Trump has even allowed about a dozen billionaires to join his administration at any given time during his current term, including CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk, who ran DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) in 2025. It made ruthless cuts across many government departments, the effects of which have been deadly to the world’s poorest.
This has led to claims that Trump is looking after his billionaire friends. Last week, Nevada GOP Governor Joe Lombardo defended the president for doing just that. In his view, taking care of billionaires provides jobs for Americans.
“Quite often when the press and the media run him down, they think about, you know, he’s taking care of his billionaire friends. But those billionaire friends provide jobs,” Lombardo said. “And unless you take care of them, those jobs are absent.”
Trump in Las Vegas touting GOP candidates and economy
During his speech, Lombardo added that the government doesn’t have the ability to hand out infinite amounts of money. “That’s not how economies work,” he said. So the government has to make it easier for CEOs to employ people. This is a core tenet of “trickle down economics,” which has its fair share of critics.
The president’s appearance in Las Vegas was meant to rally voters around his economic policies and declare support for GOP candidates running for re-election in the November midterms.
According to the Nevada Independent, the GOP governor made a calculated decision to join Trump on stage, believing it would benefit him in his re-election bid.
Nevada, which is considered “blue-ish” thanks to two Democratic senators and a Democratic majority in the state legislature, voted in Lombardo as GOP governor in 2022. He now faces a tough challenge from Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford in November.
Nevada has been a really tough state to call, especially in recent general elections. It’s the only state to have voted for George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, according to MSNBC.
Trump’s economy not working for all Americans
There continues to be a stark difference between what’s happening on Wall Street and what Americans are facing in their everyday lives during Trump’s second term.
