Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

Tesla CEO Elon Musk may have financed an anti-immigrant, ‘America First’ presidential campaign to the tune of $250 million, but his call for more skilled foreign-born workers sparked massive backlash from President-elect Donald Trump’s far-right supporters.

Musk on Wednesday asserted that there was a “dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America” and called for increased visa availability, drawing scorn from many of Trump’s followers and close allies.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a momentary pick for Trump’s attorney general, criticized Musk’s influence in the White House and H-1B Visa stance in a post to X on Thursday.

“We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way,” Gaetz wrote. “We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”

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Ex-presidential candidate Nikki Haley, herself the daughter of Indian immigrants, argued against Musk and “DOGE” duo partner Vivek Ramaswamy’s suggestion that immigrant workers had unique talent or work ethic.

“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” she wrote in a Thursday post. “We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”

Some went further than criticizing Musk’s stance, instead questioning the X owner’s role in the incoming White House entirely.

Laura Loomer, a self-described “pro-white nationalist,” rejected Musk’s closeness to Trump, forecasting consequences for the billionaire for the remark and an end to the Big Tech-MAGA honeymoon.

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“[Elon Musk], who is not MAGA and never has been, is a total f****g drag on the Trump transition,” Loomer tweeted. “He’s a stage 5 clinger who over stayed his welcome at Mar a Lago in an effort to become Trump’s side piece and be the point man for all of his accomplices in big Tech to slither in to Mar a Lago.”

Musk dismissed Loomer’s comments, accusing the Trump ally of “trolling for attention” in a Thursday post to X. Meanwhile, Loomer accused Musk of throttling her X profile, removing paid subscriptions and account verification.

“Pure censorship. MAGA has been silenced,” Loomer alleged in a post to the platform, later alleging “Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA.”

High-profile X users amplified Loomer’s accusations of censorship, including massive anti-trans account Libs of Tiktok, who asked Friday on the platform why “so many accounts [are] suddenly losing their blue checks and subscribers.”

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Ultimately, the far-right influencer predicted that a “divorce is coming soon” between Trump and Musk, a possibility that some in the big tech sphere believe in, too. Samuel Hammond, an economist at the anti-regulation Foundation for American Innovation, told the Washington Post that the spar was “a sign of future conflicts.”

The showdown comes just days after the president-elect had to reassure supporters that he, not Musk, was running the show.

“He’s not gonna be president,” Trump said on Sunday, referring to the ‘President Musk’ monicker that some gave to the billionaire after he successfully tanked two federal budget bills. “I’m safe. You know why? He can’t be. He wasn’t born in this country.”

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

Former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin has been a vocal critic of her old boss, but whenever she was asked directly, she wouldn’t commit to voting for Kamala Harris — until Tuesday morning. To kick off the “The View,” she revealed that she officially cast her vote for a Democrat for the first time in her life.

The admission earned massive applause from the show’s audience and co-hosts, who have long pushed her on whether or not she’d vote for Harris, given her distaste for Trump and previous support of Nikki Haley.

“I consider my vote on loan to her,” Farah Griffin explained of Harris. “I’m worried about the direction that Donald Trump will take this country, and I take my own warnings seriously. What I saw is very real.”

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According to the host, she simply wants “a kind and decent person who will bring this country together,” even if she disagrees with Harris’ policy proposals. Still, Farah Griffin said she’s “anxious, but hopeful.”

She added, “We can criticize those [policies] down the road, but today, it’s about a brighter future, and I think the best thing for the country and the future of the Republican party is that Donald Trump lose, and Kamala Harris is elected.”

In explaining her decision, Farah Griffin also recalled where she was four years ago today — in Trump’s White House, watching the results of the 2020 election come in (she didn’t quit her job until about a month later, in December) and realizing he was going to lose.

According to the host, she believed then that he deserved to lose, based on the campaign he ran, and hoped that the Republican party would regroup appropriately. But, she argued, they never did.

The post Republican ‘The View’ Host Alyssa Farah Griffin Admits She Voted for Kamala Harris: ‘I Consider My Vote on Loan to Her’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

On the eve of Donald Trump’s election certification, the best thing sensible Americans who oppose him and the MAGA leadership can do is remember that stupidity should be embarrassing.

Trump exists in our political sphere because he persuaded people to forget that simple fact. He somehow turned dunderheads like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and, of course, himself – public figures who routinely utter abject nonsense – into people who get taken seriously.

Following the New Orleans terrorist attack on New Year’s Day, Trump ranted about immigration when the suspect killed in the attack was a U.S. citizen. That was stupid and unhelpful. For a president-elect and elected leaders who protect him, it should be deeply embarrassing.

Trump has made stupidity acceptable. It shouldn’t be.

President-elect Donald Trump arrives on New Year’s Eve at his Mar-A-Lago Club on December 31, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida.

When Greene hypothesized that Jewish space lasers started California wildfires, that was not a mistake or an “oops” moment. It was stupid, and it should have been the embarrassing end of her political career.

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When Kennedy encourages people to drink bacteria-laden raw milk, he should be laughed out of the country. Instead, Trump has picked him to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is utterly stupid and should be profoundly embarrassing for Trump.

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Yet here we are, waiting for Trump to return to the White House and install harebrained MAGA acolytes in all positions of power, confidently and without shame.

Bringing back shame may be powerful tool to deal with Trump

It’s that last bit that’s the problem: “without shame.”

We all do dumb things. There have been plenty of times I’ve said or written something stupid, made a dumb factual error or mouthed off about something I didn’t fully understand. And it’ll happen again, to be sure. No matter the room, I’d never claim to be the smartest guy in it.

Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) yells as President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 7, 2024.

The difference, though, is that in those dumb moments, when I’ve realized my own blunder, I’ve felt embarrassed. When I’ve had to correct a column or admit I got out over my skis on something, I’ve been ashamed of the mistake.

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Shame is what keeps us in check, or at least it should. It certainly used to.

If we tolerate stupidity in the public sphere, it will flourish

Trump, devoid of shame, has gone to great lengths to eviscerate that societal check.

How else do you explain politicians supporting him – a convicted felon, an inveterate liar, a man found liable of sexual abuse – for a third time? The decision to put someone like Trump back in the most powerful position in America should be embarrassing. It wasn’t.

Opinion: Trump picks Musk’s money over ‘forgotten’ Americans of MAGA. Sorry, xenophobes!

That’s enough to make people who dislike Trump, whether because of his politics or his personality, feel powerless. I get that.

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However, I’d argue the best way to reclaim power in the age of Trumpism is to stop tolerating stupidity.

Stupidity isn’t about book smarts, it’s about choosing ignorance

Before I go further on that, let’s be clear what I mean by “stupidity.” I’m not talking about any level of education.

Heck, most of the people Trump surrounds himself with are highly educated but dumb as fence posts.

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Stupidity is speaking authoritatively about things you don’t understand at all. It’s the willingness to say something objectively false and refuse to admit you’re wrong. It’s the lack of curiosity that allows our leaders to accept bologna conspiracy theories over provable facts.

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Those, to me, are traits that should be embarrassing.

Stop giving elected officials embracing stupidity a pass

But since Trump’s first presidential win, some people have been afraid to call out such traits.

The argument is, essentially: “Well, he won people over, so we shouldn’t call him dumb lest we insult his voters, who we must do our best to understand.”

Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, left, supports former President Donald Trump at his hush money trial in New York City on May 16, 2024.

That hasn’t worked out particularly well. If anything, proud ignorance has flourished.

So now, as we await whatever fresh hell a new Trump administration will bring, it’s time to stop pandering to politicians who have embraced a reality disconnected from actual reality.

Nobody’s job is to make fools feel comfortable

When Trump blames an act of domestic terrorism by a former U.S. Army soldier on immigrants, we should loudly call that what it is: stupid. It’s not a matter of differing opinions or “agreeing to disagree.”

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It’s, “If you can’t accept basic facts, you’re a chucklehead who should be shunned.”

President-elect Donald Trump greets SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at a test flight of the Starship rocket on Nov. 19, 2024, in Brownsville, Texas.

Making people feel embarrassed for believing claptrap or speaking a bald-faced lie isn’t cruel. It’s corrective.

We don’t coddle our kids when they spew nonsense or think the truth is irrelevant. We correct them. And we do that to avoid the kind of chaos Trump has brought and continues to bring.

Do it for America: Make Stupidity Embarrassing Again

So I encourage you, as this year goes along, to make politicians who say stupid things feel uncomfortable. You may not think your voice matters, but the collective force of all our voices reminding people our society looks down on willful ignorance might matter.

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Besides, we tried the other way, and things only got worse.

Comforting fools paves a path for more fools to follow. Do America a favor – mock stupidity at every turn.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As Trump’s election is certified, don’t settle for stupidity | Opinion