MAGA backlash as Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy defend visa program for skilled workers: Live updates
MAGA supporters clash with top Trump lieutenants as they laud the benefits of H-1B visa program for American companies
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Your support makes all the difference.Supporters of President-elect Donald Trump are bashing two of his top lieutenants, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, after they both defended a visa program for skilled workers.
Ramaswamy, who will lead the outside commission known as the Department of Government Efficiency alongside Musk, blamed a number of 1990s sitcoms for emphasizing the wrong values.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he wrote in a post on X.
“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent,” Musk wrote on Wednesday on X. “It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.”
The “number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” he later added. “Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”
That triggered pushback on social media.
“Nobody should come from another country taking American citizens’ jobs,” responded one user, who said they worked in the internet technology field and had witnessed American workers lose status. “This needs more vetting as a policy prior to going ahead with it as it is not America Citizens First.”
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‘Should MAGA stay home in 2026?’ Laura Loomer wages ‘racist’ war against ‘tech bros’ over Indian migrants
Trump acolyte and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer is threatening to tell MAGA to “stay home” during the next midterm elections amid an escalating feud with “tech bros” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over Silicon Valley’s reliance on foreign-born workers.
Justin Baragona reports:
‘Should MAGA stay home in 2026?’ Laura Loomer wages ‘racist’ war against ‘tech bros’
The far-right provacateur is taking aim at Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over their support of highly skilled workers from India, claiming that the country’s residents have a low IQ and describing Indians as “third world invaders.”
Nation’s largest Latino civil rights group blasts Republican figure’s viral ‘execution’ video
A video from aspiring Republican political figure Valentina Gomez shows her firing a handgun into the back of the head of a dummy tied to a chair with a black bag over its head.
“It’s that simple, public executions for any illegal that rapes or kills an American. They don’t deserve deportation, they deserve to be ended,” she says.
The widely derided video has been condemned for glorifying “the type of vigilantism that has led to deadly consequences in our nation and feeds into the anti-immigrant lie,” according to League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights group.
“LULAC denounces violent crime in our nation and expresses its deepest condolences to its victims and their loved ones,” the group’s presidet Roman Palomares said in a staatement.
“However, we believe in the Christian principles of justice, not retribution. Using public executions as a hook to a politically motivated message fuels blind hatred. This kind of language is intended to appeal to an extreme base of individuals who believe the lie that all immigrants are here to harm others.”
More on the backlash to the Gomez’s latest stunt:
Aspiring MAGA congresswoman performs mock ‘execution’ of migrant in disturbing video
Valentina Gomez, who lost the race to become Missouri Secretary of State earlier this year, that undocumented persons who committed violent crimes ‘deserve to be ended’
Full story: Vivek Ramaswamy blames '90s sitcoms for tech companies hiring smarter immigrant workers
Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the leaders of the Trump administration’s incoming Department of Government Efficiency, blamed a series of 1990s TV sitcoms for what he saw as a decline in U.S. dynamism in science and technology, leading tech companies to hire more qualified foreign-born and first-generation workers over their mentally lazy American counterparts.
His comments follow wider tensions within the Trump coalition, which includes both far-right anti-immigration views, and an increasing embrace of the tech industry, whose workforce is highly diverse and made up of many immigrants and first-generation Americans.
The Independent’s Josh Marcus reports:
Vivek Ramaswamy blames 90s sitcoms for tech companies hiring immigrant workers
Trump coalition’s hardline anti-immigrant stance is clashing with concurrent embrace of tech world, often highly diverse
Rudy Giuliani tells judge ‘I gave everything I have to give’ as he braces for contempt hearing
Embattled former New York City mayor and Trump’s one-time attorney Rudy Giuliani will face a contempt hearing on January 3 related to his court-ordered turnover of his property to a pair of election workers he defamed.
In a series of court filings on Christmas Eve, Giuliani pleaded with a judge to reject their demands for sanctions.
The latest on Giuliani’s legal woes:
Rudy Giuliani tells judge ‘I gave everything I have to give’ as he faces contempt
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Vivek Ramaswamy appears to blame ‘90s sitcom tropes to explain why foreign tech workers are superior
Vivek Ramaswamy, who is working with the incoming Trump administration alongside Elon Musk to recommend drastic cuts in government spending, wrote a lengthy post on X arguing that the dominance of pop cultural tropes about “nerdiness” and veneration of “jocks” explains why tech companies rely on foreign workers.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer),” he wrote. “That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
His comments follow Elon Musk’s support for H-1B visas, non-immigrant visas that allow companies to hire foreign workers. His Tesla is among the leading employers for foreign-born engineers and scientists, receiving 742 approved H-1B petitions in 2024, according to Forbes.
Musk, a prominent anti-immigration activist who was born in South Africa, also is the recipient of an H-1B visa.
“As a reminder to Vivek, Saved by the Bell went off the air in 1993, just three years after Congress last made any major changes to the legal immigration process,” reminded Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. “The world he’s describing hasn’t existed for decades.”
Trump’s ‘made in USA’ bitcoin vow not based ‘in reality’
It’s unlikely Donald Trump will be able to realize his campaign promise that all remaining Bitcoin will be made in the U.S., according to observers who know the industry.
The Independent’s Josh Marcus explains:
Trump’s ‘made in USA’ bitcoin promise not based ‘in reality’
Trump has promised to make US the ‘crypto capital of the planet’
'Exhausted’ Americans are tuning out politics, according to cable news ratings and recent poll
A new Associated Press poll finds that most Americans are worn out since Donald Trump’s electoral victory and have tuned out from political news.
The Independent’s Justin Baragona takes a look:
‘Exhausted’ Americans are tuning out politics, according to TV ratings and new poll
According to a new AP poll, about two-thirds of Americans have grown exhausted following Donald Trump’s election and are now limiting their consumption of political media.
Trump names nominee for Panama ambassador after suggesting U.S. would seize control of canal
Trump has nominated Miami-Dade Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera for U.S. ambassador to Panama, “a Country that is ripping us off on the Panama Canal, far beyond their wildest dreams,” the president-elect Trump announced on Christmas Eve.
“Few understand Latin American politics as well as Kevin,” Trump said.
Cabrera also served as state director for Florida in Trump’s 2020 campaign and is vice chair of Miami-Dade’s International Trade Consortium.
His nomination follows a seemingly random attack suggesting that the U.S. would seize control of the Panama Canal, part of a series of statements aimed at other countries in a signal that his administration is threatening U.S. territorial expansion to bully sovereign nations to his economic demands.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino fired back, emphasizing the canal would remain under Panama’s control.
“The sovereignty and independence of our country is non-negotiable,” he said.
Trump posts flurry of endorsements for Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem day after Christmas
In a flurry of posts on his Truth Social account, Trump has shared several pieces from right-wing media outlets and other commentators supporting his nominees for Homeland Security and Department of Defense secretaries.
Trump had continued to stand by former Fox News host Pete Hegseth despite coming under fire for allegations of sexual harassment, nonprofit mismanagement, alcohol abuse and sexual assault, among other controversies, since the president-elect named him to lead the Pentagon.
The president-elect also shared letters from the Fraternal Order of Police supporting Kristi Noem, Trump’s pick to lead the massive Homeland Security law enforcement umbrella agency.
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