WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Putting a damper on Monday’s Inauguration festivities, Vivek Ramaswamy became the first casualty in what political observers are calling the survival of the shittiest.

As the first passenger to be ejected from Donald J. Trump’s clown Cybertruck, Ramaswamy was required to relinquish his parking pass, security badge, and Trump Bible.

Speaking to reporters, Elon Musk put the best face on Ramaswamy’s abrupt departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), asserting, “DOGE’s mission is to cut waste, and at the end of the day, no one was a bigger waste than Vivek.”

Among the most glaring problems with the remarks were contradictions that dominated the new/old president’s speech. On the one hand, it was needlessly small and petty, referencing wins in “swing states” and the popular vote, hardly the stuff of a traditional inaugural address. On the other hand, the same prepared speech also pitched overly ambitious ideas, such as putting Americans on Mars — a goal that certainly will not happen before 2029.

But just as importantly, Trump relied heavily on the kind of brazen falsehoods and wild exaggerations that are rarely heard in inaugural addressed that are traditionally about the nation’s future.''''

He condemned “the vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department,” which did not happen in reality.
He said North Carolinians were “treated so badly” by the government, but his post-hurricane lies have been repeatedly and thoroughly discredited.
He claimed the United States has provided “sanctuary and protection” for immigrants “from prisons and mental institutions.” Trump has said this before, but there’s literally no evidence to support the rhetoric.
He said wildfires in the Los Angeles area have burned “without even a token of defense,” which would probably come as a surprise to firefighters in the area.
Trump complained about “record inflation” in the Biden era, apparently indifferent to the fact that inflation rates were nowhere near record highs.
He vowed to “revoke the electric vehicle mandate,” adding that Americans will soon be able to “buy the car of your choice.” In reality, there is no electric vehicle mandate, and consumers can already buy the car of their choice.
Trump promised to “tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” despite the fact that it’s impossible to impose tariffs to “enrich” Americans, and there’s also no way for the United States to “tax foreign countries.”
He described “a national energy emergency,” necessitating “drill, baby, drill,” which was bizarre given that domestic oil production hasn’t just reached an all-time high in the United States, it’s also outpaced every other country on the planet.
Trump decried “devastating crime” rates, despite the fact that crimes went down, not up, during the Biden era.

I could keep going, but you probably get the idea.

At face value, the fact that Trump couldn’t even get through a relatively brief inaugural address without peddling fictions probably didn’t surprise those who watched his remarks. The president is, after all, one of the most dishonest public figures in the history of American politics.

But inaugural addresses are rarely filled with lies, and the fact that the Republican couldn’t stick to reality with the eyes of the world and the eyes of history upon him tells us quite a bit about what to expect from Trump’s second term.

Elon Musk’s use of hand gestures that critics are comparing to a fascist salute is quickly taking on a life of its own on social media.

The tech billionaire offered a vigorous, straight-armed salute Monday while on the stage at Capitol One Arena as he told the crowd “My heart goes out to you.”

Critics on social media immediately compared the gesture to a “Sieg Heil,” the victory salute used to excite crowds in Nazi Germany.

“I never imagined we would see the day when what appears to be a heil Hitler salute would be made behind the Presidential seal,” Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler wrote on X. “This abhorrent gesture has no place in our society and belongs in the darkest chapters of human history.’’

Republicans Against Trump, which has nearly 800,000 followers on Musk’s platform X, posted a clip of the gesture, writing “Wait, did Musk just do a Nazi salute?”

A representative for Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk has been reposting content on X to his nearly 215 million followers, including clips of his remarks, but has not responded to the controversy.

In fact, as NBC News reported, the world’s wealthiest individual apparently has some specific opinions about what voters in Europe’s largest country should do next.

Elon Musk waded into Germany’s election Friday, expressing his support for a far-right anti-immigrant and anti-Islam party that’s being monitored by the country’s domestic intelligence agency. ‘Only the AfD can save Germany,’ the tech billionaire wrote on X, referring to the Alternative for Germany party.

......The NBC News report, meanwhile, added:

The party is monitored by the country’s domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism. Party leader Björne Höcke has twice been found guilty by a German court of purposefully employing Nazi rhetoric. He has appealed the rulings. And in May the party’s top candidate, Maximilian Krah, was forced to withdraw from campaigning after he told an Italian newspaper that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were ‘not all criminals.’

It’s against this backdrop that Musk publicly declared that he sees the AfD as Germany’s “only” saviors.

The fact that the conspiratorial billionaire has expressed support for such a radical foreign party would, of course, be far less interesting in the United States were it not for the fact that Musk has become a highly relevant figure in American politics, effectively purchasing electoral influence, attaching himself to an incoming president, sitting in on meetings with foreign leaders, huddling with members of Congress, helping kill legislation for reasons that don’t make sense, weighing in on Cabinet choices and heading up a powerless advisory panel that the political world is pretending has real authority.

This is the guy who’s also, evidently, hoping to see Europe’s largest country in far-right hands

Hillary Clinton visibly laughed as Trump takled about renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

She also shook her head when he talked about the Panama Canal, which Trump wants to bring back under U.S. control.

The legal resistance to President Donald Trump has already begun.

Within minutes of Trump taking the oath of office, at least three lawsuits were filed in federal court in Washington, seeking to shut down Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” until it complies with transparency rules related to governmental advisory entities.

The lawsuits allege that the project Trump announced to target government waste violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act by giving private individuals roles in the government decision-making process without the public access the law requires.

Days after his election in November, Trump pledged to set up DOGE, headed by Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Trump mentioned the so-called department during his inaugural address and aides said he plans to issue an executive order later Monday formalizing the efficiency-seeking enterprise.....

The president does not have the authority to create official government departments without Congress passing a law to do so, but Trump seems intent on calling the anti-bureaucracy project a department regardless.

One of the suits, filed by Public Citizen, the State Democracy Defenders Fund and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, contends DOGE has breached FACA, which the lawsuit says is intended to prevent such efforts from “turning into vehicles for advancing private interests in the federal decision-making process.”