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CNN
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Elon Musk and President Donald Trump are applying Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” ethos to the US government.
There is a fire hose of developments as the men work quickly to reimagine elements of the federal government, purge officials they don’t like or trust, literally open floodgates in California and exert new power before constitutional checks and balances or public opinion catch up with them.
A special new employee
Musk, it was revealed Monday, has been appointed as a special government employee who can serve for up to 130 days in a 365-day period.
He’s neither a volunteer nor a full-time government employee, but he does have a top secret security clearance, according to CNN’s report by Kaitlan Collins and Tierney Sneed.
Musk also has access to the closely guarded payment system by which the US government makes payments. Trump was asked why it was so important for Musk to have access to such a sensitive power and the reason appears to be for firing people.
“Well, he’s got access only to to letting people go that he thinks are no good. If we agree with him. And it’s only if we agree with him,” Trump said, suggesting there is some oversight of Musk’s actions, although he did not elaborate.
Counting down to a buyout Congress has not authorized, although some workers can’t apply
Federal workers continue to get emails from a new email address at the Office of Management and Budget encouraging them to resign and take a paycheck until September without having to work. That offer hasn’t been authorized by Congress, Republican lawmakers have been remarkably silent on whether they believe in it, and unions are encouraging somewhere in the neighborhood of two million federal workers to stay put. Workers have until February 6 to take the deal, but there are more asterisks becoming public.
CNN reported over the weekend that National Transportation Safety Board officials nearing retirement were told they were not eligible for the buyout after the deadly collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter last week. From a report by CNN’s Pete Muntean:
Freezing foreign aid, shuttering USAID
Congress created USAID, the organization that dispenses foreign aid for the US government to developing nations around the world, back in 1961, but Musk and Trump seem like they’re on the verge of trying to end it completely just a few weeks into Trump’s second term.
Musk compared the agency to a rotten apple, a “ball full of worms,” during an appearance on his social media platform. There’s nothing worth saving, he said.
Trump dismissed USAID workers as “radical left lunatics” during an appearance in the Oval Office Monday and said, despite the Constitution, he would not need Congress to undo the agency they set up if “there was fraud.” He did not elaborate on the fraud allegation, but he did repeat a specious claim that USAID paid tens of millions for condoms to go to Hamas. There’s no evidence of any such overpriced condom transfer.
There is, however, a sense of fear at the agency, where the website has been taken down and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been named acting director.
Dozens of senior officials have been placed on leave after Trump ordered that foreign aid be placed on hold, although exceptions have been made for an AIDS program in Africa, among other things.
More than 10,000 officials at the agency were told not to come to the agency’s headquarters on Monday. Security officials were placed on leave after refusing to allow representatives from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to headquarters over the weekend.
Foreign aid represents a slight fraction of US government spending, but, President John F. Kennedy argued to Congress that it’s worth the investment.
“Widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area,” Kennedy said.
Former officials were scrambling to defend foreign aid and the agency Monday.
“This is the world’s richest man deciding the world’s richest country should stop helping the world’s poorest people,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who served at the agency during the Biden and Obama administrations, during an appearance on CNN Monday. “That is the story here. The president does not have the authority to unilaterally shutter a federal agency that has been established in congressional and congressional statute.”
Performative chaos
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria noted that Congress is, for now, simply allowing these things to happen and while there could be a legitimate debate about funding USAID distributes, there may be another goal in the way this is being done.
“The chaos seems performative,” Zakaria said. “It’s a desire to own the libs in some way or the other.”
Expect similar fights over the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, other agencies Trump has said should be ended, but were created by Congress.
Creating a list at the FBI after firings at the DOJ
FBI agents have been asked by the Department of Justice to fill out a questionnaire explaining their work on cases involving the January 6, 2021, capitol riot. It could be a precursor to a mass firing at the agency, according to a report from CNN’s justice team.
But agents are being encouraged to stay and wait to be fired.
Dozens of officials who worked on January 6 cases have already been fired at the Department of Justice after they were told by acting Attorney General James McHenry they cannot be “trusted” to “faithfully” implement Trump’s agenda.
What did this tariff threat accomplish after Trump backs down?
Over the weekend Trump made a show of invoking presidential power in a new way, declaring a national economic emergency and threatening tariffs on nearly all goods from Mexico and Canada would be taxed at 25% (with an exception for Canadian energy products, which would be taxed at 10%).
He also declared an additional 10% tariff on goods from China would be imposed.
The stated reason for the new taxes was to stop the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the US, although relatively little fentanyl comes to the US through Canada.
The declaration spooked global markets and led Republican lawmakers to plead for carve outs for industries in their states.
By Monday, however, Trump retreated from the tariff threat for Mexico and Canada. Mexico’s president promised to send 10,000 troops to Mexico’s border with the US, a token gesture that will allow for a month of negotiation between the US and Mexico. Similarly, after an afternoon phone call, the Canadian tariffs were paused, according to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after the two countries agreed to work together on policing the flow of fentanyl and Canada would spend $1.3 billion to ramp up its border security.
The University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers said on CNN Monday the markets offered a good guide for reaction to the tariffs.
“Trump announces tariffs, so markets fall. Trump walks back tariffs, markets rise,” Wolfers said. “If this is a way of writing a TV show, it’s a pretty compelling script and I’m watching it pretty closely. But if this is a way of managing the economy, it doesn’t make any sense.”
The former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who is a Democrat but was openly critical of the Biden administration over its economic policy, told CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday that imposing tariffs will help no one but American enemies since it will alienate allies and warn other countries from negotiating with Trump. “On the playground or in international relations, bullying is not an enduringly winning strategy,” Summers said. “And that’s what this is.”
Releasing water ‘in a rough way’
There are other, more local but no less consequential stories to keep an eye on. Trump bragged Monday about his effort to release water from dams in California’s Central Valley. He said Californians will thank him for the move, but Politico’s headline may be closer to the truth: “Trump says he opened California’s water. Local officials say he nearly flooded them.” It tells the story of local officials talking officials from the US Army Corps of Engineers down from opening gates at two California dams to full capacity. Trump cited the recent Los Angeles fires as one reason to release the water, but it’s not clear the water will ever make it to Los Angeles.
Trump described how he went about releasing the water.
“We did it at a very rough way and I didn’t like to do it a rough way,” he said, chuckling.
