The calendar might say 2025, but the vibes are getting very 2002-ish in the U.S. right now.
The FBI issued a public service announcement Friday about attacks against Tesla dealerships, asking the public to be vigilant in the wake of at least nine known incidents where people have shot up unoccupied Tesla vehicles and tossed molotov cocktails at empty buildings. Another incident Monday included suspected incendiary devices found at a dealership in Austin, according to KXAN.
The FBI statement is an unsurprising development, but Attorney General Pam Bondi really ratcheted up the rhetoric on Sunday when she appeared on Fox News to claim the people committing these attacks had “weapons of mass destruction.”
“These are not isolated incidents, as you know, and these aren’t vandals,” Bondi told Maria Bartiromo. “These are Molotov cocktails. That could be a weapon of mass destruction that they’re throwing in Tesla dealerships.”
The term “weapon of mass destruction” is defined on the Department of Homeland Security’s website as a “nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people.” And if you wanted to stretch, you could probably make a case that a molotov cocktail falls under the definition of WMDs because there are so many different ways to define the term under domestic terrorism laws, even if most people commonly understand WMDs to be things like nuclear weapons and mustard gas.
But whatever the technical definition, the intent by Bondi here is clear. She wants to use the same playbook used after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, to instill fear in the population and justify an overwhelming response. Back in 2002, it was claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had WMDs that somehow threatened the U.S. Today, it’s supposed WMDs against Elon Musk’s businesses.
Hussein had no such weapons, of course, but it was the lie President George W. Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, starting a war that most Americans recognize today as unnecessary. It was a lie that worked, unfortunately, and that kind of fearmongering succeeds because the general public typically thinks mass casualty events are the kind of thing that warrant a serious response.
And Attorney General Bondi is clearly cooking up a huge response, since she also took it a step further on Fox News and suggested that Jasmine Crockett, an outspoken Democratic congresswoman from Texas, was somehow tied to “domestic terrorism.”
“This is domestic terrorism,” Bondi said. “And Maria, now you have this congresswoman Crockett, who is calling for attacks on Elon Musk on her birthday. Let’s take him out on my birthday, she says. Yet she turns and says, oh, I’m not calling for violence. Well, she is an elected public official. And so she needs to tread very carefully, because nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country. And it’s basic safety. Once again, domestic terrorism is going to come to a stop in our country.”
Crockett hit back at Bondi’s accusations on MSNBC, telling host Alex Witt on Sunday that she doesn’t promote violence while noting President Trump’s pardons of violent offenders who tried to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, 2021.
“I have never promoted violence whatsoever, yet I’ve also never made excuse for those violent actors such as the ones on January 6,” Crockett said, according to the Daily Beast. “So Pam Bondi, if you have an issue with terrorism, maybe you should talk to your boss about locking back up those guys that he let out that participated in January 6.”
The property destruction at Tesla dealerships is getting most of the headlines, but there are also entirely peaceful protests against Musk that are getting far less attention. Dubbed Tesla Takedown, protests have popped up at nearly every Tesla dealership across the country over the past two months. Protesters are upset with Musk’s destruction of the U.S. government, something that’s ongoing as his DOGE goons go from agency to agency slashing and burning things, often without understanding what they’re obliterating.
Musk wasn’t elected nor was he confirmed as a cabinet official, and yet he’s operating like a kind of co-president to Trump. Musk has repeatedly suggested that he alone should get to decide what’s worthy of funding, even if Congress very famously has the power of the purse. Musk is destroying entire agencies, as he did with USAID, despite the fact that Congress is the only entity which can legally do something so drastic.
Supporters of Trump and Musk have also made appearances at these anti-Tesla protests, including one guy who attempted to use a stun gun against peaceful protesters in Berkeley, California, over the weekend.
Another incident saw a man in Palm Beach, Florida, intentionally drive his SUV at a crowd of protesters, apparently in an attempt to defend Musk’s honor or something. The crowd jumped out of the way and no one was hurt, according to Florida’s Local 10 news outlet.
The protests are likely to continue into the future, as elected Democrats like senate minority leader Chuck Schumer refuse to stand up to Musk and Trump in any meaningful way. Schumer voted to advance the Republican funding bill two weeks ago and got nothing in return, something even Nancy Pelosi pointed out as ridiculous. And until elected leaders like Schumer start acting like we’re living through an emergency, protests at Tesla dealerships are the only option many Americans feel like they have to express their disgust.
Trump and his band of malcontents also insist that he’s going to go after the “funders” of the attacks on Tesla dealerships, despite the fact that the FBI has described them as almost certainly “lone offenders.”
Trump on Tesla attackers: “They’re gonna suffer very grave consequences, because they’re really terrorists when you think about it. And I think the people that are financing them — they could very well be people I know, people that you write about — but those people are in big trouble.”
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 24, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Things are going to get a lot more War on Terror-ish in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
