“Massad is a dealmaker, and an unwavering supporter of PEACE in the Middle East. He will be a strong advocate for the United States, and its interests, and I am pleased to have him on our team!” Trump added.

Boulos comes from a long line of political figures in Lebanon, and his father-in-law co-founded the country’s Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian political movement connected to Hezbollah. He’s the first selection in Trump’s Cabinet who holds critical views of Israel’s conduct in its assault on Palestine, reported Haaretz.

But Boulos is at least the second recent, thoroughly unqualified pick for such an influential position. On Saturday, Trump tapped another family member—his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner—to serve as U.S. ambassador to France.

Over the course of the last month, Trump has made several jaw-dropping nominations to fill his Cabinet, including tapping former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence, despite the fact that she has regularly amplified Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. The Republican also selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a virulent vaccine conspiracy theorist with a wild history that includes propping up dead bear cubs in New York City’s Central Park for fun—to run the Department of Health and Human Services, a decision that has led authoritarianism scholars to describe Trump’s nominees as purposefully “anti-qualified.”

But beyond the obvious lack of credentials on his recent selections, Trump’s decision to lean into his family to staff the executive branch is an alarming choice by a politician who banged pots and pans claiming that investigations into his misconduct constituted a banana republic.

Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI, is essential to the president-elect’s takeover, and will allow him to use the full force of the U.S. government against anyone Trump decides is an enemy.

On Saturday, Trump nominated Patel, a former chief of staff at the U.S. Defense Department, to replace the FBI’s current director, Christopher Wray, who still has more than two years left in his 10-year term. Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after unceremoniously firing James Comey.

During an interview on MSNBC Saturday, The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols voiced his concerns about Trump’s “incredibly dangerous” prospective Cabinet of sycophants, including Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, Pam Bondi, and now Patel—a champion of the president-elect, with his penchant for “deep state” conspiracy theories and making threats against the press.

To Nichols, Patel’s nomination demonstrates not only a direction for Trump’s second administration, but also an accelerating velocity.

“You have the makings of, you know, a not-so-slow-motion authoritarian takeover of the United States government,” Nichols said.

In a subsequent piece published Saturday in The Atlantic, Nichols wrote that Patel’s appointment was part of Trump’s plan to transform the FBI into an “excellent instrument of revenge against anyone Trump or Patel identifies as an internal enemy—which, in Trump’s world, is anyone who criticizes Donald Trump.”

Trump, having nominated loyalists to serve as the heads of his intelligence, legal, and law enforcement agencies, “eliminates important obstacles to his frequently expressed desires to use the armed forces, federal law-enforcement agents, intelligence professionals, and government lawyers as he chooses, unbounded by the law or the Constitution,” Nichols wrote.

By nominating Patel, and the rest of his motley crew of conspiracy theorists and alleged sexual predators, Trump is removing the guardrails on his second administration.

Last week, Elon Musk—rearing up to fire federal employees he deems wasteful en masse as the head of the Trump administration’s planned DOGE commission—put a number of workaday government employees on blast to millions of users on X.

At the time, The New Republic reported that his behavior was not “just cruel, it’s dangerous.” Indeed, CNN reported Wednesday that those Musk singled out have been inundated with hate, leading others to fear that they too will have Musk devotees sicced on them.

Several federal employees told CNN that “they’re afraid their lives will be forever changed—including physically threatened—as Musk makes behind-the-scenes bureaucrats into personal targets.” Others said the specter of being targeted by Musk “might even drive them from their jobs entirely.”

One target of Musk’s posting spree last week was a woman who works at the International Development Finance Corporation. Her role, an official told The Wall Street Journal, involves “identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather events.” She had her job deemed “fake” by Musk—seemingly because her title, “Director of Climate Diversification,” contains words that tend to raise right-wing culture-warrior hackles.

Facing a barrage of negative attention, she “has since gone dark on social media, shutting down her accounts,” reported CNN.

Others whom Musk and his fans went after include senior advisers for climate and environmental justice at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as a chief climate officer at the Department of Energy.

Last month, CNN reported that Musk “promised a gentle touch” as the head of DOGE—a commission TNR’s Matt Ford described this month as itself a symbol of “inefficiency and waste in government” that “cannot achieve its stated ambitions for legal, constitutional, or practical reasons”—but his insatiable itch to post apparently takes precedence over his word.

With its newfound electoral mandate, Donald Trump’s team is debating on whether to attack or invade Mexico, as the president-elect promised on the campaign trail.

“How much should we invade Mexico?” one senior Trump transition member told Rolling Stone. “That is the question.”

Trump has reportedly been gathering “battle plans” to attack drug cartels in Mexico since early 2023, with or without Mexico’s permission. Now he is president-elect, and even mainstream Republicans are on board with the idea. His nominees for secretary of defense and secretary of state, Pete Hegseth and Senator Marco Rubio, respectively, have spoken favorably of U.S. military action against Mexico, as has his “border czar,” Tom Homan. 

One source close to Trump told Rolling Stone about a plan for a “soft” invasion of the country, in which U.S. special forces would assassinate cartel leaders covertly, an idea Trump was in favor of earlier this year. The magazine spoke to six Republicans in all who have privately discussed Mexico with the president-elect and briefed him on different proposals. 

These actions vary in their level of force, including drone strikes and airstrikes against cartel targets such as drug labs, sending military advisers and trainers to Mexico, sending “kill teams” to the country, using cyberwarfare against drug lords and their organizations, and the assassination plan. 

Trump has told Republicans privately that he plans to tell Mexico to stop the transport of fentanyl into the U.S. within months otherwise he’ll deploy the military. This would seem to fit into the tariff threat he made against Mexico, Canada, and China on Monday, when he warned the three countries to stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the United States. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum didn’t take Trump’s words well, and she probably won’t like U.S. forces deploying in the country either. 

In his first term, Trump proposed to “bomb the drugs” in Mexico, according to his former national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Thankfully, nothing came of it. Now,  in addition to the presidency, Trump has captured the Republican Party, much of the judiciary, and both chambers of Congress. His Cabinet and staff appointments are made up of sycophants and people much less likely to confront or correct him. In the next four years, there won’t be much standing in the way of Trump’s violent “solutions.”

The Republican Party’s majority in the House of Representatives is looking meager.

Three House races remain outstanding as of Wednesday—two toss-up races in California’s 13th and 45th districts and one in Iowa’s 1st district that’s leaning Republican, according to CBS.

But if current results hold, the GOP will have a record-small majority—220 seats to Democrats’ 215—CNN data journalist Harry Enten reported Wednesday morning. “You have to go all the way back since the Herbert Hoover administration to find an even smaller majority after November elections,” he observed.

And the majority could grow even narrower with the resignation of one Republican representative and the likely resignations of two more.

Representative Matt Gaetz has already resigned from his seat after Donald Trump nominated him for attorney general. Gaetz has since withdrawn as Trump’s pick in light of sexual misconduct allegations but said he does not intend to join the upcoming Congress. Representatives Elise Stefanik and Mike Waltz, whom Trump has nominated to join the incoming administration, are expected to resign in January.

Those resignations would deflate the GOP’s majority to 217–215. In that event, CNN anchor John Berman noted, in the weeks or months before the vacated seats are filled, a single Republican defector could sink a bill. Enten observed that that has not been the case in 100-plus years.

This is just the latest development throwing cold water on Republican narratives about a 2024 landslide. While Trump crowed about his purported “unprecedented and powerful mandate” on election night, as more votes have been counted, it has become clear that Trump did not win a majority of the popular vote, and his popular-vote margin over Kamala Harris has shrunk considerably.

Trump’s pick for special envoy to Ukraine wants to force Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia by holding aid hostage.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he has selected retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg to be his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, a position focused on ending the two-year-long war. Kellogg previously served as both national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term.  

“I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!”

Last spring, Kellogg proposed forcing an ultimatum on Ukraine: Engage in peace talks in order to keep receiving aid. The plan, which was put forward with the help of Fred Fleitz, his successor as chief of staff at the National Security Council, would also force Russia to the negotiating table by agreeing to hold off on Ukraine’s admission to NATO. Under the plan, the cease-fire would take place along existing battle lines.

Kellogg’s views align well with an incoming administration that seems to have little interest in providing aid to Ukrainians, even as Russia is advancing through the country faster than ever.

Vice President–elect JD Vance is similarly opposed to more assistance. South Dakota Governor and Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem is opposed to more assistance as well, saying that the war is “Europe’s fight, not ours.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has come up with another conspiracy theory—that Democrats are stealing a very close election race in California. 

In California’s 13th congressional district, the votes are still being counted, and Republican Representative John Duarte fell behind Democrat Adam Gray by a narrow margin Tuesday night. To Greene, this means that something nefarious is going on. 

“Democrats are stealing another House seat! Elections nationwide should be one day, paper ballots, and require proof of citizenship with ID!!” Greene posted on X Wednesday morning. 

California has fully embraced voting by mail, instituting it statewide since 2022. As long as ballots are postmarked by Election Day, they are allowed to arrive no more than a week afterward in order to be counted, an increase from three days afterward in 2022’s midterm elections. That year, half of the state’s votes were counted after Election Day, meaning that a long wait time to count votes is not suspicious. 

In Republican-run states, though, it’s rare for such allowances to exist. In Greene’s home state of Georgia, for example, mail-in ballots aren’t universal but have to be specifically requested well in advance. Ballots have to be received within three days of Election Day, even if the voter is overseas or in the military.  

Greene and her fellow conservatives seem to hold the laughable opinion that the easier it is to vote, the more likely that Democrats and the left are fixing elections. In fact, making voting more widely accessible allows greater participation from the people who are poorer, don’t have easy access to transportation, work long hours, or are disabled, posted overseas, or any number of other valid reasons. 

Even in states like California, things could be made easier through various reforms, such as making Election Day a national holiday. But such efforts have been consistently opposed by Republicans, who have long seen higher voter turnout as a boost to Democrats. Maybe now that Donald Trump and the GOP actually won the popular vote in 2024, they will stop trying to restrict voting access.