“Border Czar” Tom Homan has been, along with Stephen Miller, the public face of Trump border enforcement and anti-immigration politics going back to President Trump’s first administration, when he was briefly acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But in recent days, in a series of increasingly belligerent and menacing interviews, he’s appeared in either faux military uniforms or, in most cases, civilian garb clearly meant to appear like military-style fatigues along with a ever-changing run of camo or olive drab baseball caps.

In my first post I wanted to make clear the specifics of what was happening with the National Guard. The President has the power to federalize the State National Guards. I wanted to make sure everyone knew that this is not a power Trump made up. It’s within his power and authority. As far as I know the last time this was done over the objection of state’s governor was during the Civil Rights era to enforce federal civil rights law. But every Presidential power can be abused and this is the one perhaps most liable to abuse. This whole situation is a definitional abuse of power. It is a wholly manufactured crisis. The President has the authority to federalize the National Guard. But the powers he takes from that decision are far from unlimited.

This is serious enough to break in on the weekend.

You’ve seen the intentionally provocative ICE raids in LA and the protests spawned by them. A short time ago White House immigration Czar Tom Homan said he was sending in the National Guard to control the situation. It wasn’t clear what he meant since the California National Guard reports to the Governor of California. The President has to nationalize the Guard to put it under his command. About fifteen minutes ago Gov. Newsom tweeted out a statement that the President is in fact nationalizing the California State Guard. The exact words from his statement were “the federal government is moving to take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers.” But that’s clear what that means.

We’ve clearly clarified that the Elon-Trump feud is real. I assume you’ve seen or heard about the back-and-forth social media salvos in which Trump has threatened to terminate Musk’s companies’ contracts. Musk has claimed responsibility for Trump’s election and claims Trump is in the “Epstein Files.”

Musk has now at least shown that he’s serious about this, not just whining about the “Big, Beautiful Bill” which the White House and the Hill mainly didn’t care about. This is a truly sui generis situation in the sweep of American history, in large part because we’ve never had a U.S. President who is governing in the way Donald Trump is or willing to do the things he’s willing to do. We’ve also not really — though here history’s analogs are less certain — had a plutocrat with Musk’s scale of wealth and hold over multiple critical industries. There are even fun side questions: who gets custody of Katie Miller? (Google it.)

We seem to be moving toward a bit more real animus between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Musk keeps attacking Trump’s budget bill on Twitter. Trump has now stopped saying they’re actually best buds. In comments today he’s saying, albeit very tepidly, that the friendship seems to be over. I remain agnostic on where this dispute goes and whether it will amount to anything. What I see mostly is that Musk just looks incredibly small and diminished at the moment. The response from Republican members of Congress seems like a general, “Thank you so much for sharing your views” kind of thing.

I hear from the D.C. publications that Republican electeds are on edge. But they don’t seem on edge. They don’t seem afraid of Musk. Or perhaps it’s better to say they’re much, much more afraid of Trump, which amounts to the same thing. But even his criticisms, while notionally biting and intense, feel sulky and ineffectual.

A few quick thoughts on the apparent falling out between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

I don’t have more than speculation on what these two guys are thinking or feeling. But the White House took a big swipe at Musk by canning Musk’s handpicked NASA chief the day after his cringey departure ceremony. That action both took something valuable away from Musk and treated him with a very public disrespect. So while Musk is clearly trying to undo the ocean of brand damage he brought on himself and his companies, I don’t think the White House is playing along and trying to help with that project. I think they’re really trying to show him who’s boss, a classic example of Trumpian dominance politics.

But here’s the thing. Both of these guys have very big weapons each can use against the other. Musk can invest money against the GOP budget bill or GOP incumbents. Meanwhile, Trump can start canceling all those contracts Musk handed out to himself and his friends while he was running DOGE. Neither of those things has happened. Until it does, none of this really seems in earnest. Musk can whine. And it will get some headlines. But I don’t think they really care about his whining.

One additional note apart from this purported feud. Musk isn’t shifting sides here. He’s complaining that the cuts to social programs in the GOP budget aren’t deep enough. He claims this is about growing deficits. But he’s not said anything about the centerpiece high income tax cuts which are the drivers of those deficits. So while it’s probably obvious to most of you reading this, it’s important to note that Musk isn’t in any way switching sides. He’s endorsing a sort of Freedom Caucus position. Musk could create problems for Trump and the bill on that front. But there are limits to how much running room he has there. There’s certainly Republican appetite for more cuts. But I suspect that most Republicans, even those who want more savage spending cuts, know how hard it was to put this together and don’t want to upset this apple cart. The bigger the fight, the better for Democrats. If it happens … But I’m skeptical.