Keeping the secret from Russia meant keeping it from Trump

Ukraine’s devastating attack on Russia’s air force last week was unbelievably impressive, but was made all the more so after reports that the White House was caught completely flat-footed. “No duh,” readers may be saying. “Everyone knows you can’t tell Donald Trump, because he’d immediately squeal to Vladimir Putin.”

Here’s the thing: Ukraine has been planning this for a year and a half, well before Trump was re-elected. It’s possible that Ukraine shared this plan with American intelligence while Joe Biden was still in office, and our intelligence forces were willing to lie to Trump to protect Ukraine. What’s likelier is that Ukraine’s leaders, knowing Trump could win, kept the U.S. out of the loop entirely.

Americans should be ashamed that Ukraine had to do that. But good on them for finding a way to demoralize Russia while also signaling to Trump they aren’t as weak as he thinks.

Musk isn’t capable of making good choices

During his Friday press event with Trump, Elon Musk was looking as rough as I’ve ever seen him. It’s not just that he was sporting a black eye, but he was pale, sick-looking, and saggy, like he hadn’t slept in a week. He was even more rambling and incoherent than usual, to the point where Trump had to save him a couple of times. When Trump outdoes you in the “making sense” department, you’re having a rough tim, Elon.

This was on the immediate heels of a New York Times report detailing allegations of Musk’s extensive, chronic drug use. I’m skeptical that Musk has any intention of “stepping back” from the White House. Seeing how wrecked he looked, I wondered for a moment if he really had hit his limit. But then Trump confirmed that Musk is “not really leaving.” Of course not. Musk’s a narcissist who thinks he can handle all this while being so high on ketamine that it’s causing bladder issues. No way will he let go of power.

That this “farewell” is just a dog-and-pony show to trick his corporate board and investors was confirmed again Sunday, during Musk’s pre-taped interview with CBS. When David Pogue asked about DOGE and Trump’s tariffs, Musk got angry, saying, “I think we want to stick to the subject of the day, which is, like, spaceships as opposed to presidential policy.”

Which is to say, he views CBS News not as a respectable journalism outlet, but instead feels like they should offer him a free platform to advertise his business to investors. And worse, that they should promote his ludicrous, thoroughly debunked claims that he can terraform and populate Mars with people.

That level of petulant entitlement does not lend itself to a story where Musk humbly returns to life as a businessman. He’s going to slink back into the White House, where he exerts immense control over the president.

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AI has one function: propaganda for lazy people

On Monday, Heather “Digby” Parton wrote an important article about the “Trump administration has embarked on a concerted effort to end America's role as a world leader in science and innovation,” comparing it to the brain drain caused when the Nazis drove scientists and academics out of Germany. For the Nazis, it was ideological and anti-semitic, but for MAGA, it’s often way more about ego — and the inability of narcissistic leaders like President Drink Bleach to accept that other people know more than they do about anything, much less about science.

We also saw how much Robert Kennedy is motivated by contempt for science last week, when it was revealed that the big HHS “report” on children’s health had a bunch of broken links, fake studies, and misrepresentations. This wasn’t just the usual lying from MAGA, however. The document had all the red flags that experts say show a document was written by a language learning program like ChatGPT, which is falsely called “artificial intelligence” by the Silicon Valley hypesters.

Kennedy thinks everyone else shares his contempt for science. He figured as long as the document bore a passing resemblance to a real scientific survey, no one would bother to look more closely, and just accept his conclusions at face value. And there was an unfortunate first round of reporting that took the document seriously. Far too many journalists failed to ask how it was possible that a comprehensive scientific review could have been written in a couple of months.

A group of dedicated reporters, putting far more work into their project than HHS did in generating it, took a week to suss out how much of it was fabricated, likely by ChatGPT. That’s because they did take a moment to read the “report” and ask basic questions about how quickly it was generated. And now a Google search about the report turns up mostly stories about how fake it is, and how Kennedy is a big, fat liar. One who underestimates the people he’s trying to fool.

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What we're reading this week

• “What we didn't learn from Depp v. Heard,” Kat Tenbarge, Spitfire News

• “Oklahoma parents fight back,” Judd Legum, Popular Information

• “There’s No Trumponomics Without the Tradwife,” Isabel Cristo, New York

• “RFK Jr. is looking in the wrong place for autism’s cause,” Dylan Scott, Vox

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