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‘I almost choked’: Economist highlights gobsmacking moment of Trump’s speech

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman found himself particularly floored by a moment in President Donald Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday in which he made boasts about boosting auto manufacturing even as his tariffs on Canada and Mexico threaten to cripple auto supply chains.
Writing on his Substack page, Krugman explained how car production in the United States will be hampered by the tariffs on America's two biggest trading partners given the way that cars are assembled across all three countries.
"Automobile production, which is deeply integrated across our northern and southern borders — there really isn’t a U.S. auto industry, there’s a North American industry operating in all three countries — will be especially hard hit," he wrote. "I almost choked when Trump declared last night that 'we are going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody has ever seen.' Well, I guess we’ve never seen a large downturn in auto production outside a major recession, which is not to say that we won’t get a recession too."
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Taking stock of Trump's economic policies as a whole, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk's slash-and-burn approach to federal workers, Krugman argued that the United States right now is "trapped in a burning Tesla."
"If you don’t know this, the doors on Musk’s cars are designed to open electronically; if they have manual releases at all, they’re difficult to get at and use," he explained. "As a result, there have been multiple instances of people burning alive inside Teslas when the engines catch fire. Well, large parts of the U.S. economy and government appear to be on the verge of self-immolation. And given the combination of arrogance and ignorance shared by Musk and Trump, it’s hard to see how we get out."
‘Big struggle between the court system and Trump’ as Supreme Court deals blow to President

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's request to keep billions in congressionally approved foreign aid frozen, but that fight isn't over.
The court did not set a timeline for when the money should be released, allowing the White House to continue to dispute the matter in lower courts, where U.S. District judge Amir Ali ruled last month that much of the money cut off by the administration should continue flowing while he reviewed the case, reported CNN.
"When you step back and look at what's happening in this order right here, it's 5-4," reported CNN's Katelyn Polantz, "and the four dissenters of what is being done right now for Donald Trump, those people are all the the conservative justices and what they are saying is, we can't believe that this Supreme Court is going to override what the executive wants to do here and just give this lower-court trial judge Ali in Washington, D.C., on the district court the power to figure this out right now, so a big struggle between the court system and Trump."
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The administration had frozen billions in aid from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development, and several nonprofit groups that rely on that money filed lawsuits challenging the order as unconstitutional.
Ali had set a deadline for Wednesday to allow the funding to flow, but the administration rushed an emergency appeal and chief justice John Roberts unilaterally issued an stay that paused the case.
The government argued they're making “substantial efforts” to review payment requests to comply with Ali's order, but the plaintiffs were unsatisfied with that explanation.
“The government has not taken ‘any meaningful steps’ to come into compliance,” the groups said a Supreme Court filing last week.
‘A real fracture’: GOP insider highlights ‘underappreciated’ feud in MAGA Republican party

A GOP strategist on Sunday flagged what he says is an "underappreciated fracture" among MAGA Republicans.
Brendan Buck, a former key adviser to ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), appeared on MSNBC over the weekend, and was asked about a recent "contentious cabinet meeting" involving Donald Trump appointee and richest man in the world Elon Musk.
The host asked Buck, "Can all sides coexist?"
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Buck replied that the dispute between Musk and Steve Bannon is "an underappreciated fracture in the current GOP."
"Look, Steve Bannon has been a foot soldier for Donald Trump. He went to jail for Donald Trump for a really long time. And I think he is understandably, deeply skeptical of Elon Musk, who, you know, was not even really a close ally of Donald Trump the first time around and sort of came out of nowhere and has really stolen the spotlight," Buck said. "Let's remember, Steve Bannon was a close advisor in the White House the first time around and I think he has real questions about what Elon Musk is up to."
Buck added, "We know that that Trumpism is sort of anti-immigrant nationalist and it's not clear that Elon Musk shares any of those views."
"Now, Donald trump needs both of those people. I think he likes what Elon Musk is doing," he said. "But if Steve Bannon keeps railing against him, I think that there's a real fracture that could happen here because Steve Bannon has been through this. He has the real, you know, credibility with the MAGA movement. So unless these two get on the same page, I expect trump's going to have to keep intervening."