Lawrence O’Donnell cuts right to the heart of the hypocrisy. Trump’s tariff tantrum was never about “America First” or restoring American industry — it was about showmanship and playing to the base. But the moment those tariffs threatened to hurt his allies in the billionaire class? Cue the backpedaling.

And Elon musk is not finished. Elon Musk needs to be exempted from the goods coming into this country from China, because assembling a Tesla in the United States involves using components built in China.

Elon Musk needing exemptions proves the point: the global economy isn’t something you can bully into submission with isolationist bluster. Even the companies that wrap themselves in the American flag rely on international supply chains. Tesla isn’t built in a vacuum — it’s built with parts from China, minerals from Africa, software from Europe.

And so, once again, Trump folds when real-world complexity crashes into his simplistic rhetoric. His tariffs, just like his entire economic worldview, are a house of cards — and people like O’Donnell are among the few still willing to say it plainly.