Elon and Peter Navarro Squashed Beef
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Coming soon. Now let's get into this episode. Peter Navarro says there's no bad blood. That's his story. Even after Elon Musk called him a moron and said he was dumber than a sack of bricks. So the obvious question, how do two top Trump world figures go from public name calling to pretending everything is just fine?

Appearing on Meet the Press, Navarro shrugged off the insult. He said, Elon and I are great. He laughed about it. He said, I've been called worse. Despite the viral shots that Elon Musk took at him last week, Navarro insisted there's no rift between the two, even going as far as praising Elon for his work with the Trump administration's Doge. It's controversial, of course. And it's slashing federal jobs. And that's where Elon Musk and Navarro

are similarly like this. Their apparent disagreement started over tariffs. Musk, who called for a zero-tariff situation between the US and Europe, finds himself at odds with Trump's trade agenda. Navarro, defending steep tariffs as a negotiation tactic,

He does not side with Elon Musk on this. He wants heavier imports from China, Japan, and Taiwan. And Navarro's words on CNBC last week were blunt. He said, Elon may be seen as an automaker, but in the administration's eyes, he's more of an auto assembler. Now, the administration, Navarro said, wants the entire supply chain from tires in Akron to engines in Flint to be American.

That framing didn't sit well with Musk, who fired back on X calling Navarro a moron and saying Tesla builds the most American-made cars of any brand. Musk didn't stop there. He sarcastically apologized, not to Navarro, but to Bricks, saying the comparison was unfair to them.

Still on Sunday, Navarro kept the peace publicly. He praised Musk's efforts in rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse through the government efficiency program, an effort that's helped facilitate the layoff of thousands of federal workers. Now, that's a central part of Trump's push to shrink the federal bureaucracy. Now, the drama between Musk and Navarro unfolded as the Trump administration temporarily eased some of its proposed tariffs last week.

After posing sweeping new trade barriers in early April, Trump announced a 90-day pause on many of the duties, a move Navarro described as strategic. He claimed it had opened the door to active negotiations with nearly 90 countries. Pressed for details on which countries are in talks, Navarro didn't give a full list, but he did name the UK, European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, and Israel as being a discussion. Notably missing, though, is China.

Instead, Navarro accused China of more than trade manipulation. He blamed the country for the spread of fentanyl and the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing. Asked whether talks with Beijing are ongoing, he replied that the U.S. had extended an invitation but gave no indication of progress. Meanwhile, the administration has moved to exempt certain consumer electronics, such as smartphones and laptops, from the new tariffs for now.

And Navarro argued these exemptions were tied to the complexity of the microchip supply chain, not any softening of trade policy. He said, you don't buy chips in bags. They come inside products. Now, that made targeting tariffs harder to apply, prompting the Commerce Department to begin investigating the chip supply chain directly.

Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick expanded on that on this week. He confirmed that a new wave of semiconductor-focused tariffs is coming in the next month or two, and those duties, Letnick said, will aim to bring the chip manufacturing process back to the U.S. despite current exemptions on products like smartphones.

In other words, the electronics that just got a temporary break from tariffs. They'll likely be hit again soon, just under a different label. And despite public disagreements on trade, Navarro insists the administration is unified. The tariffs, he claims, are functioning exactly as intended, forcing countries to the negotiating table. His description of the president's temporary pause on duties wasn't...

Just strategic, he called it a birdie, a golf metaphor suggesting it was better than expected.

And Navarro's message on Sunday was consistent. Tariffs are a tool, not the endgame. The administration is betting that applying pressure, then offering temporary relief, will lead to better deals for American workers and manufacturers in the future. And as for the Musk feud, Navarro made it clear he's not interested in escalating. Whatever Musk says online, Navarro's staying on message, trade policy, not personal drama, is the priority.

at least for now. And Peter Navarro didn't dismiss any feud with Elon Musk as just a rift after being publicly insulted, being called dumber than a bag of bricks. But he maintained alignment with the administration's trade policy and said recent tariff shifts are part of a calculated negotiation effort.

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