The Dictatorship
Trump is pushing his own running mate aside for Elon Musk
President-elect Donald Trump has got to be feeling good right now. His running mate, JD Vance? Not so much.
In the weeks since Election Day, Trump has been busy announcing his picks for various Cabinet roles and basking in the glow of his second campaign win.
At his side has been First Buddy Elon Musk, the billionaire who once said he’d rather “stay out of politics” and then set that side to barnstorm Pennsylvania on Trump’s behalf has settled in nicely and become a central figure in the transition, making himself home at Mar-a-Lago and tweeting up a storm about his new advisory role.
While Trump put Musk in a driver’s seat, Vance has found himself standing outside the car.
Clearly the feeling is mutual. Whether letting Musk join a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or naming him to spearhead a made-up agency to curb government spending, Trump clearly thinks there’s a lot of value in his relationship with the fellow billionaire. But while he’s put Musk in a driver’s seat, Vance has found himself standing outside the car.
So what exactly is Musk’s new role in the incoming Trump administration? The Tesla founder will oversee a wholly made-up “Department of Government Efficiency” alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. How dumb is that? They are creating an agency to get rid of other agencies. And to layer on the bureaucracy of it all, two people with competing agendas will be in charge.
While this so-called “government efficiency” department already seems like an oxymoron, it should also be viewed as a classic quid pro quo. Trump has always been transactional. The richest man in the world leveraged his bank account and his social media platform to boost Trump’s campaign with a sea of misinformation. Now Musk is cashing in. The currency: power. If Musk is given carte blanche to eliminate government positions, what’s to stop him from firing the regulators who keep his businesses and his investments in check?
These types of relationships are the ones to watch out for over the next four years in Washington. America is witnessing what happens when a private citizen amasses power solely based on their proximity to the president of the United States.
As for Trump’s actual incoming vice president, he just can’t find himself a seat at the cool kids’ table. Last weekend, Trump shared a picture of his inner circle on his private plane enjoying McDonald’s. Trump was surrounded by Musk; his son Don Jr.; House Speaker Mike Johnson; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Not pictured: Vance.
Instead, Vance was given the thankless task of convincing Senate Republicans to confirm Trump’s menagerie of misfit MAGA sycophants to the Cabinet. While Musk is sitting in on phone calls with Trump, Vance wasted his time trying to convince his fellow Republican senators to back Matt Gaetz, just a day before Gaetz withdrew his nomination for attorney general. That must be the worst assignment for a vice president since President Joe Biden charged Vice President Kamala Harris with solving the root causes of global migration.
Vance also skipped out on his day job in order to help Trump fill a seat that is not vacant. In a since-deleted social media postVance defended missing votes in the U.S. Senate because he was too busy meeting with Trump to interview candidates to lead the FBI. (Vance returned to Capitol Hill Tuesday to vote against Biden’s judicial nominees.)
It appears Vance let this one slip, confirming Trump indeed intends to break another norm.
A reminder: The term for current FBI Director Christopher Wray does not expire until 2027. Trump handpicked Wray in 2017 after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey. It appears Vance let this one slip, confirming Trump indeed intends to break another norm by replacing the head of America’s top law enforcement agency … again!
It’s this kind of norm-breaking that Republicans in the Senate must decide to confront or let slide. Trump is testing them. He has already floated the idea of pushing through his largely unqualified Cabinet by using “recess appointments” to get around confirmation battles. Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune has two choices: capitulate to Trump or control the situation. To that end, as a sitting member of the Senate, what counsel is Vance offering that Thune would take?
Over the next four years, Senate Republicans have the opportunity to prove the U.S. Congress is indeed a separate but equal branch of our government. But if they cede more power to the executive branch by bowing down to Trump, people like Elon Musk will ultimately benefit. Either way, it appears Vance is just along for the ride — if only he could get in the car.
Lynox Norman contributed.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch“The Weekend”every Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. ET on BLN.
Michael Steele is a co-host of “The Weekend,” which airs Saturdays and Sundays at 8 a.m. ET on BLN. He is a former lieutenant governor of Maryland and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
The Dictatorship
Trump’s border czar says ‘small’ security force will remain in Minnesota after enforcement drawdown
WASHINGTON (AP) — White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that more than 1,000 immigration agents have left Minnesota’s Twin Cities area and hundreds more will depart in the days ahead as part of the Trump administration’s drawdown of its immigration enforcement surge.
A “small” security force will stay for a short period to protect remaining immigration agents and will respond “when our agents are out and they get surrounded by agitators and things got out of control,” Homan told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He did not define “small.”
He also said agents will keep investigating fraud allegations as well as the anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a church service.
“We already removed well over 1,000 people, and as of Monday, Tuesday, we’ll remove several hundred more,” Homan said. “We’ll get back to the original footprint.”
Thousands of officers were sent to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “Operation Metro Surge.” The Department of Homeland Security said it was its largest immigration enforcement operation ever and proved successful. But the crackdown came under increasing criticism as the situation grew more volatile and two U.S. citizens were killed.
People take part in an anti-ICE protest outside the Governors Residence in St. Paul, Minn., on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
People take part in an anti-ICE protest outside the Governors Residence in St. Paul, Minn., on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Protests became common. A network of residents worked to help immigrants, warn of approaching agents or film immigration officers’ actions. The shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers drew condemnation and raised questions over officers’ conduct, prompting changes to the operation.
Homan announced last week that 700 federal officers would leave Minnesota immediately, but that still left more than 2,000 in the state. He said Thursday that a “significant drawdown” was already underway and would continue through this week.
Homan said enforcement would not stop in the Twin Cities and that mass deportations will continue across the country. Officers leaving Minnesota will report back to their stations or be assigned elsewhere.
When asked if future deployments could match the scale of the Twin Cities operation, Homan said “it depends on the situation.”
ByDavid Rohde
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says there is “no reason” to doubt a new report by five European nations that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed in a Russian government prison with poison found in Latin American dart frogs.
A fatal toxin not found naturally in Russia — epibatidine — was “conclusively” discovered in samples of Navalny’s body by a joint investigation conducted by Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden, according to a joint statement by the nations on Saturday.
The toxin is only known to exist in poison dart frogs in Central and South America. One species, the phantasmal poison frog, contains a chemical that is 200 times more potent than morphine.
“It’s a troubling report,” Rubio told reporters at a news conference during a visit to Slovakia on Sunday. “We don’t have any reason to question it.”
It was not clear why the United States did not participate in the investigation of Navalny’s death. But the finding comes amid rising support in the Senate for a bill that would impose sweeping new sanctions against the government of Vladimir Putin, which has been opposed by the Trump administration.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted on the closing day of the Munich Security Conference, where Rubio received a standing ovationthat 84 out of 100 senators have signed on to co-sponsor the bill authored by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
“I don’t understand the reluctance to go after Vladimir Putin and what Russia is doing in Ukraine,” Shaheen told a group of reporters. “The failure by the United States to act has extended this war.”
Russian officials have repeatedly denied playing any role in the death of Navalny two years ago in a government-run penal colony in the Arctic. They called the new European report “a Western propaganda hoax,” according to Russia’s state news agency.
The report comes as U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kusher, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, are expected to meet with both Russian and Iranian officials on Tuesday in Geneva. The goal of the Russia talks is to reach a peace settlement in Ukraine by a June deadline the administration has set. (Witkoff and Kushner are also set to join a second round of nuclear talks with Iranian officials in Geneva on the same day.)
Critics of Trump, who promised to end the war days after returning to office, say Russia has not been seriously negotiating and is simply playing for time so it can gain ground on the battlefield. Democrats have also expressed concerns over reports that Witkoff has been negotiating business deals during peace talks with Kirill Dmitriev, a former Wall Street banker who runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Dmitriev pitched $12 trillion in bilateral economic agreements with the U.S. It is unclear how such large deals could be achieved. The $12 trillion figure is about four times the size of Russia’s 2025 gross domestic product.
A European diplomat whose country has negotiated with Russia in the past told MS NOW that Moscow has repeatedly made such investment offers. But the business entities end up being largely Russian controlled. “They lure you in,” said the diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Shaheen expressed skepticism as well.
“I’m concerned about all things Russian in this administration,” Shaheen said. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist. But I’m beginning to become one with respect to Putin and President Trump.”
David Rohde
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
A glove with DNA found near 84-year-old missing Nancy Guthrie’s home appears to match those worn by a masked person caught on surveillance footage, the FBI said Sunday.
“The FBI received preliminary results yesterday on 2/14 and are awaiting further testing,” the bureau said in a statement. “This process typically takes 24 hours from when the FBI receives DNA.”
The FBI said investigators collected “approximately 16 gloves in various areas near” Guthrie’s house in Tucson, Arizonawhere she was last seen on Jan. 31. Most of those gloves were “searchers’s gloves that they discarded in various areas when they searched the vicinity” but the glove with the “DNA profile recovered is different and appears to match the gloves of the subject in the surveillance video,” the FBI said.
“What we have is a lead here. The glove retrieved would need to have the victim’s DNA or some other forensic material to tie it to the home,” a law-enforcement source familiar with the investigation cautioned. “It must be connected to the home and victim. That would make the glove actual evidence, at this point it’s a lead. A good lead.”
The FBI said said the glove was found in a field approximately two miles from Guthrie’s house. The glove resembles the one on the hand of a person who was captured on porch camera video footage at the home of NBC “Today Show” host Savannah Guthrie’s mother the night she went missing.
The agency said it is awaiting quality control and official confirmation before putting the individual’s profile into the bureau’s national database, which could take up to 24 hours.
The FBI has described the man captured in photographs and on video as approximately 5’9”-5’10” with an average build. In addition to gloves, he was also seen wearing a ski mask and a black, 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack. The agency on Thursday increased its reward for any information leading to an arrest and conviction of anyone involved in Guthrie’s disappearance to $100,000.
Guthrie was reported missing by her family on Feb. 1. Sheriff’s deputies also found blood on the front porch that was later confirmed to belong to the network host’s mother. Guthrie’s children, including Savannah, have posted several videos pleading for their mother’s release, agreeing to pay any ransom demanded and asking for help from the public.
Alex Tabet, Marc Santia and Ken Dilanian contributed to this report.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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