Trump’s Solution: Buy A Tesla, Soon We Won’t Have “A Fake Economy”

Donald Trump says we live “in a fake economy.” He, however, monarch and economic genius that he is, is going to get us into a “real” economy. We know that because Karoline Leavitt snarled from the press room podium today about all the “countries that have been ripping us off,” but Trump will right all those wrongs and get us on the right track. And if you believe that, you deserve to spend $40 for an $8 pair of flip flops.

There was a photo op at the White House today wherein Trump declared he had purchased a Tesla from Elon Musk. As Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out later, there was no evidence of this, but that’s nothing new. Reporters report whatever Trump tells them as fact. The biggest and most outrageous example of that was when Trump’s ear was “struck by a bullet.”

We never had any empirical evidence of that. We do know that motorcycle cops near Trump at the Butler venue sustained minor injuries from shrapnel and very likely that’s what happened to Trump. But with the exception of independent journalist Josh Marshall, I never saw any credible outlet challenge Trump’s claims of being shot by a bullet.

So take this episode at the White House with a pound of salt because look at the two players involved. They are the players, you see, and the rest of us are NPCs, something Musk always reminds us of. An NPC is a “non player character” in a video game, an extra as it were, the guys with the red shirts on Star Trek. And that’s all the rest of us. Trump and Musk are the stars.

 Tesla shares have lost over 50% of their value in the last two months, wiping out over $800 billion in market cap.

… Barstool Sports founder, Trump supporter, and Tesla stockholder Dave Portnoy is unhappy. On Fox: “I like DOGE, I like what they’re doing. But let me tell you this. If you are going to send out – and you got to call it both ways – if you are going to send emails to federal workers and say, ‘What have you done for the last five days,’ I think Tesla shareholders are entitled to ask their CEO, Elon Musk, ‘What have you done for Tesla the last five days?’”

… Portnoy: “Seemingly all he cares about right now is DOGE. Now, could it be coincidence the stock is way down since he really started this? I guess. But I think it’s fair as a shareholder of Tesla to say, ‘What are you doing for shareholders?’”

… Trump and Musk then conducted an infomercial in front of the White House for Tesla, where Musk had several different models lined up and Trump spoke to the media using a script to help him sell some cars for Elon. Trump said he was there to buy a car from Elon to show support for Tesla.

… Trump was asked at the event if he was concerned about the stock market: “Nope! Doesn’t concern me. I think some people are going to make great deals by buying stocks and bonds and all the things they’re buying. I think we are going to have an economy that’s a real economy, not a fake economy. It was a fake economy.”

That is Trump Speak for: “I have no fucking clue what I’m talking about or what I’m doing. I’m just hoping that something works out.” Maybe it will work out for you, Donald. Just like you predicted about COVID, “It will just disappear one day, like a miracle.” We saw what happened there. The plain truth of the matter is that in month two of this charade of an administration the cracks in the economy are widening into fissures.

While you’re here, some people read some interesting things into Elon and Donald’s body language.