Maggie Haberman put President-elect Donald Trump’s current reported handing of the telephone to billionaire X proprietor Elon Musk throughout his name with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy down to 2 issues.
“I believe that Trump likes to impress different folks and Elon Musk is the richest man on the earth and that’s a method of displaying off for Zelenskyy,” Haberman instructed CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“I additionally suppose it’s one thing of a dominance play,” the New York Occasions reporter added. “Musk has a relationship with [Russian President] Vladimir Putin […] and I don’t suppose that’s utterly out of Donald Trump’s head when he’s doing this.”
“This name attracted plenty of consideration for a wide range of causes,” Haberman stated. “Musk’s varied connections to the federal government and curiosity in authorities approval and authorities contracts and so forth goes to be an enormous dialogue within the coming months.”
Haberman earlier recalled how Trump would put his daughter and then-White Home adviser Ivanka Trump on the road with world leaders following his 2016 election win over Hillary Clinton.
“On this case, it’s the richest man on the earth who has enterprise with authorities and it’s barely completely different but it surely’s fairly in step with Trump’s character,” she stated.
Musk’s current closeness to Trump and his marketing campaign — together with his monetary backing through the last weeks of the election — would most definitely imply he’ll depart his imprint on a second Trump presidency “even when he by no means truly formally joins the federal government,” stated Haberman.
Trump and Musk have each reportedly talked with Putin a number of occasions within the final couple of years. Trump on the marketing campaign path boasted about having the ability to settle Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which started three years in the past, on the primary day of his return to the White Home.