“Free Speech Defender” Elon Musk Strikes Again

In a bizarre move, Elon Musk has locked out a journalist from his X platform—after she published a story that seemed to exonerate him.

On Sunday, Jacqueline Sweet, a journalist writing for The Spectator, had her X account suspended after she posted an article claiming that Musk wasn’t using a burner account under the name “Adrian Dittman,” after she traced it to a German Musk fan in Fiji.

Responding to her post, Musk replied “I am Adrian Dittmann. It’s time the world knew,” before suspending her account for 30 days. The Dittman account has frequently responded to Musk’s posts and supported his political positions, and in videos and audio recordings, seemed to sound remarkably similar to Musk, complete with the tech mogul’s accent and unorthodox speaking cadence.

Sweet’s article has also been flagged on X, with users seeing a warning that the link “may be unsafe” if they click on it. Musk supporters have defended the move by claiming Sweet’s article included Dittman’s personal information—even though it contained no private identifying information whatsoever like his address or phone number—while critics have pointed out the irony of the self-proclaimed “free speech champion” Musk censoring an article that he doesn’t like, pointing out how the tech CEO complained about Twitter censoring stories on Hunter Biden’s laptop. The episode is only more bizarre because it’s not clear why Musk wants to bury this largely anodyne news story.

This is the latest absurd chapter in Musk’s ownership of the social media platform. It is, by recent standards, which include arguing with his far-right ex-supporters over immigration policy and subsequently penalizing their X accounts after they began to attack him, less destructive but it nevertheless underscores the dangers of having one very rich, deranged person in charge of content moderation on a social media platform used by millions.

Donald Trump may be planning to break one of his key—and most disastrous—campaign promises to implement “universal” tariffs on goods imported into the U.S., The Washington Post reported Monday.

Trump’s aides have been quietly prepping a plan to target only critical imports, rather than all imports from a country, three people familiar with discussions anonymously told the Post.

The tariffs would be levied on imports considered to be critical to national or economic security, the people said. While it was not immediately clear which imports those would be, the tariffs are intended to strengthen certain U.S. industries, including materials for the military supply industrial chain, medical supplies, and energy production, two of the three people said.

Trump had previously stated his intention to place a 25 percent tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico, in addition to a 10 percent tariff on all imports from China—a plan that experts say would be disastrous for the U.S. economy, raising costs for consumers, ravaging the stock market, and severely damaging the America’s global economic standing.

Sector-based tariffs might be a “little bit easier for everybody to stomach out of the gate,” one of the people told the Post. “The thought is if you’re going to do universal tariffs, why not at least start with these targeted measures? And it would still give CEOs a massive incentive to start making their products here.”

It seems that some people inside the forthcoming Trump administration are hoping to avert some of the fallout of his outlandish, dangerous economic plan. In sharing this information, it seems insiders are hoping to float a more moderate approach to tariffs, despite what the president-elect may think. But Trump doesn’t seem to be ready to back down.

Trump immediately contradicted the reporting in a post on Truth Social. “The story in the Washington Post, quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don’t exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back. That is wrong,” Trump wrote. “The Washington Post knows it’s wrong. It’s just another example of Fake News.”

Donald Trump will avoid jail time in his New York hush-money criminal conviction—but that doesn’t mean he’s happy with the result.

In a Friday order, Judge Juan Merchan dealt the final blow to any suggestions of serious consequences for the president-elect’s guilty verdict. Merchan wrote that “unconditional discharge” had become the “the most viable solution” for Trump, indicating that the incoming president would not be hampered down with fines, court-appointed supervision, or incarceration.

But that outcome was, apparently, not satisfactory for the convicted felon, who took to Truth Social to rant about how the lingering effects of the trial still prevented him from bad-mouthing the judge.

“D.A. Alvin Bragg never wanted to bring this lawless case against me,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “He was furious at the way it was handled, and especially angry at MARK POMERANTZ  for his behavior, and what he did. Ultimately, the Biden/Harris DOJ forced Bragg to concoct anything to embarrass TRUMP.” 

“But it was even more so what the CORRUPT and TOTALLY CONFLICTED POLITICAL HACK Judge did, and is doing, on this sham trial,” Trump continued. “I even have, STILL, an Unconstitutional Gag Order where I am not allowed to speak about the Judge’s highly disqualifying Conflicts of Interest. Virtually ever legal scholar and pundit says THERE IS NO (ZERO!) CASE AGAINST ME.” 

Trump also claimed that New York’s legal system was fundamentally corrupt and was contributing to the fleeing of businesses from the country’s banking capital. 

“The Judge fabricated the facts, and the law, no different than the other New York Judicial and Prosecutorial Witch Hunts,” Trump wrote. “That’s why businesses are fleeing New York, taking with them millions of jobs, and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TAXES. The legal system is broken, and businesses can’t take a chance in getting caught up in this quicksand. IT’S ALL RIGGED, in this case against a political opponent, ME!!!”

Although Trump will face consequences more or less in name only, former U.S. District Attorney Joyce Vance argued in her legal column Civil Discourse that there could still be a light at the end of the tunnel in Merchan’s order. Rather than forcing sentencing before Trump’s inauguration, Merchan’s decision to release Trump with “unconditional discharge” effectively takes the wind out of Trump’s sails should he try to do away with the criminal conviction altogether, according to Vance. It could also help delay Trump’s sentencing until he’s out of office again, in which case, all bets are off.

Elon Musk is putting his nose in foreign politics yet again, but this time he’s setting a target on MP Nigel Farage, leader of the U.K.’s far-right Reform Party.

“The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes,” Musk wrote in a post on X Sunday.

Farage, a key figure in Brexit, shared the post, commenting, “Well, this is a surprise!”

“Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree,” Farage continued. “My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

Raheem Kassam, an editor who previously worked at Steve Bannon’s Breitbart and served as a former aide to Farage, replied to Musk slightly more bluntly. “You’re a fucking moron,” he wrote in a post on X.

Last week, Musk voiced his support for Robinson, a far-right, Islamaphobic activist who founded the British National Party and has been imprisoned for contempt of court, related to his repeated racially charged libel of a 15-year-old Syrian boy through social media posts.

Beneath Farage’s post, Grok, Musk’s heinously annoying generative artificial intelligence that’s been tacked into X’s user interface, offered a few leading questions for users to ask so that it might generate answers. “What leadership qualities does Farage lack?” Grok suggested. “Why does Elon Musk support Tommy Robinson?”

“How does this affect Reform UK’s image?” asked another prompt, implying that Musk’s opinion of the foreign government would have any bearing at all on the major party.

Early Monday morning, Musk posted on X again, this time creating a poll: “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government,” with two options, yes or no.

Mike Johnson is trying to convince everyone that he rewon the speakership on his good word alone. Johnson was awarded speaker of the House on Friday after the second vote, flipping Republican votes from Keith Self and Ralph Norman that he initially didn’t have. They flipped their votes very quickly, leading to suspicions that Johnson may have capitulated in some way to these congressmen’s demands regarding policy priorities.

But Johnson denies this. “My simple message to my colleagues is, make suggestions about process improvements, we’re open to that at all times. But I don’t make deals with anyone. There’s no quid pro quo here. I don’t do anything in exchange for a vote,” said Johnson, according to CNN’s Manu Raju.

The platform Johnson announced after winning the speakership harps on fiscal responsibility and tackling the “swamp’s” corruption, something that Republican holdouts like Representative Victoria Spartz had demanded.

“I understand why President Trump is endorsing Speaker Johnson as he did Speaker Ryan, which is definitely important,” Spartz posted on Thursday. “However, we still need to get assurances that Speaker Johnson won’t sell us out to the swamp.”

Johnson spoke of a “promise of fiscal responsibility” and holding people “accountable” in an X post after winning the speakership.

Nancy Mace got Trump on the phone to persuade holdout Republicans to support Mike Johnson’s speakership, according to The Washington Post. After Republicans Ralph Norman and Keith Self initially opposed Johnson, Representative Nancy Mace called Donald Trump directly and then passed the phone to her two colleagues. Norman and Self then spoke to Johnson before flipping their votes to him to give him the 218 votes needed for speaker.

Self told reporters he had a “lively” phone call with the president-elect. “We shored up the reconciliation team because we know that this will be a heavy lift to get the Trump agenda across the line in the reconciliation package.… That’s all we did,” said Self, according to CNN’s Manu Raju. Trump publicly congratulated Johnson on Truth Social following the vote.

What exactly convinced these congressmen to change their votes in 30 minutes remains to be seen. But even with this flip, the Republican infighting seems to be just getting started.

Rudy Giuliani could be fined or jailed Friday for his continued refusal to transfer $11 million in assets to a pair of Georgia poll workers that he repeatedly defamed while pushing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference conspiracy. But that’s not what flooded Giuliani’s mind as he appeared in federal court in lower Manhattan.

Instead, Giuliani was more concerned with his depiction by veteran court sketch artist Jane Rosenberg, whom he tasked with making him look good this time around.

“The last time you made me look like my dog,” he told the artist, per the New York Daily News’s Molly Crane-Newman.

Giuliani is on trial to determine whether he must hand over his multimillion-dollar Florida condominium to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother-daughter duo of election workers whom he’s spent the last year worming his way out of paying nearly $150 million in damages.

Earlier this year, Giuliani claimed that the condo was his permanent residence, granting it homestead protection from debt-collection proceedings under state law. But his legal opposition has argued that Giuliani was less than forthcoming during the discovery process, suggesting that the disgraced politico wasn’t being honest about how he utilizes the property.

In November, the former gang-busting federal prosecutor tried on a new legal defense to keep his stuff, arguing in a Manhattan courthouse that he couldn’t possibly hand over his assets to Freeman and Moss because he simply didn’t know where they were. Some of those assets include his Manhattan penthouse, a famously immovable object, as well as his Mercedes convertible, which he was seen driving in Florida on Election Day. In response, Judge Lewis Liman said that the idea that neither Giuliani nor anyone else in the world has knowledge about the location of his assets was “farcical.”

And Giuliani’s own legal representation in the Freeman and Moss case ditched him that same month, declaring in a motion in federal court that they had reached a “fundamental disagreement” with the ex–New York mayor.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has ordered Donald Trump to be sentenced for the 34 felony counts in his hush-money case on January 10, before his inauguration.

In an 18-page decision filed Friday, Merchan denied Trump’s request to vacate the verdict and dismiss the indictment. Merchan made clear, however, that he had no intention of sentencing Trump to jail time, fines, or probation.

“While this Court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and Defendant opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration,” the filing said.

“A sentence of unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options,” the filing continued.

Trump may appear in person or virtually, according to the filing, and must respond by January 5.

In November, Merchan granted Trump’s application for a stay of sentencing, but made no mention of throwing out his felony convictions, which seemed to signal that Trump’s sentencing would be canceled indefinitely if not until the end of his four-year term.

The following month, Merchan ruled that Trump’s guilty conviction would stand, regardless of what the Supreme Court has said about immunity. Trump absolutely lost it, calling Merchan a “radical partisan,” even though he’d previously railed against critics who claimed judicial decisions were political. Of course, Trump was only referring to judges who rule in his favor, such as Judge Aileen Cannon, who helped him sidestep charges of mishandling classified documents.

Trump was charged for falsifying business documents to cover up a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, to conceal their affair ahead of the 2016 election. Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers in May.

Should the sentencing proceed as scheduled, Trump will officially enter the White House as a convicted felon.

This story has been updated.

House Speaker Mike Johnson ultimately retained his gavel Friday afternoon.

The Louisiana Republican was able to convince Representatives Ralph Norman and Keith Self to swap their protest votes in favor of a second Johnson term, securing the 218 votes required to keep him at the top of House leadership. Since the first vote was never officially gaveled in, Johnson technically won on the first round. One holdout remained, however: Representative Thomas Massie, who proclaimed the night before that he wouldn’t vote for the MAGA acolyte.

“You can pull all my fingernails out. You can shove bamboo up in them. You can start cutting off my fingers. I am not voting for Mike Johnson,” Massie said Thursday.

It looked like Johnson had lost at first, ending the initial round just shy of the goal, with 216 votes in the pocket. A handful of aimless Republican votes for other candidates (who weren’t running for the House’s most prized position) made it mathematically impossible for Johnson to win.

Johnson had faced near-impossible margins from the jump: With a full House floor and a unified Democratic caucus, the speaker could only afford to lose one Republican on his path to 218 votes.

Initially, Massie voted for Representative Tom Emmer, Norman voted for Representative Jim Jordan (who quietly weighed running last week before dropping the bid), and Self voted for Representative Byron Donalds. Johnson managed to convince Norman and Self to change their votes.

Representative Chip Roy, another speculated holdout, also caved to the Johnson vote.

“Everything we do needs to set the Congress up for success and to deliver the Trump agenda for the American people,” Roy wrote on X after the vote. “Speaker Johnson has not made that clear yet, so there are many members beyond the three who voted for someone else who have reservations.”

Roy’s ominous post and Johnson’s inability to unite his caucus from the get-go do not bode well for the incoming Congress’s ability to get things done. Republicans can only afford to lose a few votes on each issue. The previous Congress, in which Republicans had a similarly tight House majority, failed spectacularly at accomplishing almost anything, marking one of the most unproductive congressional sessions in the history of the country.

Matt Gaetz’s absence in the House of Representatives on Friday led to cheers from his Democratic peers. The 119th session, highlighted by the contentious speakership election, started with an announcement of new members from House Clerk Kevin McCumber. Once he got to Gaetz, he stopped.

“The clerk is in receipt from the Honorable Matt Gaetz of the state of Florida indicating he will not serve in the House in the 119th Congress,” McCumber told the floor. Clapping ensued, while Republicans looked on.

Gaetz was reelected for another two-year term in November. He then resigned his seat, however, when Donald Trump announced him as pick for attorney general, amid a House Ethics Committee investigation that found Gaetz had “engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.” Republican senators balked, and the nomination was scrapped. There had been some speculation that Gaetz might show up to the speaker vote on Friday.