Musk and Trump Continue to Bash Reporters for Doing Their Jobs; the Local Devastation Caused by ICE Enforcement–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: July 27, 2026

Indy Digest: July 27, 2026

The news media is not perfect. At times, people in power—politicians, business leaders, etc.—may have justified gripes regarding certain stories and even certain media sources.

But when someone in power criticizes a wide swath of news, all the time, that is a bright, red, honking warning signal about that person in power.

Today, let’s look at two of these bright, red, honking warning signals, regarding two of the most powerful men in the world.

First: An update, of sorts, from The Washington Post regarding the president’s disgraceful remarks at the disgraceful White House Correspondents’ Association dinner over the weekend (gift link):

President Donald Trump escalated his attacks on the news media over the weekend, following a blistering address at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner by posting an edited image mocking CNN’s Kaitlan Collins—a personal jab later amplified by an official White House social media account.

Trump posted the edited image to Truth Social on Sunday, replacing transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s face in a mock Bud Light advertisement with Collins’, in a nod to the beer brand’s 2023 partnership with Mulvane—a campaign that triggered a right-wing boycott. …

Trump—who, after a gunman interrupted the initial dinner in April, had promised to deliver “a speech of love”—critiqued a litany of journalists in his address Friday night, including CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper.

But he focused his ire on CNN anchor and chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, telling her to “just smile”—employing a common misogynistic trope—before likening her appearance to that of Mulvaney, a figure who has dominated culture-war headlines.

Pathetic.

Speaking of pathetic misogynists … Elon Musk, who does not do a lot of media interviews these days, for reasons, did recently give an interview to the editor of The Economist. How’d that go? Well, Gizmodo summed things up nicely with this headline: “Elon Musk Melts Down Over Perfectly Normal Questions in Wild New Interview.”

If you subscribe to The Economist, you can view that interview, by editor Zanny Minton Beddoes, here. If you don’t, that aforementioned Gizmodo piece has a fantastic summary. Basically, Musk claimed AI was going to make money and work obsolete within a decade: “He claimed that everyone would have a high income from doing nothing and that people might still perform some kind of labor as a hobby, much in the same way that people might grow their own tomatoes in a home garden. Musk insisted backyard tomatoes weren’t as good as those you can buy from the store, but people still do it anyway. That would be news to anyone who’s had a delicious backyard tomato, which frequently tastes much better.”

It got worse and worse from there. Seriously, read the summary. It’s tragic.

Of course, after the interview, Musk went batshit on X, calling Beddoes “a traitor to the West,” among other things. This prompted José Andrés—the celebrity chef and humanitarian behind World Central Kitchen—of all people, to respond: “Elon drink a glass of water before you tweet…you may build rockets and satellites and cars and anything else you want…and we thank you! but you can not call a great journalist that actually ask you good questions and enemy to humanity! You sound and act like a tyrant….change!”

Musk quickly replied: “You’re an asshole.”

If you had Elon Musk calling José Andrés an asshole on your 2026 bingo card, congrats!

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Our friends at The Palm Springs Post break down the large number of ICE raids that have happened, and continue to happen, in Palm Springs and across the Coachella Valley: “While tourist districts and residential enclaves remain calm on the surface, community groups told the Palm Springs Human Rights Commission on July 13 that federal agents are actively targeting local workers, leaving families without providers and pushing vulnerable residents to extreme measures. Federal immigration arrests spiked sharply this month. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainment records reviewed by The Washington Post, the agency averaged over 1,400 daily arrests through early July, on track for its highest monthly total under the current administration after detaining nearly 40,000 people in June. Yet local advocates emphasized that for Palm Springs residents, the local surge isn’t new. ‘In all honesty, immigration enforcement in the entire Coachella Valley, including Palm Springs, hasn’t stopped since last year,’ said Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC, an immigrant rights organization providing direct assistance across the region. ‘It’s happening daily. Operations haven’t stopped.’ TODEC tracked more than 500 agents in the region on June 18, what they say is one of the largest operations in memory. Gallegos detailed the human toll behind the enforcement, illustrating how the sudden disappearance of family wage-earners destabilizes entire neighborhoods. TODEC is currently providing emergency casework, groceries, and legal support to 113 Palm Springs residents who have lost family members to detention or deportation.” Just awful.

• Here is your periodic reminder that COVID-19 is still a thing, and while it is not the threat it once was, it can still make people rather sick. The Los Angeles Times reports: “COVID-19 is on the upswing in California and across a swath of the West and the South, a sign that the virus may be starting its seasonal summer uptick. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that COVID is growing in California, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Alabama, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Hawaii. Levels of COVID-19 in those states—measured by the share of emergency room visits caused by COVID—still remain very low, the CDC said. Other data points also suggest COVID is rising. ‘COVID-19 activity has been gradually increasing across California based on test positivity trends. Wastewater concentrations are also increasing,’ according to Grant Boyken, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health. … According to health officials and experts, it wouldn’t be surprising for a summer increase in COVID to begin now.”

• Here is your periodic reminder that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should be in a prison somewhere, not leading the Department of Health and Human Services. The Associated Press reports: “The number of measles cases in the U.S. has surpassed the record-breaking tally for all of 2025, with five more months of 2026 still to come. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logged 2,318 cases of measles as of Thursday, according to an agency update on Friday. The nation had 2,289 cases in 2025, the worst year for measles in more than three decades. Now, 2026 has easily become the U.S.’s worst year for measles since 1991, as major outbreaks in South Carolina, Utah and Arizona have sickened hundreds and smaller clusters of cases sparked in other states. In November, international health officials will meet to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles-free status. The U.S. eliminated local measles spread in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, which have fallen in recent years to below the 95% coverage needed to prevent outbreaks.”

• Here’s your periodic reminder that Donald Trump is a narcissist who governs out of spite, not out of care for country. The New York Times (gift link) reveals: “When the Trump administration canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October, it framed the move as an urgent corrective to protect taxpayer funds from waste. But it wasn’t true. In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding ‘based solely’ on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election. The admission showed how President Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Mr. Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies—or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes. The saga illustrates the stakes as the Trump administration is completing a set of rules that would provide the president even greater control over more than $1 trillion in annual federal grants.”

• Today’s recall news involves … thyroid meds! USA Today explains: “Major Rugby, a pharmaceutical manufacturer that produces levothyroxine sodium tablets, issued a nationwide recall for the common thyroid medication, according to a letter it sent to retailers earlier this month. While consumers are being urged to return their medicine to the point of purchase, Major Rugby said in its letter that taking them ‘is not likely to cause adverse health effects.’ … According to the letter and a report from the Food and Drug Administration, the recalled pills are ‘subpotent,’ meaning they deliver less medication than they’re supposed to.”

• And finally … The New York Times shines a spotlight on an OnlyFans account you should probably check out and support. The lede: “In June, Daniel Blumstein, a biologist, sat in a field in Gothic, Colo., waiting to see a marmot. The rodent was elusive, leaving his thoughts to wander. He lamented a lack of funding for his work amid federal cuts to scientific research. Then he alighted on the television show ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ and that’s when the epiphany came. Perhaps the show’s plot, about a single mother who, unable to find conventional work, turns to the adult-content site OnlyFans to support herself, could be applied to marmots and research funding. Back at his lab, Dr. Blumstein pitched the idea (with a wholesome spin) to his colleagues, who offered mixed feedback. But then one of his graduate students suggested naming the profile OnlyMarms. ‘It’s going to be G-rated, and we’re not going to sexualize this,’ Dr. Blumstein, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an interview on Friday. ‘We’re just going to have fun with sharing.’ The account, which uploads research videos of wild marmots—a genus of large, squirrel-like rodents with sharp claws and furry ears—burrowing nests or scurrying across rocks, offers free subscriptions but asks for tips, which go to funding the field studies conducted by Dr. Blumstein and his team.” Fantastic!

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