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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, a counseling newsletter about how to move on after breaking up with your best friend.

We had a bunch of policy disputes between senators in mind for this week’s list, but then the big fun thing happened and this edition became more of a detailed recap of a pro wrestling feud. Beyond that, we take a look at the 2026 Senate map and track some ex–Biden staff infighting for old times’ sake. All of that, plus the weather, coming up next.

Anyway: The main event!

1. Elon Musk and Donald Trump

If even these two can’t make it …

This week, nuclear fission was achieved in Washington as Donald Trump and Elon Musk finally broke up in one big, beautiful cloud of destruction. Just a week after leaving the government, Musk called on the GOP to “KILL” the “disgusting abomination” of the megabill Congress is working on. After Trump—gently, to be honest—said he was “very disappointed” in Musk, and suggested Musk was mad because the bill would put an abrupt end to electric vehicle tax credits, Musk really began to unload. “Without me,” he posted, “Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.” He added: “Such ingratitude.” Things continued to escalate as Trump suggested he’d eliminate Musk’s “Government Subsidies and Contracts.” Then Musk claimed that Trump was in “the Epstein files,” which is “the real reason they have not been made public.” Musk also suggested creating a new political party, replied “yes” to a tweet saying Trump should be impeached and replaced with Vice President J.D. Vance, and predicted that Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession later this year. Steve Bannon, an OG MAGA figure who’s long resented the recent entry of the techies into the tent, suggested that Trump should deport Musk.

What do we make of this? Primarily that it’s all delightful. But how about a fresh entry …

2. Elon Musk

Shoo!

Here we’ve got two world-historical narcissists who’ve already done so much work, together and separately, to destroy basic functions of the federal government, the American information ecosystem, and international alliances, enriching themselves with crypto schemes and through pressure to foreign countries along the way. So if we had to pick one getting the best of the other?

We want to see Trump embarrass this guy, of course. Git ’im Donny!! Don’t let the world’s ultimate oligarch, who has purchased a major communications platform to disseminate his personal propaganda, bully an elected official. Musk, in any of his involvements in public affairs, has never understood public sentiment or why there’s a system of government that prevents him, an unelected private citizen, from eliminating agencies that he has read conspiracy theories about. He has an even more vacant understanding of the legislative process than Trump and, unlike Trump, thinks the OBBBA would be more popular........

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