During Donald Trump’s first administration, America got acquainted with an organization that made it their mission to make his life miserable: The Lincoln Project. They’re a motley crew of Republicans — or former Republicans — who oppose Donald Trump on multiple grounds.

Some of the members of The Lincoln Project are still Republicans, but do not believe that Trump is one. After all, he was donating to Kamala Harris’ Senate campaign just ten short years ago. He was publicly pro-choice and anti-gun. He invited the Clintons to his wedding with Melania.

Some of them oppose Trump on purely moral grounds. I don’t feel like I need to go in-depth on the depravity that Trump has been accused of, known to have done, been convicted of, and never apologized for.

Whatever their reason, aside from pithy social media posts here and there that serve as commentary, their primary focus has been campaign-style videos criticizing the elderly megalomaniac. And boy, have they been effective.

Their latest piece hits Trump right where it hurts: In the ego.

Nothing has seemed to trigger Donald Trump quite so much so far this term as suggestions that his “First Buddy” Elon Musk is somehow the “real president” acting behind the scenes. Just watch this video of him from this morning, reacting to a reporter asking him about one such suggestion from Time magazine:

BREAKING: Donald Trump was just completely humiliated by reporters asking if he is upset that Elon Musk was sitting behind his desk in the latest Time Magazine cover. Trump would hate it if you made this go viral. pic.twitter.com/pLTdNeqPqI

— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) February 7, 2025

He’s responded to stuff like this in the past, and it’s clear that he’s upset by the rumors that Musk used his $290 million in the 2024 campaign to just buy himself an American presidency. And he has good reason to be concerned that the rumors are spreading, since Republicans favor Musk less and less these days.

From a report in the New Republic:

At first, Republicans were on board with Musk’s radical plan to eradicate government agencies. In a poll from The Economist/YouGov taken in the days after the 2024 presidential election, 47 percent of Republicans said that they wanted Musk to have “a lot” of influence in Trump’s administration. Twenty-nine percent said they wanted him to have “a little” influence, and just 12 percent said they hoped he’d have “none at all.”

But less than a month into Trump’s reign in the White House—and his shadow president’s nefarious efforts to ruin everything—it seems that Republican voters aren’t so sweet on the unelected bureaucrat running rampant through the federal government. A new poll published Wednesday from The Economist/YouGov found that now only 26 percent of Republicans want Musk to have “a lot” of influence, a drop of 21 points. By contrast, 43 percent of Republican respondents said they wanted Musk to have “a little” influence, and 17 percent said they wanted his hands out of government altogether.

That cannot be what Trump wants to hear, especially after he just gave Musk and his team of teenage interns the keys to the Treasury and set them to task “uncovering” what they call “fraud.”

Enter The Lincoln Project. Never content to just let Trump stew in his ruminations, they have to push his buttons or they feel like they’re just not doing their job.

The video starts right in, with the ominous voice of the narrator:

Who is threatening the Social Security benefits you worked hard for all your life? Elon Musk. Who gets to look at the personal information the government has on you in its databases? Elon Musk. Who controls the computer systems that decide if you get your tax refund or disaster relief or Medicare benefits? Elon Musk.

Who gets billions in taxpayer money every year, all while controlling the government’s payment system? Elon Musk.

President Musk says he wants at least two trillion dollars in cuts. That’s your Social Security. That’s your Medicare. That’s America’s roads and bridges. That’s an economic depression.

You think you voted for Trump, but you didn’t. You voted for Elon Musk.

All of that is set to a dizzying array of images, and the video is capped off with a clip of Elon doing the now-infamous Nazi salute he did at the inauguration, as they narrator says, “All heil… President Elon Musk.”

It’s a very effective piece, and it’s going to make Donald Trump’s head explode when he hears the last part of it. Because I don’t even think Trump minds the Nazi references — as long as it looks like the Führer is him.

Watch the video here: