The Rachel Maddow Show
Media reports prompt Trump to end plan to brief Musk on secret potential war plans for China
Sat, 22 Mar 2025
Rachel Maddow follows up on last night's breaking news that the Pentagon planned to brief Donald Trump's top campaign donor, Elon Musk, on top-secret U.S. plans for a potential war with China, with new reports that Trump says he only learned of the plan from the media and ordered that the briefing not take place. Trump's explanation is not especially reassuring as it raises new, unsettling questions.
Chapter 1: What is the controversy involving Trump and Elon Musk?
This was the New York Times report, this insane story late last night that the Trump administration was planning this morning, Friday morning, to give Trump's top campaign donor the U.S. military's detailed, highly classified operational plans that we as a country would follow if we ever went to war with China.
Now, Elon Musk, the president's top campaign donor, is of course deeply involved with the Chinese government. He has multi-billion dollar outstanding loans with China. He, not that long ago, wrote a pro-China essay for the Chinese government's censorship agency. The majority of Tesla cars now are manufactured in China.
Chapter 2: Why was Elon Musk's involvement with China a concern?
That is where he has his largest factory, and he built that factory with direct involvement from the Chinese government. So, yeah, I mean, in case it's not super obvious what the problem would be here in him getting our war plans for going to war with China, the New York Times last night in this shocking report that they were going to read him in on those very highly classified plans said,
They kind of spelled it out in even more simple terms than you might expect from a regular newspaper on a regular story. They spelled it out basically in crayon. They made it so painfully simple, what was wrong with this plan, that maybe the White House even couldn't fail to understand it. This is what the Times said, quote, And here's where they switch to crayon.
If a foreign country was to learn how the US planned to fight a war against them, that country could reinforce its defenses and address its weaknesses, making US war plans far less likely to succeed against that foreign adversary. If you have a war plan with a foreign country, don't show that plan to the foreign country just in case you ever have to go to war with them!
Because it'll mean your war plan won't work. Get it? Do you guys get it? You want me to say it more slowly? I mean, the Times might as well have put it in all caps on a single page with a picture menu, right? Elon Musk is arguably more thoroughly and uncritically in bed with the Chinese government than any other business person who calls him or herself an American.
But as of last night, according to the New York Times, Donald Trump was planning on giving him America's most detailed military plans on how exactly we would wage war against China if we ever had to, despite his deep involvement with the Chinese government. That Times report came out last night while we were on the air. By this morning, nope.
Wall Street Journal headline, Trump says Elon Musk won't get briefing on Pentagon's China war plans. Yeah, quick reversal on that. And I think there are two things to see in that reversal. Number one, hey, journalism, neat. When journalists find out something is happening in the government and that thing is plainly indefensible, sometimes that makes the government stop trying to do that thing.
That's why it's a good thing to have journalism. So we the people can find out about bad things and maybe that stops some of those bad things in their tracks. But secondly, given his track record, I don't tend to believe things the president says just because he says them. But in this case, I'm a little bit tempted to believe him.
or at least to consider the possibility that he might have been telling the truth when he told reporters this morning, or today, that he didn't know this so-called briefing on the China war plans for Elon Musk was happening. He didn't know about it. He just heard about it in the New York Times.
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Chapter 3: How did media reports influence Trump's decision on military briefings?
He told reporters today that once he heard about it because of the Times reporting, he, quote, contacted White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to ask them, hey, what's this brief thing that you guys are doing for Elon? Now, is he telling the truth there? I don't know, but pick your poison.
Either the president ordered the Pentagon to give away the most highly sensitive and valuable national security secrets we most desperately want to keep away from China. He either ordered that we give away those secrets to his top campaign donor, who is very close to the Chinese government, or the president did not order that, which means his top campaign donor arranged that for himself.
and almost got it, and would have gotten it until the New York Times spilled the beans, which stopped it. Either way, do you feel like our national security is in steady hands? Did you vote for Donald Trump because he was going to be tough on China? How we doing?
Today was another bad day in court for the Trump administration, specifically on their effort to try to kick all transgender service members out of the U.S. military. The federal judge overseeing a challenge to that ban in Washington today just tore the bark off the Trump administration lawyer who's been trying to defend what Trump is doing there.
That judge today ordered that the plaintiff service members who've been put on administrative leave by Trump The judge ordered today that they must all be taken off administrative leave and reinstated by 5 p.m. Eastern time tonight.
The judge also in court, in open court, just excoriated the Trump administration lawyer effectively for lying about what the Defense Department has been doing in this case. The judge said, quote, The court is not going to be gaslit. The Secretary of Defense called it a transgender ban.
This idea that you can just come in here and pretend, or have us pretend, that what's happening is not actually what's happening is totally unacceptable. Everyone knows what this ban is intended to do. Everyone knows. The judge said, again, this is all in open court.
The judge said, quote, I am not going to abide by government officials saying one thing to the public, saying what they really mean to the public and coming in here to the court and telling me something different like I'm an idiot. I am not an idiot. So that happened today.
Also, we've now, just in the last few days, seen some of our closest friends and allies issue travel warnings, advising their citizens to think twice about traveling to the United States because of new risks associated with traveling here. These are travel warnings against coming to the United States.
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Chapter 4: What are the legal challenges facing the Trump administration?
Shutting down the education department so the Small Business Administration will now handle federal student loans. The Small Business Administration doesn't do anything like that. They never have. They don't have the capacity for it. These are millions of individual student borrowers they will now be responsible for. They do not have the capacity to do it.
And on the same day that he announced they would be now handling millions of individual federal student loans, he also announced that the Small Business Administration will now fire more than 40% of the people who do work at that agency just as they are getting this huge new workload.
And on top of all that, there's also big news today, which I mentioned, just almost unbelievable news about what Trump is doing to Social Security and what his administration thinks that will do to people who get Social Security benefits. We've got that coming up for you tonight. You are definitely going to want to see it. It involves a Trump cabinet official on tape saying something that...
shouldn't exist in American politics, but it happens. And we've got that for you coming up tonight. But before we get to that, there's one other piece of this that honestly shouldn't be at all part of reporting about what's going on in the U.S. government. But hey, these are crazy times, so needs must. I mentioned at the top, right at the top, this bizarre story about President Trump's
top campaign donor, Elon Musk, somehow reportedly being slated for the kind of high-level war plans briefing that no campaign donor should ever be invited to. On the eve of that planned briefing last night, Elon Musk apparently found time to convene an all-hands meeting for employees of his car company, Tesla. They called this all-hands meeting for every employee of the company. For 9 p.m.
last night, they scheduled it as a livestream event on Twitter, which is owned by Mr. Musk. The livestream promptly crashed and shut down for about half an hour. They eventually apparently got it restarted, whereupon Mr. Musk...
got online with his employees at his car company and he begged his employees to not sell their stock in Tesla, which many Tesla executives and board members have recently done. He told his employees that things were about to become immeasurably better, unimaginably better. Quote, what's the most exciting future that you could possibly imagine?
Quote, a future of abundance for all, where you could literally just have anything you want. Elon Musk explained to his employees that these unimaginably good times are right around the corner. He told Tesla employees, literally, quote, hang on to your stock.
He told them there are times when there are rocky moments, a little bit of stormy weather, but I'm here to tell you the future is bright and exciting. He also told them... that they should feel good about these reassurances from him and definitely not sell their stock the way his executives and board members have been.
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Chapter 5: How are international relations and domestic policies being affected?
Autonomous robo taxis for Tesla next year by 2020. Luckily, by the time none of these things came to pass, when he said they would come to pass, none of us cared because as of then, meaning as of now, we're all living on Mars.
I think if things go according to plan, we should be able to launch people probably in 2024 with arrival in 2025.
Again, like he's just doing the math right there. You see him squint. We're going to be, how long will it take to? 2024, we're going to be shooting people off to Mars and they'll get there by 2025. Confident. Here it is, 2025. Mars isn't nearly as hot as I thought it would be.
These are the kinds of predictions that he has used to stoke the hype around himself and his companies year after year after year after year. It's a running joke, right, his predictions. But the faith in Elon Musk and in all the things that he can see coming true in the future, has driven him to the position that he's in now with our US government.
Meanwhile, in his actual businesses, Tesla stock has lost over 50% of its value in the past three months. Edmunds.com just reported that more people are trading in their Teslas than ever before. The share of Teslas among all cars they're seeing being traded in is 300% higher right now than it was this time last year.
When JPMorgan radically slashed their forecast for Tesla sales this quarter, their analysts said this week, quote, "...we struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly."
And that was before we found out that they were recalling nearly all Cybertrucks on the road for the eighth time, this time for the risk of pieces of the body coming loose and flying off in traffic. And weirdly, that kind of thing shouldn't have to factor into news about the government of the United States, but these are strange times. and fired-up times.
Members of Congress have been on recess this week. Many of them left D.C. to spend time in their home districts, which means that many of them have been holding town halls at home to talk to their constituents. Many of their constituents are confused and scared and mad about what's been going on with Elon Musk and Donald Trump in Washington. We've been covering them on the show all week.
We've been covering things like this on the show since the very beginning of the Trump administration. Just this week, though, there have been so many, we haven't been able to show you all of them. Here's just a snapshot. This was Golden, Colorado on Wednesday. Totally full house, absolutely packed auditorium.
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Chapter 6: What has been the impact of Trump's cuts on national services?
Step up or step aside. Constituents furious with Senator Michael Bennett for having done anything other than stand up to Trump, particularly voting for some of his cabinet nominees. This is Poughkeepsie, New York. Wednesday this week, full house, around 800 people showing up to Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan's town hall. Look at that room.
Another full room in Frederick, Maryland this week to hear from Democratic members of Congress, Jamie Raskin and April McClain Delaney. So many people showed up in Frederick, Maryland. They had to turn people away because there wasn't enough room and they didn't have an overflow set up.
In Concord, California last night, Democratic Congressman Mark DeSaulnier spoke to a packed crowd inside a high school gym. You know, and it's not just Democrats holding town halls, and it's not just Democrats showing up to them.
Here's some local news coverage from Salt Lake City, Utah, last night from a town hall held by two Republican members of Congress, Congresswoman Celeste Malloy and Congressman Mike Kennedy. Watch.
Both representatives taking on an angry and boisterous crowd. Main concerns were around the cuts from Doge and a powerful executive branch. Those concerns even shared by Republicans.
It's careening 100 miles an hour into an authoritarian wall right now, and I'm actually feeling fear for our country for the first time.
I'm a registered Republican. I've been my whole life. I am just distressed by the flaunting of the rule of law. I'm distressed by concerns now that the judiciary may not be listened to and honored.
Again, those are Republicans there, including the one saying it's careening 100 miles an hour into an authoritarian wall. This was Dowagic, I think that's how you say it, Dowagic, excuse me, Dowagic, Michigan last night, which ended up kind of like a game of where's Waldo.
One by one, speakers addressed an empty chair reserved for Congressman Tim Wahlberg.
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Chapter 7: How reliable are Elon Musk's predictions for Tesla?
Today, Trump's acting director of Social Security responded to that ruling by throwing a tantrum and saying if that ruling stands, he will shut down the Social Security administration altogether. And you don't have to be among the 70-plus million Americans who currently receive Social Security to be mad about any of that. Right. Making grandma wait in new lines is not nice. Right.
Making people like check themselves out of a hospital or the nursing home to somehow make their way to a far away office that hasn't been shut to wait for hours to do something they used to be able to do on the phone. It's not nice. Right. Pitching a fit and saying you'll just shut down the whole administration is not nice. It ought to be obvious. Right. Nobody needs to spell that out for you.
Unless you're Donald Trump's commerce secretary. I don't know if you saw this today. I feel like in any other moment, this would have been wallpaper all over the American media. But this statement today from Donald Trump's commerce secretary about what Trump is doing to social security, this tape is such a political disaster.
I feel like I almost have to close my eyes because I can't bear to watch it. Just here you go. Check it out.
Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She'd think something got messed up, and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining.
Howard Lutnick, Wall Street titan, Trump cabinet member, saying that his mother-in-law wouldn't call and complain. She'd just wait until next month, see if her check came then. Anybody complaining about not getting a check is obviously a criminal. How does that comport with what you understand of the reality of getting a Social Security check?
And who in your life, you know, gets a Social Security check? Mr. Lutnick went on to say that anybody like Elon Musk, who had been inside a payment system like PayPal, quote, knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing. This is not like a random podcaster dude.
This is cabinet official in the Trump administration while they are devastating Social Security. Maybe it gets easier if you hear it again. One more time.
Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She'd think something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling, and complaining. And if all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this by heart, right?
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