Breaking up is hard to do

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Donald Trump has made the “big, beautiful bill” a hallmark piece of legislation for his administration. However, the bill’s most vocal opponent has been one of Trump’s closest allies. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and former head of DOGE, has called out the bill for increasing the debt ceiling. Musk has been pushing for legislators to kill the bill. In a press conference with German chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump responded to a question about Musk and shared his disappointment in the billionaire. It’s created a war of words between the president and the billionaire. Could the public spat signal the downfall of Trump’s spending plan?

A humanitarian aid organization in Gaza backed by the US and Israel is under scrutiny. The newly founded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been criticized by more established aid groups for a lack of transparency and infrastructure following attacks on Palestinians as they attempted to receive food and resources delivered by GHF. Israel’s government says the group is necessary because of a lack of trust in groups like the United Nations and Amnesty International. But is their ability to handle the massive undertaking of providing aid to Gaza compromised?

How does support for overarching policies shift when those policies hit closer to home? KCRW discusses the dilemma facing a small Missouri town.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Welcome to left, right, and center. I am David Green. Moe Alethi is here on the left. Sarah Isker is away this week, but on the right, we are very lucky to be joined by Antonia Ferrier. She is a veteran communication strategist who's worked for several Republican members of Congress, including former Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Antonia, thank you for coming back as always. Thanks for having me,
0:22.2	David. Good to see you as always, Mo. Welcome back. Do you, too, mind if we start with a relationship
0:29.3	that seems to be evolving in our national politics, which is Donald Trump and Elon Musk,
0:36.0	who once seemed like best of friends when it all began just a few short months ago.
0:40.5	Let's do it.
0:41.2	Let's do some relationship therapy here.
0:43.0	These two guys seem to need it.
0:44.4	They do.
0:46.1	So, I mean, it really got into interesting territory Thursday morning when Donald Trump, after he was meeting with the chancellor of Germany,
0:56.7	he was asked about his relationship with Elon Musk, who has been suddenly coming out and criticizing
1:02.5	the big beautiful bill in Congress that belongs to Donald Trump. He called it an abomination.
1:08.1	And Trump just decided he was going to lean into this, these marital problems.
1:14.5	I mean, he said that Elon Musk knew all along what was in that bill.
1:19.8	Elon Musk jumped on social media and said that's absolutely false. He did not know.
1:24.1	And so here's a bit of what we heard from the president that morning.
1:26.7	Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know. And so here's a bit of what we heard from the president that morning. Look, Elon and I had a
1:29.0	great relationship. I don't know if it will anymore. I was surprised because you were here.
1:34.6	Everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send-off. He said wonderful things
1:39.5	about me. You couldn't have nicer. He said the best thing. He's worn the hat. Trump was right about everything.
1:46.2	And I am right about the great, big, beautiful bill. All right. So can we take a step back here?
1:52.0	I mean, is this just a dispute between two people who have had a very important voice in our
1:58.2	politics in the last few months, or is there something
	...

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