I've noticed a lot of people, including a lot of people you'd otherwise sort of classify as of the right, getting frustrated at Elon Musk and the role he seems to be playing within the Trump administration in charge of his Department of Government Efficiency, which seems to be a sort of ad hoc kind of presidential created entity. Basically, he seems to be serving in a role as a presidential advisor, a kind of presidential policy advisor. And he's got an office set up sort of within the White
House complex. He's got a staff that he's been able to recruit, and he seems to be just going through federal expenditures to try to identify waste. And everyone is freaking out about this, and I think actually his explanation
of why people are freaking out about it makes sense. Basically, what he said is, you know, in other companies and places where he's worked, when you go through wasteful spending and you identify people benefiting from wasteful spending in a gravy train, those are the people who are going to scream and.
Shout the most.
And I think of all things, his identification of the us Aid Agency, Usaid Agency and it's funding of various kinds of things all over the world seems to have really touched a nerve on the left because I think it was kind of their gravy train for a lot of liberal social causes. He Musk's thesis is basically, once you identify the source of people's gravy train, you cut that off. That makes the people who are wasting the money the most angry, and you're going to get the
most screams in how in Wales. But what I've heard is a lot of people yelling, a lot of people on the left yelling Elon Musk wasn't elected. This unelected person is just flying in and making all of these spending cuts blah.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah.
So I just want to talk about it and just within kind of the theory of how our governance is supposed to work. So, first of all, this idea of Elon Musk is unelected and therefore his role is somehow illegitimate. Plenty of people in the executive branch aren't elected. In fact, all but two of them are unelected. Literally, the only two people in the executive branch who are elected are the President and the Vice President.
That's it, end of list.
Nobody else who works for the executive branch is elected because nobody else within the executive branch has any authority in and of themselves. Let me repeat that, nobody in the executive branch has any authority in and of themselves.
Within the theoretical structure of how.
Article two of the Constitution works, the executive power of the United States is vested in a president.
Full stop.
The President is the person charged with enforcing the law. All the other executive agencies use his delegated power to exercise and enforce the law. Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State, has no inherent power of his own. There's nothing inherently for him to do within the structure of the Constitution. I don't think the Secretary of State is even mentioned in the Constitution other than I think one of the amendments deals with like the line of succession. But Marco
Rubio doesn't have any inherent power. His only power is to do what Donald Trump tells him to do. Anything he does as Secretary of State is an extension of the President's power. Now, the only check on this is that the chief officers of the United States have to be confirmed by the Senate. They are subject to the Senate's advice and consent. So Marco Rubio has to go through Senate confirmation hearings. Pete Hegseth has to go through Senate confirmation hearings.
All of the.
Chief officers of the executive branch have to go through. Executive have to go through confirmation hearings. But lots of people who fulfill various kinds of roles of presidential advisors who are not themselves primary officers of the United States, but who nonetheless might be assisting the president and formulating policy. A lot of the president's policy advisors, white House counsel
I don't believe is subject to Senate confirmation. A lot of presidential advisers are not subject to Senate confirmation, etc. Plenty of people who are working within the executive branch. I don't believe the chief of staff is chief of staff is not subject to Senate confirmation. Plenty of people who are critical in helping the president formulate policy are not subject to Senate confirmation or Senate review. They're not officers who are exercising the president's power. They're just people
who are giving the president advice. The theoretical structure, as far as I see it, of what Elon Musk is doing is he is serving as a high level presidential advisor, a high level presidential policy advisor. And as far as I see it, I mean, given that the president's in charge of the executive branch, like people are getting all angry, what business does Elon must have looking at you know, Treasury Department transactions.
He's he's well, he why is he authored? He shouldn't have the authority to look at that? Well, sure he should.
The president certainly has the authority to look at every transaction the Treasury is doing. The Treasury is an executive.
Entity.
Its action of dispersing money is an executive function.
It's subject to law.
But certainly the president has the authority to look at it. And if the president has the authority to look at it, he can delegate one of his advisors who's helping him in his work, to also look at it, I would imagine. So, unless there's other kind of legal constraints that I'm not aware of, but the idea of saying, well, Elon Musk isn't allowed to look at that, Well, if the president's allowed to look at it, and he says, Elon Musk
can look at it. Then Elon Musk can look at it, and his staff can look at it if the President allows him to look at it. And as far as I can tell, all Elon Musk is doing is identifying wasteful expenditures and recommending to the relevant executive authorities that we should stop funding X, Y, and z. Now, the question of whether or not, once Congress is authorized spending, does the president have to fund it?
Can the president fund it? That?
This is leading to, you know, certain kinds of questions about you know, does the president have what? What kind of impoundment authority does the president have? Once Congress has authorized something to be spent, does the president have to spend it legally? Uh?
Does?
Can the president exercise a certain kind of executive discretion to not spend it?
Okay? Congress is authorized.
You know, four billion dollars for the prosecution of a war. You're two billion dollars in and the other country surrenders. What do you do with that other two billion? Well, is the president? Does the president have to spend it on that Congress told him he has to? Okay, So there's some there's some sort of legal question there about what impoundment authority does the president have if Congress has mandated that, if Congress has passed legislation for this spending
to happen, what discretion does the president have? And that might differ from one set of monies to another, But as far as I can tell, what Elon Musk is doing is simply going through federal expenditures and identifying things that are wasteful, and then the responsibility for cutting it, for stopping that spending on X, Y and z, goes to whatever that relevant executive agency is, either to the
President or also I think, to Congress. Congress has now developed committees sort of that are going to run parallel to doge I think, but within certainly within the House, and I believe in the Senate also various kinds of congressional committees are running alongside of it to identify these things to be cut down the road in future congressional spend. So there's all this sturm and drawing on the left about oh, this is terrible, this unelected, unaccountable man, it's
just running rough shot through federal expenditure. Well, no, he's not unelected, and he's not unaccountable. I mean, he was part of the Trump campaign. He was a huge Trump backround supporter. Everyone knew he was like tight with Trump, and Trump was tight with him. And it was clear from the campaign that if Trump won, he was gonna empower Elon Musk to do this. They announced this in
August of twenty twenty four. Trump announced, if I win, I'm gonna create this thing called the Department of Government Efficiency, and I'm gonna make Elon Musky charge of it.
He said it in the campaign. Furthermore, it is politically accountable.
It is politically accountable in the same way that every single executive agency is politically accountable. It's politically accountable because it's tied to the president. The president has to worry about reelection or his party's reelection, his allies reelection in the next four year cycle. If Elon Musk's DOGE entity does a bunch of dumb things or illegal things, it could be subject to, you know, impeachment efforts or cutting off his fund It could result in Trump being subject
to impeachment efforts or cutting off his funding. And in the twenty twenty eight election, if DOGE has run un wild and done a bunch of bad things that are really unpopular. Jd Vance or whoever the Republican nominee is going to be, is going to have to be subject to the question, Hey, are you going to continue to let Elon Musk run rough shot over federal spending with his DOGE entity? And Elon and jd Vance is going
to have to have a policy proposal. Yes, I'm going to continue to let Elon and DOGE keep doing its work, or whoever becomes Elon's successor no, I'm not going to keep doing that. There will be some political accountability for this, insofar as it's an executive entity, and.
It has just as much It has exactly as.
Much political accountability as any other executive entity. If the FBI does a bunch of dumb and stupid stuff, who's politically accountable for it? Trump will be Trump, or the president or the President's party or jd Vance, whoever is going to be politically accountable. If Cash pateel does a bunch of dumb stupid things, if the FBI does a bunch of dumb stupid things, if the DJ does a bunch of dumb stupid things, DJ is ultimately responsive to the President.
So this idea of Elon Musk.
Was unelected, Well, I mean he's no more or less elected, i'd say than Marco Rubio or Pete Hegsath orright, any other person who's within the executive branch of government.
If anything, he's more.
Elected, because I don't think it was one hundred percent clear in the campaign that Marco Rubio was going to be the Secretary of State. Everyone knew starting in August that this Department of Government efficiency thing was going to happen if Trump won, and that Elon was going to be in charge of it.
It was very much part of the deal.
I mean, I think it actually helped Trump get elected. I think it's something people actively kind of wanted. So this notion of Elon Musk this unelected, unaccountable person, I mean he is exact actly as elected and as accountable as anyone else within the executive branch. So I find all these criticisms at a theoretical level to be very silly when we return just.
A little pet peeve.
Actors who call themselves activists. Next on the John Girardi Show, I've noticed this thing that celebrities seem to do all the time, especially after the Grammys. I noticed this with a couple of like singers and what Lady Gaga gets up at the Grammys and she's.
Like, oh, you have to protect Chen's kids.
And you know, all these posturing, foe concerned people. This one trend that I notice is on whatever social media account that a celebrity has, usually actors and singers, it'll say their little bio on their Twitter account or their Instagram whatever. It'll say actor, husband, wife, you know, mother, singer this, and then it'll always end with this noun as a descriptor activist. They're all activists. They all want to say that they're activists. Now, all right, let me let me.
Just explain something.
I don't know how you define an activist, but clearly I'm an activist. I run an anti abortion nonprofit organization. I've run it for like eight and a half years. I'm an activist. I literally we set up a whole building to be outside of Planned Parenthood to encourage people not to have abortions. We do talks for kids to encourage them not to have abortion. We do a whole radio show talking about the abortion issue and encouraging people to you know, oppose abortion. Blah, blah blah like by
any measure, I'm an activist. And I don't even call myself an activist. I say I'm a nonprofit director. I'm a nonprofit director for right.
You know, I've never used that word.
It doesn't even pop into my mind that that's the way I describe myself. But clearly, if anyone is an activist, it's me. Celebrities are not activists. They're like people who give to nonprofit causes that they care about, or you know, ideological causes they care about.
They show up.
At a couple of events for those causes that they care about, but they're not activists. It's not their full time work. Okay, that's not That is a BS way of just patting yourself on the back like you're freaking Martin Luther King when you're just an actor or a celebrity. All right, Well, lot more on the John Girardi Show right after this