Weekend Report: What's going on?

Trump's tariffs keeps blowing up in his face. Musk tried to fire air traffic controllers. Newsom's pathetic, insulting interview with Charlie Kirk.

Donald Trump is hooked on tariffs—and the power to impose them—but this week he caved again to the realities of the market. It’s more clear now that he doesn’t see them as a negotiating tactic but truly to bring in revenue, thinking he’s smarter than everyone else, even though economists—and the market—have told that him Americans will pay for them and that he’s causing great instability. And even one of his Fox News flunkies told him this to his face in a rare moment of honestly.

Elon Musk tried to fire air traffic controllers, even after several plane crashes, prompting a clash with Trump’s transportation secretary. It all spilled out in a White House meeting where Cabinet officials fought with Musk in what is clearly an administration fueled by chaos.

California’s governor Gavin Newsom, who’s been a warrior among Democrats in taking on MAGA, shocked many when he invited right-wing extremist Charlie Kirk on his new podcast. The headline in the media was that Newsom has “flipped” on “trans athletes,” saying it was “deeply unfair” for them to compete against cisgender women. But this framing in the media made it appear as if Newsom had simply changed on this one issue. In fact, he was an entirely different person who jarringly let Kirk wall all over him.