Musk’s appearance at Trump’s cabinet meeting could have revealed who really holds power

This is an extract adapted from February 26 The episode of “All in Cu Chris Hayes”.

Wednesday the leader of the free world presided over the first full meeting of the cabinet in his new term – and Donald Trump It was there too. After a religious invocation, the best men and women of the Trump administration politely settled in the cabinet room and waited for the chance to speak. But first they had to hear from Elon Musk, a man wearing a shop and a unique shirt running what a senator calls An illegal operation To control the purse rows of all the others in the room, despite being neither chosen nor confirmed by the Senate.

“In fact, I call me the humble technical support here,” Musk said. “Because this is actually, as crazy as it sounds, this is almost a literal description of the work that the Doge team makes.”

But when you call technological assistance, the richest man in the world appears, access to your verification and savings and savings and threatens to cancel Scheduled payments? Because that’s what Musk is doing and his team since Trump has taken over in January.

The non-elected billionaire and his extra-governmental group play the budgets and staff to the agents that regulates Musk’s business, While getting an inner look at the departments that offer its companies billions of dollars in contracts and subsidies.

After the Trump administration dismissed employees to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Secretary of Transport, Sean Duffy said it would allow Musk’s dog to The team to “connect” to the Agency’s aviation system, Bloomberg reported That the billionaire approved the shipment of 4,000 of his company’s Starlink consoles to FAA. Later, a FAA spokesman confirmed the report. This is not just a conflict of interest, this helps you to help the taxpayers’ money.

Musk did this while freezing life rescue programs like one who was shipped US fortified peanut butter to feed severely undernourished children on several continents. Only cartoon stuff. A bit similar E -mail of Musk Last week, to most civil servants of the country, saying to respond with five things they have done or faced the termination.

While enjoying the spotlight in the Cabinet’s Wednesday meeting, Musk defended that E -mail with a truly crazy theory. “What we try to get to the bottom is, we believe that there are a number of people on the government salary who are dead, which is why they cannot answer,” Musk said. “And some people who are not true people, such as, are literally fictitious people who collect wages. Someone collects salaries on a fictitious individual. So, do we literally try to realize, are these people real? Are they alive? And can I write an E -mail? “

Musk suggested something similar in his last address at the White House, when he said to everyone 150 -year -olds received social security checks. That has proven to be totally untrue – an incompetent and wrong reading.

But, as Musk will tell you, the so-called Department of Government’s efficiency is not perfect. Doge did some “oopsi” along the way. “We will make mistakes,” Musk said on Wednesday. “We will not be perfect, but when we make a mistake, we will repair it very quickly.”

Musk then offered an example of one of the so-called Doge Mistakes: “With USAID, one of the things I accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola – Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention. So I immediately restored Ebola prevention. “

This is not efficiency, this is incompetence. Also, it doesn’t seem to be true that the mistake has been remedied. More current and former USAID officials said The Washington Post that the Government’s initiatives to fight Ebola and other diseases were eliminated and not restored.

But that’s just a mistake, right? It’s not like Doge had highlighted a lot of spending discounts on his web site Then he wiped them quietly After learning they were full of errors. No, wait, that did it actually It happens this week. Conformable A New York Times analysis, A contract canceled with Triple, an annulled contract, took credit for $ 2 billion savings that took place in the Biden administration and even claimed to reduce a $ 8 billion contract, which was worth $ 8 million.

Doge also fired nuclear weapons safety workers, then realized his mistake and I had problems to contact those workers to rehire. A mistake they managed to repeat to the Agriculture Department, where they Experts dismissed on bird flu Against the backdrop of a bird of birds and has been thrown to restore these officials at work.

So it’s fair to say that Musk has made a lot of mistakes. But the billionaire seems quite restless, ordering the attention of Trump and the cabinet. Again, no one voted for this type for function. No senator confirmed him in any post. This is just an obviously unconstitutional confiscation of power.

At the same time when Musk holds the government in his hands, the White House continues to insist that he is not the Doge administrator.

Monday, when a judge asked the lawyers of the government who was responsible, Could not answer. When reporters asked Trump’s Press Secretary on Tuesday, Tuesday, she said“I will not reveal the name of that individual on this podium.”

Then, later on the same day, from nowhere, the administration told reporters This administrator of Doge is, in fact, a former medical assistance executive named Amy Gleason. Apparently it came as a news for Gleason, who was “scheduled to be on vacation in Mexico on Tuesday and told the associates that it was not aware of time, that the White House was planning to make their role public,” said people familiar with the situation. New York Times.

But we know whow whi the real administrator of dogs to be: Musk, the guy who coined the name of the initiative on the Social Media site, whi is in the White House All the Time, Che spoke Before Any Cabinet at Wednesday’s Meeting, Whho Has No Formal Legal Legal Or Constitutional AUTHOITY, WHO. Seemingly Deciding Unilaterally Who Gots Fired and Who Get Hired, What Gets Cut, Who Gets Paid and How Many Children in Sudan will die of hunger.

Musk is responsible. You know it and I know it. But the administration seems to get this in the courts and in the media. They go crazy, fight and stutter, try to be a moving target to avoid responsibility for what our government does, because I know this is an unconstitutional confiscation of power, which is an insult to our democratic system.