'Do what you want and what you feel like ... the measure of success is profit'

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have joined forces to run the US like a 'family business' - no matter the political reality. Kelly Rissman talks to experts who are scrambling to keep up

- Kelly Rissman

"My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day," US president Donald Trump said from the White House Rose Garden, using a term of his own making as he unveiled a sweeping tariff plan against all US trading partners. The day will “forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again”, the president said.

Wednesday’s fanfare stood in the face of advice from droves of experts, who warned about the “catastrophic” effects these taxes would have on US consumers. One day after “Liberation Day”, global stock markets plummeted and world leaders vowed to retaliate. In his inaugural address, the president said “like never before” five times, and the tariffs plan is just the latest example of his ability to construct an alternative version of reality.

“We really haven’t seen anything like this,” Chapman Rackaway, a political science professor at Radford University, tells The Independent. He calls this level of reality-bending “unprecedented” in modern US history.

Trump has always done this. In April 2011, the Celebrity Apprentice host told his network colleague Meredith Vieira he had “real doubts” that president Barack Obama had been born in the United States. The interview revived the racist “birther” conspiracy, which had first emerged during Obama’s 2008 presidential run, and helped Trump lay the ground for a political reality where facts were irrelevant – and on which he has now built two presidencies.

Now, however, he has the backing of another fan of distorting the truth: Elon Musk. The tech billionaire and now presidential adviser bought Twitter, fired its content moderators, and reinstated suspended accounts (including those of QAnon supporters). He has even personally amplified other fringe theories, such as “Pizzagate”.