Victor Davis Hanson: The Trump-Musk Split is a Gift to the Left

The Daily Signal Podcast

The Daily Signal

News, Government, Politics, Daily News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After Elon Musk publicly criticized Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” for overspending, a once-productive relationship spiraled into mutual recriminations, accusations, and veiled threats. Victor Davis Hanson breaks down the sudden, bizarre, and historically unprecedented rupture between two powerful figures who, until recently, appeared to be allies in reshaping America’s economic and political direction on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “ So, what was it all about? People have given all sorts of different explanations. One of them is that the new big, beautiful bill will phase out subsidies for all electric vehicles. And given Tesla’s attacks on—people attacking stations, chargers, dealers, individual drivers, the bad publicity the Democrats ginned up, he can’t afford that right now. … He’s angry about this bill. And then, when Trump sort of brushed it off, he went DEFCON 1. “Elon Musk needs Donald Trump for the space exploration, for a fair shake on his business deals. And Donald Trump is aided by Elon Musk, especially the SpaceX. So, it’s a mutually beneficiary relationship, not just for both of them, but for us, the American people.” 👉 This episode is sponsored by the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. Learn more: https://go.pepperdine.edu/dailysignal 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/victordavishanson7273 👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com (0:00) The Musk-Trump Fallout (0:15) Historical Context and Tensions (0:34) The Democratic Party's Role (1:01) Higher Education Transformation (1:51) Revisiting the Musk-Trump Fallout (5:29) Potential Resolutions and Future Outlook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Last year, Amazon was the world's largest corporate buyer of renewable energy.
0:07.0	Meaning more and more of our energy comes from wind farms like this one.
0:14.0	Guys, what happened to recording that the solar farms?
0:18.0	To learn more, visit about amazon.com at UK forward slash sustainability.
0:27.6	I'd like to comment on this strange, bizarre, surreal, sudden fallout between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
0:35.6	All of a sudden, Elon Musk started to attack the
0:39.4	Big Beautiful Bill because he said it spent too much money. So there was always a tense relationship
0:44.9	that grew out of an unnatural relationship in the sense that we haven't seen anything like this
0:49.8	since FDR and Harry Hopkins, who was a personal advisor to FDR. It was a relationship that was very, very close in an unusual way,
0:57.3	and it was bound to have these tensions.
0:58.9	They're not perpendicular, they're parallel.
1:01.0	They have the same eventual visions of what America should be,
1:04.4	and make no mistake about it.
1:06.3	The Democratic Party may be neutered, but it is not inert.
1:10.1	It is all geared up and frenzied for the midterm.
1:13.2	Now is the time for unity. And the quicker these two can form a new relationship, the better
1:18.6	it is for the country at large. America is going through a higher education transformation where students are realizing
1:35.8	that what they want and need is a place that doesn't stifle their intellectual freedom.
1:40.7	Standing out among the few graduate programs that value viewpoint diversity is Pepperdine's
1:46.0	University School of Public Policy, where I've taught the last two years. Their master's of public policy is both applied and practical,
1:53.0	preparing the next generation of leaders to participate in government agencies, the business sector, and think tanks.
1:59.0	Pursue your MPP at Pepperdine. DailySignal
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Daily Signal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Daily Signal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.