What did Donald Trump do today?

He withdrew for corrupt reasons a nomination he'd made for corrupt reasons.

The New York Times is reporting today that Trump will withdraw his nomination of Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA administrator. Isaacman, a tech industry billionaire, is a close associate of Elon Musk, Trump's biggest political benefactor and the person who has most directly shared in Trump's powers as president.

The working and personal relationship between Musk and Isaacman was expected to work to the benefit of Musk's company SpaceX, which is already a private middleman company for space vehicles that used to be built by NASA itself, or by a wider network of contractors. Trump's proposed budget slashes NASA funding by nearly a quarter, which would increase the government's reliance on SpaceX and lead to windfall profits for Musk, already the world's richest man.

But Musk has recently found his free run of the White House curtailed by an internal power struggle. The crux of it appears to be Trump aide Stephen Miller, who has been trashing Musk on social media and is generally understood to be the source of several recent and embarrassing stories about Musk's drug abuse and the complete failure of DOGE to reduce government spending. Meanwhile, Miller's wife, Katie Miller, now works for SpaceX and is rumored to be in a romantic or open relationship with Musk.

This kind of palace intrigue was common during Trump's first term, when it was generally understood that the faction that could arrange to get his attention at the right moment—to be the last voice in his ear before a decision was made—would usually get their way.

Of course, the rationale being offered by the Trump White House is not that Trump is a pawn in a war between his staff and his financial backer. Instead, it is that Isaacman donated money to Democratic political campaigns. (One of them was to Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona—a former astronaut.)

In other words, Trump's official story is that Isaacman is being preemptively punished for lack of perceived absolutely loyalty to Trump—not that he was a crony appointment from the start whose patron fell out of favor.

Why does this matter?

• Both explanations are completely incompatible with how democracies are supposed to work.  

• It shouldn't be this easy to manipulate the President of the United States.