The Fox & Friends spin was a sure sign that yes, Trump is definitely bothered by “President Musk” memes. They hosts also described Musk's tweets as "a warning shot from the president."

On Fox & Friends yesterday morning, the show opened with discussions about the looming government shutdown (it was averted late last night).

Let’s be clear about what happened: Speaker Mike Johnson negotiated a bipartisan deal to fund the government that was set to go until Elon Musk started tweeting, with a bunch of disinformation, that the deal should be rejected. The MAGA Republicans fell in line. “Deal maker” Donald Trump seemed to leave it all up to his megadonor and apparent puppetmaster, Musk.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal summed it up nicely when she posted, “There was a bipartisan deal to stop a government shutdown. But now, shadow President Elon Musk is calling the shots and Mike Johnson, Trump, and Republicans are falling in line. It’s clear who’s in charge.”

Ruh-roh!

Meanwhile, President-Unelected Musk started whining on Friday what seemed to me an implicit admission that he is indeed calling the shots: “The political & legacy media puppets all got their new instructions yesterday and are now parroting the same message to drive a wedge between [Trump] and me. They will fail,” he tweeted. I noticed his message is not that Trump is really in charge but that there’s no wedge between them.

Well, maybe no wedge yet. The New Republic reported yesterday, “On Thursday, a Trump spokesperson insisted that the president-elect, and no one else, was in charge, saying, ‘President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.’” Which is a good indication that a wedge is forming, if not already there.

Friday morning, Fox & Friends quickly got to sending the same message. Their discussion about the budget negotiations, just a few minutes into the show, displayed large photos of Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson.  Musk was not in those pictures. Cohost Lawrence Jones offered up his written notes of a conversation with Trump the night before.

First, Jones relayed that Trump has “full confidence” in Johnson and that Trump blames the House Freedom Caucus, not Mike Johnson for the Republican revolt against the bill.

Jones “forgot” to mention Musk’s role in killing the original bill.

Then Jones inadvertently revealed that Trump is too lazy to deal with the negotiations himself. “I asked him about him going to Washington himself to handle negotiations,” Jones reported. “He said that’s a possibility but there’s about to be a shutdown and he’s prepared for the shutdown.” Then, Trump blamed his own laziness on President Joe Biden, “Why am I handling this negotiation when we have a current president in Joe Biden?” Jones quoted Trump as saying. Then why is Musk? The question did not seem to occur to Jones.

Finally, Jones got to President-Unelected Musk. Rather than tell viewers that Musk hasn’t been running the show, Lawrence attacked Democrats for stating the obvious. The deflection was another sign that the President Musk title is appropriate.

JONES: The last thing I say on this, because a lot of people are coming out there and saying that Elon Musk is the president-elect. The Democrats have to pick a talking point. Either Donald Trump is going to be a dictator on Day One and run everything and ruin the infrastructure of the country, or he’s ceded his power to Elon Musk. It can’t be both.

Yes, it can be both. Clearly, Trump sees Musk as his soulmate in far-right dictatorship, and with good reason.

Cohost Brian Kilmeade jumped in to tweak the messaging. The Democrats were beside the point, for the moment. “The Musk thing didn’t bother the president,” Kilmeade gently prompted.

“No, it did not bother the president,” Jones agreed. “As I said yesterday, the Musk tweet was a warning shot from the president. They’re in lockstep on this. This is why the president appointed him for this commission [cutting spending for regular folks to help pay for more tax cuts to billionaires). Him and Vivek, they’re doing what the president wants them to do.”

So, the Trump/Fox spin is that Musk is secretly doing Trump’s bidding and that’s why he’s not bothered by references to President Musk. Got it.

But Jones did not say Musk is doing what Trump wants. He said Musk is "doing what the president wants." Freudian slip as to who the president really is? I don't pretend to know. But I do know that Donald Trump is not the president, Joe Biden is.

You can watch what I think is evidence that Trump is bothered below, from the December 20, 2024 Fox & Friends.