“During the Obama administration they tapped the AP bureau’s phones and the phones of AP bureau reporters. They tapped their phones!

Said Atlantic writer James Kirchick on Bill Maher's show last night.

Maher chimed in: "Josh Earnest, he was in the Obama administration. He admitted it. He said: 'The White House has demonstrated our willingness to exclude Fox News from news making interviews.... He said: 'We're going to treat them like we treat an opponent.' This is exactly what I say about this country. Everybody’s like this is the worst thing in the world except when we do it. And then it’s always perfectly okay."

New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan just got a stunning reality check from both Bill Maher and author James Kirchick.

Swan was spiraling over President Trump barring CNN and MS NOW from the White House, until Kirchick reminded him of some of the Obama-era media scandals.… pic.twitter.com/GopA8f61qD

— Overton (@overton_news) September 26, 2026

Why doesn't the phrase "Special Government Employee" appear in the NYT article about Musk's "distancing" himself from Trump?

I've been trying to read "A Disillusioned Musk, Distanced From Trump, Says He’s Exiting Washington/The billionaire has made clear he is frustrated with the obstacles he encountered as he tried to upend the federal bureaucracy."

That piece in the NYT has 5 authors: Tyler Pager, Maggie Haberman,Theodore Schleifer, Jonathan Swan, and Ryan Mac.

In the midst of my struggle to absorb their message, I stumbled upon this easy-to-read tweet (which was re-tweeted by Elon Musk):

In the coming days, legacy media will try to convince you that President Trump and Elon Musk are no longer friends and that’s why Musk left.

What they won’t tell you is that Elon was a Special Government Employee, limited to 130 days of service and that term ends tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/blNzVm9Gnd

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) May 29, 2025

From the NYT article:

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. In a post on X, his social media site, on Wednesday night, he officially confirmed for the first time that his stint as a government employee was coming to an end and thanked Mr. Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”

So, instead of the phrase "Special Government Employee" — which appears at the post the NYT links — the Times makes it "government employee." And instead of noting the 130-day time limit built into the status of "Special Government Employee," the Times just says "his stint" is "coming to an end." And it adds the phrase "he officially confirmed for the first time" which makes it sound like a new development or something he'd previously kept under wraps. But the time limit was there from the start and official all along, so why did it matter that he "officially confirmed" it. Was it ever in question?

Perhaps the Times had previously cast doubt on whether Musk would leave when the 130 days ran out. 

Ah, yes, here's a NYT article from April 23 — "A Subdued Musk Backs Away From Washington, but His Project Remains" — that ends: "By dialing back the number of days he spends working for the White House, Mr. Musk can also potentially stretch out the 130 days he is allotted as a 'special government employee.'" And here, on April 18 — in "Head of I.R.S. Is Ousted in Treasury’s Power Struggle With Elon Musk"— "As a special government employee, Mr. Musk is allotted 130 days of time on the job. But if he works part time, he may be able to extend his time in government."

The names Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are on both of those.

"From a negotiating position — and the president talks about this in his book 'The Art of the Deal' — this is what they describe as anchoring."

"It's called an anchoring technique, which is to say that you state your position and you hold your position, and the moment you break from that position, it becomes a lot harder.... The second that they start announcing that they are taking a pause [from the tariffs] or that they're willing to do a deal at a lesser number or whatever it is, they've undermined their own case.... The business community has a phrase that they've been using all weekend which is 'What is the off ramp?' — which suggests that there is one. And there might not be an off ramp...."

Says Andrew Ross Sorkin, on "How Trump Wiped Out $10 Trillion in Wealth in 3 Days," today's episode of the NYT podcast "The Daily."

Later Jonathan Swan says: "One problem that some of his advisers have, I would say most of his advisers have, if they're being honest, is... your messaging is so all over the place.... It's like, you know, he is in deal making mode and then he's in: No, this is an economic revolution and you need to hang tough. You're getting these competing messages.... It's not just pundits that have been surprised or his donors, but some of his advisers, I think, were still of the mindset that this would be Term One Trump. And Term One Trump talked a really big game on tariffs, but actually, when the market started to wobble, he backed off.... [I]n his first term, he had to run for reelection.... He's not running for reelection anymore. So there is a theory that, well, he feels somewhat liberated by that, and he can do what he thinks is the right thing to do and move forward and deal with the consequences...."

"Inside Musk’s Aggressive Incursion Into the Federal Government/The billionaire is creating major upheaval as his team sweeps through agencies, in what has been an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual."

This is an important NYT article — with 6 authors (including Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman) — and I've been trying to force myself to blog it since yesterday evening. I'd read the article and thought of some idea of how to present it. 

"Aggressive Incursion" — was I going meditate on the meaning of "incursion" and the avoidance of its thesaurus roommate "coup"?

Now, I've delayed so long I'm tempted to just drop this and run...

Fraud in the federal government is closer to 10% of disbursements, so more like ~$700 billion per year.

Outright waste is at least 15%, so another trillion+ dollars.

Anyone who works in government knows this. https://t.co/P0622Wr2Y6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2025

... but I'll go on. I'll find my way back to where I was going. Ah, yes. It was this:

"I mean, when you talk to these Republican lawmakers privately, they all understand a vote against something that Donald Trump really cares about is a vote to end your career."

"I mean, there's not that many people who are willing to end their career. So even though I know for a fact there are a whole bunch of Republicans who if it was a private secret vote, would vote against — en masse — many of these nominees that he's put up, they won't dare do it in a public setting under the gaze of Donald Trump. And there's actually something deeper that's happened in American politics that Trump has changed. A generation ago, if you were a member of Congress, you could kind of protect yourself and defend yourself by raising money and having coalitions and whatever. All of that has been obliterated by Donald Trump's monopoly on the attention landscape. And If you get in their cross hairs, it doesn't matter what kind of a war chest you have that will be squirted away in two days, you are finished, your career's done."

Said Jonathan Swan, on yesterday's episode of the NYT's "Daily" podcast, "Trump 2.0 Arrives in Force."

ADDED: I figure he said "squirted away" because it's the NYT and "pissed away" is considered dirty, but "squirted away" sounds dirtier. I had to laugh.

"And and when I talk to people close to President-elect Trump and people who work for him, people on the outside — allies — they already see this as a resounding success."

"You know, they will say, look, who knows, maybe more accusations will come out against Pete Hegseth. Maybe we end up losing four senators and he goes down. But even if that happens, they see this as a cautionary tale for Republicans. They are putting Republicans on notice that they're not going to tolerate dissent. They're not going to tolerate opposition to Donald Trump during his return to Washington. And by making such a fight of this, by publicly forcing these senators to bend the knee, they are creating a template for what we're likely to see next year. As Trump tries to pass legislation, as he inevitably does controversial things that will make some senators squeamish, the Trump team is sending out the message. Now, there will be a very steep cost if you go against Donald Trump."

Said Jonathan Swan at the end of today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Pete Hegseth Was Toast. The MAGA Swarm Came to His Rescue." 

The episode concentrates on the effort to win support from Senator Joni Ernst. You can listen to that. I won't summarize. I am blogging this because I want to say that when I heard the part quoted above, I thought: Sounds like "Master of the Senate." 

Makes me want to reread Robert A. Caro's great book about LBJ. (Commission earned.) 

I hope Trump gets his Robert A. Caro some day. 

"This article is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people who have direct knowledge of how and why Mr. Trump salvaged Mr. Hegseth’s bid, at least for now."

I'm reading "Power, Intimidation and the Resurrection of Trump’s Support for Hegseth/The president-elect became convinced that letting Pete Hegseth fail would set off a feeding frenzy among senators. What followed was a MAGA swarm that helped salvage his bid, at least for now," by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman in the NYT.

I'm giving you a free-access link so you can judge the quality of the sources, the likelihood of a senatorial "feeding frenzy," and the meaning of "MAGA swarm."

We're told that Pete Hegseth went "from dead man walking to a man with a real shot of being confirmed by the Senate" in what was "a test case of power and intimidation," where Trump demonstrated his "ability to summon an online swarm, even while spending minimal personal capital of his own."

"What happens on this show is so much more intelligent and thoughtful and deep than anything that's going on at CNN."

"You just can't... tell me that you sitting down with Elon Musk for 3 hours and then compare that to like Wolf Blitzer with all his graphics behind him talking for 30 seconds before he goes to a pharmaceutical commercial and then coming back and having the dumbest left winger yell at the dumbest right winger. Really? And you guys are going to act like you're the grownups in the room? It's just, it's too ridiculous.... So the entire young generation has, they've all turned that off.... None of them are getting their news from from CNN anymore. And look man, that's I think the most beautiful part of this election is that mainstream media's dead.... I don't think [CNN has] a show that regularly cracks a million views....."

Said Dave Smith to Joe Rogan (actually the words "mainstream media's dead" are inserted by Joe):

Compare this bit from the NYT "Daily" podcast this morning. The episode is "Inside Trump World as the Next Chapter Begins." Jonathan Swan says:

"The news media in the eyes of many Americans is discredited. More than half the country have tuned out the mainstream media. We are now in little information silos, so it's almost impossible to overstate how much Donald Trump has defeated the system and how favorable the current composition of the system is for Donald Trump."

Did Swan even consider that mainstream media could be the "little information silos" and people are breaking out?

"Live conversation on 𝕏 with @realDonaldTrump & me at 8pm ET tomorrow."

"This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining! If you have specific questions & comments, post them under the chat."

Tweets Elon Musk.

Is it a "conversation" or an interview? I see at Reuters, it says "Elon Musk to interview Trump on X social media network." Is Elon Musk an interviewer? You know, Trump was kind of an interviewer in his role on "The Apprentice." We'll see how much originality emerges in this format.

Anyway, this makes me think something Jonathan Swan said on today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast: 

"In his mind, Harris replacing Biden, which of course Democrats thought was overdue and necessary, is a kind of pre stealing of the election."

Said Michael Barbaro, in the new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Inside The Worst Three Week’s Of Trump’s Campaign."

Jonathan Swan, who's been covering the Trump campaign for the Times, says:

"Exactly. And it's bewildering for Trump because the race that he thought he had no longer exists. He's facing someone who's 20 years younger who doesn't have trouble completing sentences, who actually has energized Democrats, who's drawing big crowds, who's moving up in the polls. And all of these factors are making him extremely frustrated, less than a hundred days out from the election. And you can see this projection in his public statements and Truth Social comments. He's been like, look, like, a sort of this exercise in wishful thinking on Truth Social, where he's saying, I'm hearing Biden's really angry and wants to get, you know, regrets dropping out. And maybe he gets back in, you know, and it's sort of like... I know that's what you want, but that, that's not really what's happening. And so you're seeing this sort of Trump kind of publicly emoting for poor Joe Biden and how mistreated he was, but really it's just a projection. It's the race Trump wants again. Right. And he can't have it. And he's still sort of pining for that race that no longer exists."

"[Trump] has found the change disorienting, those who interact with him say. Mr. Trump had grown comfortable campaigning against an 81-year-old incumbent..."

"... who struggled to navigate stairs, thoughts and sentences.... The people around Mr. Trump see a candidate knocked off his bearings... At the Aug. 2 dinner, Mr. Trump told donors that the news media had been incorrectly suggesting that he had mellowed since the assassination attempt. 'I’m not nicer,' he said, according to one person in attendance. Another said Mr. Trump described himself as 'angry' because 'they' — unspecified adversaries that the attendee took to mean Democrats — had first tried to bankrupt him and then to kill him.... He had been on a glide path to an all but certain victory. Now, he needs to work for it. But Mr. Trump has also been whipsawed by a seven-week roller-coaster-ride of events: an attempt on his life, the selection of a running mate, a nominating convention, his opponent’s withdrawal from the race, the entry of a galvanizing new rival, a potential Iranian assassination threat against him and new layers of security that have brought a bunker-like feel to his properties...."

Write Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, in "Inside the Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign/People around the former and would-be president see a candidate knocked off his bearings, disoriented by his new contest with Kamala Harris and unsure of how to take her on" (NYT).

"If the past is any guide, even with a full acquittal, Mr. Trump will be angry and vengeful, and will direct attacks..."

"... against everyone he perceives to be responsible for the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution.... Some of Mr. Trump’s former staff members who spent time with him after his previous investigations said that he was in no mood to celebrate after these purported victories but instead sought retribution.... And after surviving his first impeachment, in early 2020, for trying to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine into investigating Mr. Biden and his son Hunter, Mr. Trump was in a mood so foul that it surprised some of his aides who were relieved the episode was over. He sat in his private dining room adjoining the Oval Office, scowling at the television and spewing expletives, according to a person with direct knowledge of the events.... The verdict of this trial will land in the middle of a presidential campaign, which gives the aftermath a new dynamic, especially if Mr. Trump is acquitted, said John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser.... 'He will display the sense of injury that he had to put up with it at all because if they couldn’t follow through with it then there was nothing there,' Mr. Bolton said...."

Write Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, in "Trump’s Post-Verdict Playbook: Anger and Retribution, Regardless of the Outcome/Former President Donald J. Trump has a history of attacking investigators, blaming President Biden and seeking vengeance on those who cross him" (NYT).

Message to jurors: Don't think that by by acquitting Trump you can expunge the depredations of the prosecutor and the judge... (and Biden?).... 

"G.O.P. Officials, Once Critical, Stand by Trump After NATO Comments."

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan explain, in The New York Times. (free access at the link).

Key quotes:

Lindsey Graham: "Give me a break — I mean, it’s Trump. All I can say is while Trump was president nobody invaded anybody. I think the point here is to, in his way, to get people to pay."

Marco Rubio: "He told the story about how he used leverage to get people to step up to the plate and become more active in NATO... I have zero concern, because he’s been president before. I know exactly what he has done and will do with the NATO alliance. But there has to be an alliance. It’s not America’s defense with a bunch of small junior partners."

The AXIOS on HBO interview with President Trump.

ADDED: I clicked off at 5:46 because I couldn't tolerate the agitation of the interviewer with the interruptions. I think interruptions are important and wouldn't like an interviewer who let Trump filibuster, but the continual agitation along with the interruption feels hopelessly aggressive. You could tell from the first couple minutes that this guy, Jonathan Swan, thought he had a killer idea: Trump believes in the power of positive thinking and that's not the right approach for governing during the pandemic. But when that idea didn't take off as Swan— in his own positive thinking — may have visualized, he panicked and it showed. Maybe it will be fun to watch the rest and see if Trump is able to reduce Swan to a fluttering pile of feathers. So I may get back to this.