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Everything is still awful, but it was heartening to see Tesla Takedown's many protests and fiery message: "Would've fought the Nazis? Now's your chance." And as the world's richest, dimmest Nazi whines about people being mean to him, their persistence brings solace: Judges, park rangers, fired workers fight back, Swasticar posters pop up - "Goes from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds" - and wild hacks, from DOGE lists to (eww) videos of the two foot-fetish besties at it on HUD screens. What a time to be alive.
On Saturday, Tesla Takedown's Day of Action saw over 500 rallies, at nearly every Tesla showroom in the US - San Jose to Austin to New York - and in over 200 cities worldwide, rippling from Australia and New Zealand across Europe. Each was locally organized and thematically designed, "Smash the Fash" to “Down with Doge,” with great signs: Don't Buy Nazi Cars, Burn A Tesla Save Democracy, Tesla Funds Fascists, Musk the Only Immigrant Taking Away American Jobs, DOGE: Department of Greedy Elon and Honk If You Hate Elon, with its accompanying cacophony. Also their sieg-heiling balloon effigy and to the point chants: "We don't want your Nazi cars/Take a one-way trip to Mars." Add multiple incidents of Tesla burnings, eggings, poopings and beadings - revelers throwing Mardi Gras beads at an unwelcome Cybertruck in their parade - and it becomes clear the rage at Musk for his many, many (unelected) transgressions is growing. Its goal: "To boycott Tesla and hurt him so that he stops hurting us."
Despite pie-in-the-sky White House claims DOGE is "very popular" and the regime's flunkies and fawners are "thrilled" with its move-fast-and-break-things carnage, the sound of angry pitchfork-rattling is palpable, and rising. They've lost a flood of lawsuits by advocacy groups and fired workers; judges have repeatedly said their closings and very existence violate the Constitution; GOPers are fleeing angry constituents at town halls; people who've lost jobs for citing the damage being done, aka tracking how many hungry children will die from USAID cuts, are furiously speaking out; and people are realizing when rich fascists slam a "parasite class" - half of them children - to justify their crimes, rich fascists are the biggest parasites of all. When that happens, the parasites inevitably throw vengeful pity-parties for themselves. When DOGE got dealt a series of legal setbacks, Musk yowled we no longer have "real democracy in America" and all these treasonous judges should be impeached. So much for "Heal thyself."
Because, "The country is being run by your drunken uncle sitting in his recliner watching (TV) and yelling 'throw the book at ’em!'”, any pushback against illegal acts of autocrats is met with paranoid histrionics like those of Nazi Stephen Miller, who's defended the disappearing of largely innocent migrants by raving, "We were invaded and occupied. Entire towns were subjugated. Our Treasury was in the (sic) plundered...America voted for liberation." Thus have protests against Musk sparked frantic Fox headlines - "Feds on High Alert" - and threats from the regime's DOJ that said protests will be viewed as "domestic terrorism" and "hate crimes," which no Jan. 6 mobsters were charged with. The FBI has formed a task force to investigate “violent activity toward Tesla," and the mad king has vowed to "catch (the) bad guys," calmly musing, "I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20-year jail sentences" and "perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador...recently famous for such lovely conditions!”
Of course our salesman-in-chief also supported his "first buddy" with a recent White House auto mall, hawking Teslas outside the People's House for "a truly great American" who's "being treated very unfairly" by people "breaking a law (as) Radical Left Lunatics often do (by) trying to illegally and collusively boycott one of the World’s great automakers," even though said cars do randomly explode and have the highest rate of deadly accidents of any brand. Cue tacky burlesque show of fat geezer who can't drive and hates EVs clambering into Tesla and exclaiming, "Wow! Everything's computer!" as slimy bot moronically explains, as to one of his prop children, "It's very simple. It's literally like a golf cart that goes really fast." It's also like a rocket that explodes mid-air in a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," strewing debris into the water. Or like a car that inexplicably bursts into flames, its lithium batteries spewing toxic fumes, while often trapping people inside, sometimes fatally, due to electronic doors that don't work when needed.
Alas, as Tesla shares plunge here and abroad - down 76% in Germany, 50% in China, with sad Elmo losing billions - all 46,000 of its hideous, $80,000 Cybertrucks, once lauded as the Fascistmobile of the future, were just recalled after national safety advisors warned it can fall apart while driving due to bad glue making some trim panels detach and fly off, causing "road hazard” for other drivers. This is its 8th recall intwo years, including one for sticking pedal pads that could lead to "unintended acceleration." The Cybertruck is already banned in Europe for exterior edges deemed "a pedestrian danger"; here, it's just ceaselessly trashed as a loud rusty "shitbox" with bad suspension that gets stuck in snow. The brazen, inept hubris it represents offers a bleak metaphor, suggests Paul Krugman: "America is now trapped in a burning Tesla." And with large parts of the economy and government "on the verge of self-immolation" and the combined arrogance and ignorance of Musk/Trump, "It’s hard to see how we get out."
Swasticar billboard in UK makes a splashScreengrab from TikTok
Perhaps, in part, with the help of popular rage. There've been multiple leaks naming alleged DOGE staffers, and an updated list with newly added attorneys to handle growing lawsuits. With protests on the rise, an online searchable map called Dogequest also appeared, documenting the locations of Tesla owners and dealerships and reportedly doxxing DOGE team members with their addresses and phone numbers; the site said it would remove owners' information once they sold their vehicles, but it's evidently since been taken offline. Several leaks have named dubious "wasteful" projects DOGE shut down: millions "doled out" to "push" equity, immigrant justice, indigenous knowledge, a performance of Angels in America in Macedonia? No less outlandishly, last week DOGE (which is still legally not a thing) forcibly laid off almost all employees of the US Institute of Peace, a Congressionally funded think tank, because it "has failed to deliver peace." Two former staff just sued to stop a DOGE-r from taking over.
Of course, as Jon Stewart notes, these "profit-seeking psycopaths" won't touch the billions in subsidies to the rich, polluting, killing, "where the real money is": Over a billion in hedge-fund loopholes, $3 billion to oil and gas giants, $2 trillion to defence contractors, all while cutting health care, food stamps, hot lunch for kids. And while the mad king plays golf on 9 of 10 weekends, or over a quarter of his time "in office," at a cost of over $26 million. This weekend, he also "won" his own gazillionth tournament and boasted he made a great deal with the Finnish president to buy polar Icebreakers for the U.S. though in fact Biden made the deal last year. And Musk was there, high as a kite, playing with silverware, "in all our faces," having bought a government and hired a horde of clueless teenage incels to break shit and steal data and fire thousands of people "whose lives you’ve turned upside down who now can’t get anyone to answer the phone at Social Security because you’ve pared their staff down to the bone."
Of those who still have jobs, many are some pissed to be under the thumb of a rich jerk who demands they report what they did each week while he frolics at Motel-A-Lago. The Alt National Park Service sent shopping lists. Others said they researched why ketamine abusers wear sunglasses inside, reviewed court decisions about DOGE violating the Constitution, began the beguine, visited CatsThatLookLikeHitler.com, became Death Destroyer of Worlds, sent photos of their visit to Las Vegas' Mob Museum, "didn't vote for Elon" each day, listed five foods they couldn't keep down, "was a Lover, Sinner, Joker, Smoker, Midnight Toker," "did not give you up/did not let you down/did not run around/did not make you cry/did not say goodbye," "I get up in the evenin'/And I ain't got nothin' to say/I come home in the mornin/'I go to bed feelin' the same way." "I’m fairly sure I’m going to get fired, which is fine since I don’t work there anyway," one wrote. Another suggested, "Dear Mr. Nazi Musk, You should get a dog instead."
The "best example of civil disobedience EVER!" came the day employees were ordered back from remote work to HUD offices, where they found a grotesque, AI video of Trump fervently kissing the two left feet of his First Lady, with text of "Long Live The Real King," playing on a loop on screens throughout the building. Best: Staff couldn't turn it off, so frantically sent people to every floor to unplug TVs. "Bravo, hackers, a grateful nation tips their hats to you," was one response, urging it be shown in Times Square and at all those crappy golf clubs. Another: "They should leave it running for DOGE Bros to come fix it." After freelance journalist Marisa Kabas shared the clip online, Bluesky briefly took it down as "non-consensual explicit material," aka deepfake porn. Kabas wrote to argue it was "to protest a fascist regime, in the public interest and legitimate news"; Bluesky "reevaluated" and put it back up. One comment: "I'm fairly sure whenever this happens in real life it's completely consensual." Regardless, said another, "Bad day to have eyes."
Meanwhile, Mr. Rich Nazi Snowflake with "zero self-awareness" keeps whining. As protests and vandalism reports began rising, he whined, "The goal of the left is to destroy my influence, so they relentlessly push negative propaganda about me like the fake Nazi stuff...They are evil." Also, "My companies are suffering," but definitely not the moms who can't get food stamps for her kids or the cancer patients whose trials abruptly halted or the HIV/ Ebola clinics that had to fold or.....Then he whined about Gov. Tim Walz celebrating Tesla stocks falling into the shithole by calling Walz "a huge jerk." "What an evil thing to do," he screeched on Fox. "What a creep, what a jerk. Like who derives joy from that? Does that sound like a good person to you? I don’t think so." This, from the arbitrer of good personhood. But Minnesota's Mr. Nice Guy walked it back - "I have to be careful about being a smartass" - and offered Musk a deal: He'll stop mocking Tesla's plunging stock "when you take your hands off Social Security." No response.
Still, the huge jerk in a cheesehead hat whined on. Heckled at a Wisconsin rally where he'd come to bribe voters to elect a MAGA creep to a vital state Supreme Court seat by giving away two $1 million checks, he charged (Jewish) philanthropist George Soros was "funding" it all - "It was inevitable a few Soros operatives would be in the audience" - like it costs more than a buck or so to make a sign reading, "Fuck South African Apartheid Nazis," this while he's literally, blatantly buying votes. Chutzpah, thy name is. The next day, Ashley St. Clair, one of his baby mamas, sold her Tesla to make up for his "vindictive" cut in child support - "his modus operandi - I'm not the only one cleaning up after his messes" - and video of more protests prompted him to fume online, never mind the left's "puppets and paid foot-soldiers," "It is time to arrest those funding the attacks." We're with the patriot who watched a sneering MAGA thug cruise through the protest in his Cybertruck and declared, "Get this fucking asshole outta here."
Update: Tesla counter-protesters. They seem nice.
Musk siel-heil cut-outs at U.K protestImage from U.K. group Overthrow Musk
A region in southern Louisiana that has already been deemed a "sacrifice zone" by human rights experts—due to the high levels of pollution caused by the petrochemical and fossil fuel industry facilities that operate throughout the area—is now likely to face even more public health threats following the Trump administration's conditional approval of a new liquefied natural gas export terminal.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Wednesday granted conditional authorization for Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG export terminal in Cameron Parish, allowing the company to export LNG to countries that don't have free trade agreements with the United States.
The project was halted in 2024 when former President Joe Biden paused the issuance of new LNG export permits for non-free trade agreement partners, and climate campaigners have called for CP2 and other LNG projects to be permanently blocked because of the greenhouse gas emissions and local pollution they would cause.
In December, the Biden administration released an analysis showing that more LNG exports would increase household energy costs.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that emissions from CP2 are estimated to reach the equivalent of more than 47 million gas-powered cars or 53 coal-fired power plants—even as Venture Global claims the project would export enough fossil gas to replace 33 coal-fired plants.
"Greenlighting this terminal is simply selling out the American public to further boost the profits of fossil fuel companies," said Gillian Giannetti, senior attorney at NRDC. "LNG extraction and export floods frontline communities with dangerous pollution, raises U.S. energy costs, and further locks in our dependence on dirty fossil fuels."
NRDC sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over its approval of CP2 in September 2024, arguing FERC violated the law by not considering "adverse environmental and socioeconomic impacts" when it approved the terminal despite its determination that "the ambient air quality around the project will exceed the national air quality standards for multiple air pollutants."
FERC rescinded its approval and planned to make additional assessments after the lawsuit, but DOE's announcement on Wednesday came before the commission had made its final determination.
By conditionally authorizing the project, said Giannetti, the DOE violated "the public interest" and announced "the latest in a long line of giveaways to the fossil fuel industry from the Trump administration."
"NRDC sued over FERC's approval of this project, and we will be closely examining the legality of this DOE approval, as well," said Giannetti.
The export terminal approval announced by Energy Secretary Chris Wright is the administration's fifth—and largest—LNG approval since President Donald Trump lifted Biden's freeze on new export permits. The finished facility would have the capacity to export 3.96 billion cubic feet of LNG per day and produce 20 million tons of LNG per year.
CP2 would also be adjacent to Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG facility and less than two miles from the proposed Commonwealth LNG facility, in an area with more low-income residents than 88% of the country. Venture Global's existing LNG project in the area "has already exposed the surrounding community to dangerous air pollution well in excess of permit limits in over 130 incidents since it began operations in 2022," said Sierra Club.
"Fishermen have reported a dramatic impact on their livelihoods since the commencement of Calcasieu Pass operations, highlighting the severe negative impact of gas exports on the local economy and environment," added the group.
The conditional approval was announced a week after the Environmental Protection Agency revealed plans to shutter all 10 of its environmental justice offices, ending the agency's work to address systemic injustices in places like Cameron Parish and Louisiana's "Cancer Alley."
"As a mom living in Sulphur [Louisiana], I feel a profound responsibility to protect my children's future," said Roishetta Ozane, founder and CEO of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, an environmental justice and mutual aid group. "The decision to authorize the CP2 LNG facility is a direct threat to our health and safety. We cannot allow our community to become a sacrifice zone for corporate interests. The proposed facility, with its potential for devastating air pollution and harmful impacts on our local environment, jeopardizes everything we hold dear. Our children deserve clean air, safe water, and a thriving ecosystem. I completely oppose this project and all others like it for the sake of my children and everyone else."
Mahyar Sorour, director of Beyond Fossil Fuels policy for Sierra Club, said CP2 "will be a disaster for local communities devastated by pollution."
"American consumers who will face higher costs, and the global climate crisis that will be supercharged by the project's emissions," said Sorour. "The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had to reconsider its approval of the project after it failed in 2024 to consider the cumulative impacts of air pollution. By conditionally approving exports from this massive project, Trump's Department of Energy is once again failing to protect the American people from an unnecessary LNG project set to generate billions for corporate executives and leave everyday people with higher energy costs."
"Despite his hollow promises on the campaign trail," Sorour added, "Trump continues to fail to prioritize the livelihoods and future of our country over the profits of the dirty fossil fuel industry."
Amid growing discontent over surging economic inequality in the U.S.—and the Trump administration's elevation of unelected billionaire Elon Musk to the upper reaches of the federal government—the New York state comptroller's report on rising Wall Street bonuses was met with condemnation on Wednesday.
"Something is very broken and this is why people are so disenchanted," wrote one commenter on an article about the report at The Washington Post. "There is no American dream. Just fat cats getting fatter."
Another added that "the inequity of taxation on wealth in this country is shameful."
New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli lauded Wall Street's "very strong performance" in 2024 as he announced the average bonus paid to employees in the securities industry reached $244,700 last year—up 31.5% from 2023—as Wall Street's profits skyrocketed by 90%. The bonus pool reached a record $47.5 billion.
But as researcher Rob Galbraith pointed out on social media, the record-breaking take-home pay of Wall Street executives was 3.5 times the median household income for a family in Erie County, New York—leaving doubt that many workers in the state will immediately join in celebrating what DiNapoli said was "good news for New York's economy and our fiscal position" due to the bonuses' impacts on tax revenue.
"Tens of thousands of NYC families are about to lose their childcare unless we come up with another $1 billion in the state budget," said state Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-36), who is running to be mayor of New York City, in response to the announcement.
The average bonus for Wall Street employees was about four times the salary of the median full-time U.S. worker's earnings for 2024, which came to about $62,000 or $1,200 per week.
DiNapoli's estimate was released a week after voters at a town hall in a Republican district in Nebraska shouted, "Tax the rich!" at Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.) when he expressed support for Musk's slashing of public spending and claimed such cuts are necessary to balance the budget.
In recent weeks, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have drawn crowds of tens of thousands of people to hear them speak on their Fighting Oligarchy tour—leading the congresswoman to proclaim, "What is happening right now is different."
"We need to be taxing the rich on the floor of the Congress," said Ocasio-Cortez in Arizona last week, drawing loud applause. "We need to be establishing guaranteed healthcare on the floor of the Congress. We need to be passing a living wage on the floor of the Congress."
However, Congress is currently controlled by Republicans working to cut federal programs that serve working people to pay for tax cuts benefiting rich individuals and corporations.
On the heels of the news that Tesla CEO Elon Musk's investment of $20 million in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race—including offers of $1 million checks to individual voters—didn't manage to swing the election in the Republican Party's favor, the Trump administration adviser's electric car company learned of more trouble: Tesla's global sales declined by 13% in the first quarter of 2025, dropping to their lowest point in nearly three years.
The plunge in sales was evident across markets, even in countries where Musk hasn't sparked outrage by embedding himself into politics by bankrolling and supporting far-right candidates and groups.
In Norway, The New York Times noted, electric cars account for more than 90% of new car sales—but among Norwegians, whose prime minister recently rebuked Musk's involvement in the political systems of Germany and the U.K.—Tesla sales have nearly matched the global trend so far this year, declining by more than 12% in the first quarter.
Sales in other European countries were even more dire in the first three months of 2025—down 41% in France, 50% in the Netherlands, and 55% in Sweden, where consumers have Musk's anti-labor practices to contend with in addition to his political activities in Europe.
Sweden's largest insurer said Wednesday it had sold its $160 million stake in Tesla after investing in the company since 2013, saying Tesla's workers' rights position violates its investment guidelines.
"The American people have gotten a crash course in what happens when the richest man in the world gets the keys to our country."
Musk, whose net worth is $386.6 billion, has long refused to sign a collective bargaining agreement with fewer than 200 mechanics in Sweden to ensure they earn a fair wage. Unionized mechanics in the country have been on strike for over a year.
One Norway Tesla owner told the Times that he "would never drive a Tesla again."
"It's a question of ethics," said urban planner Geir Rognlien Elgvin.
After pouring nearly $300 million into the 2024 elections in the U.S. to help President Donald Trump and other Republicans get elected, Musk has spent the past two months boasting of his push to cut public spending and government jobs—attacking the popular anti-poverty Social Security program as a "Ponzi scheme"; gutting the Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other federal agencies; and pushing tens of thousands of civil servants out of their jobs through the Trump-created advisory body the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Adam Zuckerman, senior clean vehicles campaigner with government watchdog Public Citizen's climate program, said Wednesday that Tesla's most recent sales numbers illustrate how anger over Musk's activities—which has also been expressed with protests at Tesla dealerships—extends past U.S. borders.
"Tesla's plummeting sales show that consumers all over the world are sick of Elon Musk's attempt to promote dangerous far-right leaders, policies, and movements," said Zuckerman. "They are fed up with DOGE's effort to gut life-saving services and aid. Consumers want electric vehicles, not cruelty, fascism, racism, and neo-Nazism. Unless Musk changes course, Tesla sales will continue to decline."
A poll by Yahoo News and YouGov late last month found that two-thirds of Americans said they would not drive a Tesla, with a majority saying Musk himself was the reason for their distaste.
"Musk is driving our country into the ground," said Zuckerman when the poll was released. "If he continues, he could take Tesla and America's urgent transition to an electric future with it."
Tesla's plummeting sales contrast with global electric car sales overall, which are on the rise. Ford Moter, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are among the automakers planning to soon introduce new electric vehicles.
"Previously consumers might have struggled to find other options than Tesla that really competed," Will Roberts of research firm Rho Motion told the Times. "That's now not the case."
Trump has attempted to shore up his benefactor and ally's company, holding an event on the White House lawn last month during which he praised Musk's electric cars and condemned protests at Tesla dealerships. He also suggested people who are turning away from Tesla are "Radical Left Lunatics" who are "trying to illegally and collusively boycott" the car company.
His administration has since doubled down on threatening people for vandalizing the cars or dealerships, with the president saying he would send them to El Salvador, where hundreds of people accused of being gang members have been sent to a prison in recent weeks.
But despite the show of loyalty, Trump was reportedly considering pulling back on Musk's front-and-center presence in the administration Wednesday.
Economic justice group Groundwork Collaborative said Musk's impending exit—which Trump denied was coming—is likely in response to Musk proving "to be a liability," but cautioned that rights advocates will still have to fight the Trump agenda even without Musk in the White House serving as a "special government employee."
"The American people have gotten a crash course in what happens when the richest man in the world gets the keys to our country," said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the group. "Musk's threat to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid has pushed consumer confidence to new lows. Businesses are pulling back on investments, and markets have plunged. Americans can now celebrate Musk's exit."
"But Musk's ouster is only the first step in achieving true liberation," said Owens. "He is a symptom of a broader disease, which is that billionaires are tightening their grip on our democracy. To cure the disease, we must put our power back in the hands of the people."
Outraged by Elon Musk's devastating contributions to the Trump administration, tens of thousands worldwide held "Tesla Takedown" protests at over 200 locations on Saturday.
Protests began the day in front of Tesla showrooms in Australia and New Zealand. They then rippled across Europe, including Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the UK. In the US, protests occurred in nearly every state, including the northeast, south, midwest, and west coast.
"Elon Musk is destroying our democracy, and he's using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it," organizers wrote on Action Network, which has an interactive map of the protest sites. "We are taking action at Tesla to stop Musk's illegal coup."
Organizers also have a message for people with ties to the company: "Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines."
Since Musk began dismantling the federal bureaucracy as chief of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), critics have protested at Tesla facilities and posted videos about selling their vehicles on social media.
In an aerial view, protesters demonstrate against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiatives during a nationwide “Tesla Takedown” rally at a dealership on March 29, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (Getty image)
While protesting at the Tesla dealership in west London, Louise Cobbett-Witten told The Guardian: “It’s too overwhelming to do nothing. There is real solace in coming together like this. Everyone has to do something. We haven’t got a big strategy besides just standing on the side of the street, holding signs and screaming.”
Alainn Hanson, of Washington, DC, brought her mother from Minnesota to their first Tesla protest. She told CNN: “I’m sick of billionaires trampling over working class people.”
Here are some of Saturday's actions:
Saint Petersburg, Florida
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Washington, DC
Tucson, Arizona
Manlius, New York
Salt Lake City, Utah
Vancouver, British Columbia
Chicago, Illinois
And in London, England
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance, and two top Trump administration officials traveled to Greenland on Friday on an itinerary that was markedly curtailed from its original plans due to Greenlanders' frosty reception amid President Donald Trump's ongoing threats to take the Arctic island from NATO ally Denmark—even by armed force if deemed necessary.
Vance visited Pituffik Space Base—a U.S. Space Force installation on the northwestern coast of Greenland about 930 miles (1,500 km) north of the capital, Nuuk—with his wife, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The vice president's wife originally planned on a more interactive and cultural itinerary, including attending a dogsled race. However, Greenland's leftist government said earlier this week that is had "not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official."
Compounding the Trump administration's embarrassment, U.S. representatives reportedly came up empty handed after canvassing door to door in Nuuk in an effort to drum up support for the visit. The administration denies this ever happened.
And so the Trump officials' audience was limited to U.S. troops stationed at Pituffik. After arriving at the base, the vice president told troops in the mess hall he was surprised to find the snow- and ice-covered Arctic island is "cold as shit."
"Nobody told me!" he added.
Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance visited a U.S. Space Force base in Greenland Friday. Vance is expected to receive briefings on Arctic security and address US service members.
Read more: https://t.co/1OIkkT3VnD pic.twitter.com/lbXeObJTgq
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 28, 2025
Getting down to more serious business, Vance said: "Our message to Denmark is very simple—you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass."
Addressing Arctic geopolitics, Vance argued that "we can't just bury our head in the sand—or in Greenland, bury our head in the snow—and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large land mass. We know that they are."
"The president said we have to have Greenland, and I think that we do have to be more serious about the security of Greenland," Vance continued. "We respect the self-determination of the people of Greenland, but my argument to them is: I think that you'd be a lot better coming under the United States' security umbrella than you have been under Denmark's security umbrella. Because what Denmark's security umbrella has meant is effectively they've passed it all off to brave Americans and hoped that we would pick up the tab."
This follows remarks earlier this week from Vance, who said during a Fox News interview that Denmark, which faithfully sent troops to fight in both Afghanistan and Iraq—43 of whom died, the highest per capita casualty rate of the alliance—is "not being a good ally" to the United States.
Asked by reporters on Friday if the U.S. would ever conquer Greenland by military force, Vance said he didn't think that would be necessary.
However, just a day earlier, Trump—who on Friday posted a video highlighting defense cooperation between the U.S. and Greenland—said his administration will "go as far as we have to go" to acquire the island, which he claimed the United States needs "for national security and international security."
It was far from the first time that Trump—who has also threatened to take over parts or all of countries including Panama and even Canada—vowed to annex Greenland, and other administration officials have repeated the president's threats.
"It's oil and gas. It's our national security. It's critical minerals," Waltz said in January, explaining why Trump wants Greenland.
The U.S. has long been interested in Greenland, and while the close relationship between the United States and Denmark has been mostly mutually beneficial, it has sometimes come at the expense of Greenland's people, environment, and wildlife.
Such was the case when a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber laden with four thermonuclear warheads crashed into the sea ice of Wolstenholme Fjord in 1968. The accident caused widespread radioactive contamination, and the nuclear fuel components of one of the bombs remain unrecovered to this day.
Elected officials from across Greenland and Denmark's political spectrum expressed alarm over the Trump administration's actions.
Outgoing Greenland Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede earlier this week
called Vance's trip "highly aggressive" and said that it "can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit."
"Because what is the security advisor doing in Greenland?" Egede asked. "The only purpose is to show a demonstration of power to us, and the signal is not to be misunderstood."
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke called Vance's remarks on Friday "a bit inappropriate," adding that maybe the Trump administration "should look at yourself in the mirror too."
"When the vice president.. creates an image that the only way Greenland can be protected is by coming under the American umbrella, so you can say that Greenland is already there," Løkke elaborated. "They are part of the common security umbrella that we created together with the Americans after the end of World War II called NATO."
"We have always looked at America like the nice big brother to help you out and now it's like the big brother is bullying you."
Ordinary Greenlanders and Danish residents of the island were not happy about the Trump delegation's visit.
Anders Laursen, who owns a local water taxi company, toldNBC News that "we have always looked at America like the nice big brother to help you out and now it's like the big brother is bullying you."
Nuuk resident Marie Olsen said of Vance, "I think he's a big child who wants it all."
In the Danish capital Copenhagen, hundreds of people rallied Friday against the U.S. delegation's visit to Greenland. One protester decried what she called the U.S. administration's "mafia methods."
"If you're a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn't matter," said one consumer advocate.
In what could be a U.S. first, President Donald Trump last week pardoned a criminal corporation, a move that largely flew under the proverbial radar amid his pardon spree for white-collar criminals including at least one of his supporters.
On March 28, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX; company co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed; and former business development chief Gregory Dwyer.
The company and the four men hads each pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act "by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate" anti-money laundering program, as required by law. In January, the U.S. Department of Justice sentenced BitMEX to a fine of $100 million, while the executives were sentenced to criminal probation and ordered to pay civil fines.
While experts noted that Trump acted within his rights to pardon the corporation, there is no known precedent for a president taking such action.
Trump's corporate pardon sends a clear message: “If you’re a corporation in a favored industry, you can break the law. You can get caught. You can be prosecuted and sentenced with a $100 million fine, and it doesn’t matter”
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— Rick Claypool (@rickclaypool.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Noting the U.S. Supreme Court's highly controversial 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling—which affirmed corporate personhood and the dubious notion that unlimited outside spending on political campaigns is free speech—Stanford Law School professor Bernadette Meyler toldThe Intercept that "while we have seen the rise of a trend of treating corporations as persons in other areas of law, we haven't seen that so far in the area of pardoning."
Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and preeminent pardons expert, wrote for The Hill on Tuesday that the BitMEX pardons send the message that "companies involved in financial crimes don't have to worry about accountability under this president, as least when it comes to crypto, for reasons that he has no incentive to ever make known."
"BitMEX can continue its prior criminal practices with federal impunity, and maybe even rely on the pardon to thwart future investigations into related conduct by federal lawmakers or state prosecutors," Wehle added. "The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people, including the more than 77 million who might finally be realizing that they voted for lawlessness last November."
"The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people."
Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor specializing in corporate crime and punishment, told The Intercept that the BitMEX pardons are part of a wider pattern of impunity under Trump, who "now seems to be systematically pardoning corporate malefactors left and right without respect, really, to any real serious consideration about the merits of the cases [or] the larger policy implications of issuing these pardons."
As the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen recently noted, "The Trump administration has dropped, withdrawn, or halted investigations and enforcement actions against over 100 corporations in its first two months in office."
Beneficiaries include companies owned or led by Trump donors or allies, including private prison giant GEO Group; Zelle network banks JPMorgan and Bank of America; crypto firms Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, OpenSea, Ripple, and Robinhood; and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
"Trump's corporate pardons show the president's true base is the billionaire executives and corporate elites lining up to indulge their greed at the trough of Trump's corruption," Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool said last week. "Trump's soft-on-corporate crime approach invites a corporate crime spree and potentially catastrophic abuses for America's consumers, workers, and communities."
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman added that the Trump administration's "effective no-enforcement policy against corporations virtually guarantees more financial scams, more workplace discrimination, more poisoning of the air and water, more food contamination, more fraud, more disease, and more preventable death."
"There must be accountability for this administration's dangerous disregard for our national security," said one Democratic congressman and former military prosecutor.
U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and members of his staff have created at least 20 group chats on the encrypted messaging app Signal to coordinate official work on sensitive policy issues around the world, four people who were added to such groups told Politico.
Waltz was already under fire for a group chat about the U.S. bombing Yemen when the report broke. Politico's Dasha Burns wrote on Wednesday that "none of the four individuals said they were aware of whether any classified information was shared, but all said that posts in group chats did include sensitive details of national security work."
The anonymous sources told Politico that the group chats involved policy issues involving China, Ukraine, Gaza, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. One of them said, "It was commonplace to stand up chats on any given national security topic," one of the four sources told the outlet.
The Politico article comes a day after The Washington Postreported that Waltz and other members of President Donald Trump's National Security Council conducted official government business via their personal Gmail accounts, which are far less secure than Signal chats.
The fresh revelations also come as "Signalgate"—in which Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other top Trump administration officials added a journalist to a Signal group chat about plans to bomb Yemen—still smolders.
Calls for Waltz's resignation or firing, which were already numerous in the wake of Signalgate, mounted Wednesday.
Resign.
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— Senator Ed Markey ( @markey.senate.gov) April 2, 2025 at 2:26 PM
"Waltz must resign. Hegseth must resign," Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the social media site Bluesky. "There must be accountability for this administration's dangerous disregard for our national security."
Referring to the Signal group chats, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) asked on the social media site X, "How many more are there?"
"Even Trump allies say this doesn't pass the smell test," he added. "National Security Adviser Waltz and Pete Hegseth need to be fired."
"He's taking a sledgehammer to the economy and pursuing unpopular, reckless trade policies that will do nothing to benefit workers and only serve to increase costs for consumers," warned one expert.
After U.S. President Donald Trump announced long-anticipated sweeping tariffs at the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday, economists, labor leaders, American lawmakers, and other critics reiterated that the move will negatively impact people worldwide.
The president revealed that on April 5, he will impose a 10% tariff on all imported goods and additional penalties for dozens of countries, including major trading partners—ignoring warnings that, as Jeffrey Sachs wrote in a Common Dreams opinion piece, his "tariffs will fail to close the trade and budget deficits, raise prices, and make America and the world poorer."
Trump's related executive order states that he finds "that underlying conditions, including a lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships, disparate tariff rates and nontariff barriers, and U.S. trading partners' economic policies that suppress domestic wages and consumption, as indicated by large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States."
The order adds that the "threat has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States in the domestic economic policies of key trading partners and structural imbalances in the global trading system," and declares a national emergency.
NBC Newsreported Wednesday that "global markets reacted sharply and swiftly... with investors fleeing U.S. stock indexes and companies that rely on global supply chains seeing their stocks plummet." The outlet noted that Dan Ives, an analyst at the investment firm Wedbush Securities, wrote, "President Trump just finished his tariff speech at the White House and we would characterize this slate of tariffs as 'worse than the worst case scenario' the street was fearing."
Trump framed this step in his trade war as "liberation day" and claimed that the duties are "reciprocal," but economists pushed back. Justin Wolfers at the University of Michigan said: "Trump announces his tariffs, which are (somehow?) related to the trade barriers other countries are imposing on the U.S. But... THE NUMBERS HE'S PRESENTING BEAR NO RELATION TO REALITY. It would be absurd to call these reciprocal tariffs. They're grievances."
Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens
said in a statement that "Americans have one simple request of President Trump: lower prices. Instead of answering the call, he's taking a sledgehammer to the economy and pursuing unpopular, reckless trade policies that will do nothing to benefit workers and only serve to increase costs for consumers."
"But Trump doesn't care about what happens to working families, as long as his billionaire donors and advisers are happy," she continued. "Republicans are already
chomping at the bit to use any potential tariff revenue to fund their next massive billionaire tax break."
Kobie Christian, a spokesperson for the national campaign Unrig Our Economy, similarly concluded that "there is no other way to say it—this is an out-of-touch policy designed by a billionaire and for billionaires."
"Virtually no one will benefit from these Republican-backed tariffs—except for the ultrawealthy who will get yet another tax break, paid for by working families," Christian added. "Small business owners will be forced to raise their prices to keep their businesses afloat, and Americans will have to pay even more for everyday goods. These tariffs could even push the economy into a recession. American workers need lower costs, not more tariffs and billionaire handouts."
American Economic Liberties Project's Rethink Trade director, Lori Wallach, declared that "the businesses that profiteered from our old broken trade system should pay for the necessary transition to more balanced trade, not American workers and consumers. President Trump must take immediate action to stop corporations from using the pretext of these tariffs to price gouge the very Americans already slammed by decades of bad trade policy and corporate greed."
Wallach was among those who pointed out that tariffs can be a vital tool. She explained that "Trump's announcement goes much broader, but tariffs against mercantilist countries like China, Germany, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to counter systemic trade abuses can help restore America's capacity to produce more of the critical products needed for American families to be healthy and safe and for our country to be more resilient and secure."
"But to deliver more American production and good jobs, the goal must be to balance trade, not equalize tariff rates, and tariffs must be consistent," she stressed. "Tariffs must be accompanied by other industrial policies like tax credits to build demand for U.S.-made goods, incentives for investment in new production capacity and bans on stock buybacks, and easier union formation so gains go to wages, not just profits."
The only thing being liberated today is money from the bank accounts of hard-working Americans.
— Robert Reich ( @rbreich.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions, also said that "the strategic use of tariffs can be an effective tool to support our industries and protect jobs at home. But they must be accompanied by policies that invest in our manufacturing base and a strong commitment to promoting workers' fundamental right to organize trade unions and bargain collectively."
"Unfortunately, the Trump administration's attacks on trade union workers' rights at home, gutting of the government agency that works to discourage the outsourcing of American jobs, and efforts to erode critical investments in U.S. manufacturing take us backward," she asserted. "We will continue to fight for trade policy that prioritizes the interests of working people without causing unnecessary economic pain for America's working families."
Some congressional Democrats shared similar criticism. Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell said that "when used strategically, tariffs are a critical tool to bring back jobs and support American workers and industries," but "I'm concerned about the chaotic and immediate implementation of these wide-reaching tariffs."
U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.)
wrote on social media that "Trump's dumb tariffs are going to drive up costs for real working people. Like the dad who is trying to save money by fixing his car at home. Those parts from AutoZone are made somewhere else and the prices will go up!"
As the White House circulated a multipage sheet of targeted countries, Gomez and Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) were among those who noticed that Russia—which is waging a yearslong war on Ukraine—is absent from the list.
Meanwhile, as critics including Aaron Reichlin-Melnick at the American Immigration Council highlighted, the list included the Australian territory of the Heard Island and McDonald Islands—even though the islands are "completely uninhabited."
"Population zero. I guess we're going to tariff the seagulls?" quipped Reichlin-Melnick. "It kind of feels like a White House intern went through Wikipedia's list of countries and just generated this list off of that with no further research."
Organizer Max Berger
wrote on Bluesky Wednesday, "I like how no one knows whether the president of the United States is going to tank the global economy because he's a fucking idiot—or if he's just doing a bit."