Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. I'm your host, Will Walden, and if you're new here, this is a show all about Elon Musk and his groundbreaking work that he's doing with his various companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neurolink, and of course, X. And before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to share a quick insight from our shows analytics. It turns out the 45% of you listening right now are subscribed to the show and thank you for that.
But that means that 55% of you are not. So I'm offering you a deal. I promise to do everything in my power to keep bringing you the latest and most interesting news about Elon Musk every single day and about his companies. If you'll do me one favor and hit the subscribe or follow button on your podcast platform right now, that's it. Pretty simple and straightforward. It takes just a second for you, but it makes a huge difference for the show. Senator.
From Rhode Island. Thank you, Mr. President. On day one, President Trump lit the fuse on Elon Musk's plan to hollow out the federal government by changing the name of an obscure technical office within the White House, the US Digital Services USDS, and called it DOGE without congressional authorization and giving it extraordinary reach into the operations of the federal agencies.
Since then, we have heard report after report about how Mr. Musk and DOGE have rammed their way into agencies not to make smart decisions, not to improve efficiency, not to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, but to disrupt, denigrate and demoralize. And along the way, DOGE has made incredible blunders, such as firing and then scrambling to rehire employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Let me repeat that. Mister Musk and his minions fired the people who keep nuclear weapons safe. And then someone realized. Fortunately, when the few days they had to come back. And here's another example. Musk and his hackers made CIA send an unclassified e-mail with the names of its recent hires. Boy, if I was in the Russian Security Service, I'd love to get a list, which they did, of everyone who's going into the CIA.
They also cut staff from the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Weather Service, who prevent and warn every American of travel and weather dangers. And it goes beyond that agricultural interest to listen daily to the reports, the accurate reports of the Weather Service so they can plan their crops, they can plan everything. And that's being withered away. And I think the ultimate goal is to privatize it, which is not the rest way to go.
These actions don't just reflect incredible incompetence. They are dangerous. They undermine national security and increase risk for American citizens. In any other setting, blunders like these would be grounds for firing. But Myth Musk, Indulge operate with arrogance, impunity and 0 transparency. Millions of Americans are asking, who are these people?
As the ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, the subcommittee that ostensibly overseas the budget for the White House, USDS and DOGE, I'm asking the same question because Congress, like the American people, is being kept in the dark.
As appropriators, we typically work together on a bipartisan basis, no matter which party is in the White House, to get information, to conduct oversight, to ensure that federal dollars are spent in accordance with the laws passed by Congress. But now, with our authorization from Congress, DOGE is recklessly slashing its way through virtually every federal agency in the Office of Personnel Management, to Treasury, to HUD, to State, to USAID, and to the Department of Defense, and more.
It's vital that we understand what DOGE is and isn't. While Elon Musk tells us and the American people that DOGE is maximally transparent, it is not. We build them out, have answers to fundamental questions like what is the scope of Dozier's work? How many people work at DOGE and who are they? Do they also hold jobs outside the federal government? What are their financial holdings and potential conflicts of interest? Do they have allegiances to
foreign governments? Will those respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act? What are its plans to reform agencies? Who is DOGE firing and why? And many, many other questions. And unfortunately, when DOGE shares information, it is frequently wrong. As the New York Times reported, 5 of Doge's biggest claims savings were deleted from its website because they were inaccurate.
This includes a cancelled USAID contract for $650 million which was counted by DOGE 3 * a cancelled Social Security contract was erroneously listed as being worth $232 million instead of the actual $560,000, and a cancelled ICE contract was listed as saving $8 billion instead of $8 million.
If you're going to name something the Department of Government Efficiency, don't you owe it to the taxpayers to actually do a good job on top of having 0 accountability, DOGE legal authority operate is dubious. DOGE has essentially taking over the USDS, which was originally established to help federal agencies more adeptly utilize technologies serve the American people.
Over the years, USDS helped establish everything from Direct File, which helps taxpayers file their taxes for free, to direct mail COVID test to a successful online passport renewal protocol. DOGE is now using the howled shell of USDS to illegally undo the American federal government, moving from agency to agency, cutting congressionally appropriated funds, spend priorities, and even dismantling
entire agencies. The bottom line is that DOGE is without congressional authorization and without direct funding from Congress, is acting to undermine the federal government and frankly contempt the United States Congress as a constitutional body who creates the laws. The President's challenge in the Constitution is to enforce those laws, not to circumvent the Congress of the United States.
Based on press report, it appears to be those are populated by a mixture of unelected billionaires, tech executives, and unvetted inexperienced people, including an individual who is found to have posted racist tweets. This gang is being granted access to America's most sensitive data, like your bank accounts, your Social Security accounts, and it would seem, a host of classified intelligence. And how are they using this information?
How are they protecting this information from our enemies? Is it being shared with outside entities? Is dope simply being used to give Mr. Musk, his company's and his billionaire friends an advantage when competing for government contracts? We simply don't know what this gang is doing with inside the government. Every single day that passes without transparency and congressional access to information about Doziers funding, staffing and scope of work is a moment too long.
But the current continuing resolution due to expire on March 14th. We have big decisions to make. My hope is that these decisions can be made on a bipartisan basis, informed by the facts. But we cannot responsibly fund the government if we do not understand how DOGE has infiltrated it, made it less efficient and less responsive to taxpayers, and essentially has circumvented the constitutional responsibilities of the United States Congress. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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