Elon Musk Keeps Unleashing His Crazed Followers on Government Workers

Last week, Elon Musk—rearing up to fire federal employees he deems wasteful en masse as the head of the Trump administration’s planned DOGE commission—put a number of workaday government employees on blast to millions of users on X.

At the time, The New Republic reported that his behavior was not “just cruel, it’s dangerous.” Indeed, CNN reported Wednesday that those Musk singled out have been inundated with hate, leading others to fear that they too will have Musk devotees sicced on them.

Several federal employees told CNN that “they’re afraid their lives will be forever changed—including physically threatened—as Musk makes behind-the-scenes bureaucrats into personal targets.” Others said the specter of being targeted by Musk “might even drive them from their jobs entirely.”

One target of Musk’s posting spree last week was a woman who works at the International Development Finance Corporation. Her role, an official told The Wall Street Journal, involves “identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather events.” She had her job deemed “fake” by Musk—seemingly because her title, “Director of Climate Diversification,” contains words that tend to raise right-wing culture-warrior hackles.

Facing a barrage of negative attention, she “has since gone dark on social media, shutting down her accounts,” reported CNN.

Others whom Musk and his fans went after include senior advisers for climate and environmental justice at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as a chief climate officer at the Department of Energy.

Last month, CNN reported that Musk “promised a gentle touch” as the head of DOGE—a commission TNR’s Matt Ford described this month as itself a symbol of “inefficiency and waste in government” that “cannot achieve its stated ambitions for legal, constitutional, or practical reasons”—but his insatiable itch to post apparently takes precedence over his word.

With its newfound electoral mandate, Donald Trump’s team is debating on whether to attack or invade Mexico, as the president-elect promised on the campaign trail.

“How much should we invade Mexico?” one senior Trump transition member told Rolling Stone. “That is the question.”

Trump has reportedly been gathering “battle plans” to attack drug cartels in Mexico since early 2023, with or without Mexico’s permission. Now he is president-elect, and even mainstream Republicans are on board with the idea. His nominees for secretary of defense and secretary of state, Pete Hegseth and Senator Marco Rubio, respectively, have spoken favorably of U.S. military action against Mexico, as has his “border czar,” Tom Homan. 

One source close to Trump told Rolling Stone about a plan for a “soft” invasion of the country, in which U.S. special forces would assassinate cartel leaders covertly, an idea Trump was in favor of earlier this year. The magazine spoke to six Republicans in all who have privately discussed Mexico with the president-elect and briefed him on different proposals. 

These actions vary in their level of force, including drone strikes and airstrikes against cartel targets such as drug labs, sending military advisers and trainers to Mexico, sending “kill teams” to the country, using cyberwarfare against drug lords and their organizations, and the assassination plan. 

Trump has told Republicans privately that he plans to tell Mexico to stop the transport of fentanyl into the U.S. within months otherwise he’ll deploy the military. This would seem to fit into the tariff threat he made against Mexico, Canada, and China on Monday, when he warned the three countries to stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the United States. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum didn’t take Trump’s words well, and she probably won’t like U.S. forces deploying in the country either. 

In his first term, Trump proposed to “bomb the drugs” in Mexico, according to his former national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Thankfully, nothing came of it. Now,  in addition to the presidency, Trump has captured the Republican Party, much of the judiciary, and both chambers of Congress. His Cabinet and staff appointments are made up of sycophants and people much less likely to confront or correct him. In the next four years, there won’t be much standing in the way of Trump’s violent “solutions.”

The Republican Party’s majority in the House of Representatives is looking meager.

Three House races remain outstanding as of Wednesday—two toss-up races in California’s 13th and 45th districts and one in Iowa’s 1st district that’s leaning Republican, according to CBS.

But if current results hold, the GOP will have a record-small majority—220 seats to Democrats’ 215—CNN data journalist Harry Enten reported Wednesday morning. “You have to go all the way back since the Herbert Hoover administration to find an even smaller majority after November elections,” he observed.

And the majority could grow even narrower with the resignation of one Republican representative and the likely resignations of two more.

Representative Matt Gaetz has already resigned from his seat after Donald Trump nominated him for attorney general. Gaetz has since withdrawn as Trump’s pick in light of sexual misconduct allegations but said he does not intend to join the upcoming Congress. Representatives Elise Stefanik and Mike Waltz, whom Trump has nominated to join the incoming administration, are expected to resign in January.

Those resignations would deflate the GOP’s majority to 217–215. In that event, CNN anchor John Berman noted, in the weeks or months before the vacated seats are filled, a single Republican defector could sink a bill. Enten observed that that has not been the case in 100-plus years.

This is just the latest development throwing cold water on Republican narratives about a 2024 landslide. While Trump crowed about his purported “unprecedented and powerful mandate” on election night, as more votes have been counted, it has become clear that Trump did not win a majority of the popular vote, and his popular-vote margin over Kamala Harris has shrunk considerably.

Trump’s pick for special envoy to Ukraine wants to force Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia by holding aid hostage.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he has selected retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg to be his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, a position focused on ending the two-year-long war. Kellogg previously served as both national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term.  

“I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!”

Last spring, Kellogg proposed forcing an ultimatum on Ukraine: Engage in peace talks in order to keep receiving aid. The plan, which was put forward with the help of Fred Fleitz, his successor as chief of staff at the National Security Council, would also force Russia to the negotiating table by agreeing to hold off on Ukraine’s admission to NATO. Under the plan, the cease-fire would take place along existing battle lines.

Kellogg’s views align well with an incoming administration that seems to have little interest in providing aid to Ukrainians, even as Russia is advancing through the country faster than ever.

Vice President–elect JD Vance is similarly opposed to more assistance. South Dakota Governor and Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem is opposed to more assistance as well, saying that the war is “Europe’s fight, not ours.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has come up with another conspiracy theory—that Democrats are stealing a very close election race in California. 

In California’s 13th congressional district, the votes are still being counted, and Republican Representative John Duarte fell behind Democrat Adam Gray by a narrow margin Tuesday night. To Greene, this means that something nefarious is going on. 

“Democrats are stealing another House seat! Elections nationwide should be one day, paper ballots, and require proof of citizenship with ID!!” Greene posted on X Wednesday morning. 

California has fully embraced voting by mail, instituting it statewide since 2022. As long as ballots are postmarked by Election Day, they are allowed to arrive no more than a week afterward in order to be counted, an increase from three days afterward in 2022’s midterm elections. That year, half of the state’s votes were counted after Election Day, meaning that a long wait time to count votes is not suspicious. 

In Republican-run states, though, it’s rare for such allowances to exist. In Greene’s home state of Georgia, for example, mail-in ballots aren’t universal but have to be specifically requested well in advance. Ballots have to be received within three days of Election Day, even if the voter is overseas or in the military.  

Greene and her fellow conservatives seem to hold the laughable opinion that the easier it is to vote, the more likely that Democrats and the left are fixing elections. In fact, making voting more widely accessible allows greater participation from the people who are poorer, don’t have easy access to transportation, work long hours, or are disabled, posted overseas, or any number of other valid reasons. 

Even in states like California, things could be made easier through various reforms, such as making Election Day a national holiday. But such efforts have been consistently opposed by Republicans, who have long seen higher voter turnout as a boost to Democrats. Maybe now that Donald Trump and the GOP actually won the popular vote in 2024, they will stop trying to restrict voting access.