President Lincoln had a team of rivals. President Trump has a team of conspiracy mongers.

Do you remember when Republicans raised holy hell about the people around President Obama? They obsessed over Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, who made inflammatory statements about race. How many conservative media segments fixated on Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground, claiming Obama “kicked off his political career in the guy’s living room?”

In today’s Trump-led Republican Party, there is a far more alarming cast of characters firmly in the mainstream of Trump’s power.

Here is a look at the views of some eye-opening players exercising actual power and making actual policy in the Trump administration.

Elon Musk: Last week, Musk’s alliance with Trump blew up in a memorable episode of social media back-stabbing worthy of a reality television show. The clash left them both bloodied.

But before the personal drama, Musk left a trail of human wounds, fear and confusion with his erratic, reckless firing of tens of thousands of federal workers as well as devil-may-care spending cuts throughout the federal government. And according to the New York Times, Musk was regularly taking drugs during last year’s campaign, in which he was the president’s top donor.

This led one Democratic lawmaker to question whether Musk was regularly taking drugs as a special government employee this year. Trump allowed the unelected Musk to swing a metaphorical chainsaw — he actually did wield a literal one on stage — at government agencies and their workers.

Some of those cuts, particularly to the U.S. Agency for International Development, have canceled vital medical treatment, resulting in needless suffering and

© The Hill