In 2016, candidate Donald Trump made his position on H-1B visas very clear.
Asked by Megyn Kelly for his views on "highly skilled immigration," Trump ridiculed the H-1B system as "neither high-skilled, nor immigration."
He vowed to end "rampant, widespread H-1B abuse" and "end forever the use of H-1B as a cheap labor program."
Trump was particularly incensed by the "outrageous practices... that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements."
"I will... institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions," he said.
In 2024, Trump made an exception
Perhaps you have already heard of the man who Donald Trump trained to become his "foreign replacement."
If not, here's a brief introduction to the fellow, courtesy of Gil Duran:
In 1992, a young African immigrant arrived in the United States on a student visa. But he quickly dropped out of school and, like so many immigrants before him, he worked illegally to survive and make his way.
Eventually, with lots of government help, he became a billionaire. His name is Elon Musk, and he now seems to think he's president of the United States, even though the Constitution explicitly bans foreigners from taking that job.
But anything is possible in America. Just don't tell MAGA. They would be quite upset to realize that the Republican Party has been purchased by a godless Africa-born globalist billionaire who wants to put a chip in what's left of their brains.
Less than six months after welcoming Elon Musk to the MAGA team, Trump has now confirmed that the "godless Africa-born globalist billionaire" is, indeed, calling all the shots.
And he did it in the Trumpiest way possible, by claiming that he always loved H-1B visas as much as the world's richest illegal immigrant.
Little more than a week ago, Trump allowed himself to be humiliated by South Africa's goofiest export, who threatened to shut down the US government at Christmas if he wasn't allowed to build a massive new factory in... checks notes... China.
The Republican Congress made the humiliation complete by bowing to Musk's demands regarding his Chinese factory while ignoring Trump's insistence that the GOP abolish the debt ceiling before Musk and he take office.
Trump golfs while MAGA burns
This weekend, Trump isn't even pretending to indulge the likes of Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer in their "civil war" with Musk over H-1B visas.
Trump went into full beta cuck mode, spending Boxing Day golfing in Florida, before publicly kissing Elon's ring and endorsing America's need for immigrants smarter than your average MAGA voter.
Meanwhile, Bannon (who called Musk a "toddler") and Loomer (who called Elon a "stage 5 clinger") were left hanging in the wind.
Of course, no one knows better than Bannon what Musk has clearly figured out in his brief period of Presidential training: Trump is a mentally feeble 78-year-old with no core values and no interest in doing the actual work of being President.
Even in Trump's first term, "Bannon thought Donald Trump was suffering from early-stage dementia and campaigned covertly to remove him from office via the 25th amendment."
Musk clearly feels empowered to tell the likes of Bannon—and even, I suspect, Trump—to "fuck themselves in the face" any time they disagree with him.
Because when Musk goes to war, he's got the biggest budget of any individual on Earth. And money aside, he already owns two of the world's most powerful weapons: 1) X; and 2) The same 25th amendment that Bannon failed to execute last time around.
In the new administration, Musk has a compliant, pro-Indian-immigrant Vice President already in place. And Musk has already snookered Trump into publicly demanding that Vance must use the 25th amendment—or face impeachment—if the President shows signs of cognitive impairment.
Trump clearly knows by now that his Presidency-in-name-only could be ended swiftly by a tweetstorm by Shadow President Musk.
Imagine the impact of a few hundred tweets from Elon to his 200M+ followers describing his up-close-and-personal observations of the aging Trump's accelerating mental deterioration—combined with urgent demands that Vance replace him lickety-split.
By siding with Elon early—weeks before the official inauguration of the Mump Regime—Trump is letting his longest-suffering MAGA supporters know there's a new Dear Leader in town.
And Musk is making sure that MAGA influencers know that, if they want to stay monetized, it's time to abandon one of the cornerstones of their "populist" grift or get off the gravy train.
*I stole my headline from this tweet:
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P.S. This really is the time to get off X once and for all. Please find me on Bluesky and these other places.
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