CNN contributor and Democratic strategist Paul Begala commented that a standing Elon Musk made Donald Trump—seated behind the Resolute Desk—look “so deferential” during their Tuesday press conference.
On CNN’s News Central, Begala pointed out the optics of the lengthy event, which also saw Musk bring along his 4-year-old son.
“The president of the United States, Donald Trump, was sitting. His supposed aide, Mr. Musk, was standing. Trump’s literally looking up at him,” Begala told anchor Kate Bolduan.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I’ve never seen Trump so deferential. Well, once, when he was with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Begala continued.
“So this is a weird dynamic where Trump seems to really be happy to hand off power to this guy. And I suppose that’s fine. But my bigger problem was the talk about fraud and corruption.”
Begala said he doubted Trump’s stated intention about rooting about fraud given his felony conviction for it in New York last year.
“Donald Trump’s only experience with fraud is committing it. He’s a convicted felon for committing fraud—business records. Fraud. And so he doesn’t give a rip snort about fraud. Give me a break!” Begala exclaimed.
“If you care about fraud, if you care about corruption, you don’t fire the inspectors general, right?” Begala continued, referring to Trump’s late-night mass firings a few weeks ago.
“These are folks who have saved the taxpayers $70 billion a year in waste, fraud, and abuse. You don’t fire the head of the Office of Government Ethics if you care about fraud and ethics,” Begala said. “You don’t gut the FBI, you don’t cripple the Department of Justice, you don’t close the Consumer Financial Protection Board, which saves taxpayers and consumers billions and billions of dollars.”
“The fraud here is them saying they’re going after corruption,” Begala continued. “This is all about transferring wealth from the working class to the billionaire class. It’s government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. That’s really what’s going on here.”
