Lawrence O’Donnell: When Elon Musk Called Trump Voters ‘Unrepentant Racists,’ Trump ‘Sided with the Rich Guy’

O’DONNELL: “With the country reeling from the attack in New Orleans and those of us with family and friends in New Orleans worried about their safety, the big players in Donald Trump’s world were not talking about New Orleans. They were talking about visas. Former Trump staff member Steve Bannon got in a public argument on Twitter with the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, that provoked Musk to call Trump supporters like Bannon ‘unrepentant racists.’ Musk seemed surprised to discover that there were any racists supporting Donald Trump. Remember the outrage in both the news media and Trump world eight years ago when candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, referred to some Trump supporters as ‘deplorables... the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.’ Donald Trump pretended to be deeply offended at Hillary Clinton’s accurate description of some Trump supporters. When the richest person Donald Trump has ever met, who also happens to be the richest person in the world, calls Trump voters unrepentant racists, Donald Trump, of course, sided with the rich guy against his own supporters. Donald Trump decided to publicly agree with Elon Musk that we should admit more skilled immigrants into this country, even to take jobs that Americans are eager to do. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman writes in his Substack article titled ‘MAGA is already eating its own. Pass the popcorn,’ ‘Like many observers, I expected severe buyers regret fairly early in the second Trump Administration. After all, many Americans who voted for Trump did so because they believed he would bring down grocery prices. He was never going to be able to deliver on that promise and stopped talking about the subject as soon as the election was over; sooner or later, voters were going to notice. I did not, however, expect a MAGA civil war weeks before Trump had even taken office.’ Elon Musk threatened Trump supporters like Steve Bannon on Twitter saying, ‘Take a big step back and F yourself in the face. I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.’ Vivek Ramaswamy joined the Musk side of the argument by saying that American workers are just not as good as foreign workers, American workers are mediocre. Ramaswamy said, ‘American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.’ Imagine, imagine if Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or any Democrat anywhere ever said that American workers are mediocre, American workers are not as good as foreign workers, and that, ‘American culture has venerated mediocrity.’ Paul Krugman writes, ‘So where is Trump coming down on all this? It has always been clear that he shares the tech bros’ contempt for ordinary Americans, but is he willing to openly sell out his MAGA base? Why, yes. After Elon Musk told Trump loyalists to F themselves in the face, Trump sided with Musk.’”