As billionaire Elon Musk continues to push ahead in trying to create a third political party, MSNBC host and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki carved out time on Tuesday night to explain why it won’t work — and really, never has.
During her show, Psaki pointed out that Musk is not the first rich man to try and form a third party, pointing to examples including Ross Perot, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, and Andrew Yang. According to Psaki, Musk is just “the latest rich egomaniac to fall into this trap.” From there, she explained why every one of them failed, and Musk likely will too.
“The truth is that there are a lot of barriers to building a new political party in this country, a lot,” she said. “I mean, for starters, every state has its own unique laws for how to get on the ballot.”
Psaki called out New York as an example, which bars a political party from having “American,” or even part of that name in a party title, meaning Musk’s “America Party” wouldn’t be able to get on the ballot at all. She then noted that, typically, a third party will “inevitably become a spoiler for the major party that most closely aligns with their views.”
Of course, Psaki struggled to see how Musk would even pull any Democrat-leaning voters, considering his tenure in Trump’s administration.
“Elon Musk just spent the last six months taking a hatchet to the federal government and making an enemy of Democratic voters basically everywhere,” she said. “So it’s really hard to see how a new political party born of that legacy would attract any left leaning voters to his cause.”
The MSNBC host then called out the data that Musk is using to argue that voters actually want his third party.
“Musk has cited his own unscientific X poll that found 80% of respondents want to see a new party. But actual polling finds that 80% of voters in both parties think rich donors like Elon Musk have too much influence in politics,” she debunked. “They don’t need more, which may be part of why Musk himself is viewed negatively by a majority of a majority of Americans”
Between that data and the historical precedent, Psaki wondered if Musk is really just on an ego trip.
“Does he want a new party because his efforts to buy one of the two major parties hasn’t worked out the way he thought it would? Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe it’s just a vanity project to get the world’s most insecure billionaire some attention.”
You can watch Psaki’s full breakdown in the video above.
