Washington Wednesday: Musk sparks backlash

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 12th of February.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday.

The Trump administration’s move to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development sparked considerable debate. Federal employees sued, and a judge put the plan on hold. But now the key question is around the status of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency: does it have legal authority to shut agencies down?

MAST: Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta has the story.

CROWD: Hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go…

FRANKEL: Okay, he's gotta go, but you gotta stay, and we gotta fight back.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Democratic lawmakers rallied in Washington last week to protest Elon Musk’s new role in the federal government. At a gathering on Capitol grounds, Florida Congresswoman Lois Frankel read protesters’ signs.

FRANKEL: Stop the freeze. When USAID disappears, terrorists reappear. Defend democracy. Stop the coup.

USAID operates in more than 130 countries, running programs from health initiatives to food banks. Congress gives about 50-billion-dollars to the agency each year.

YORK: I'm sure that there's stuff going on in USAID that isn't consistent with the mission, just as there would be in any organization.

Brian York works in restaurants in Fairfax County, Virginia…west of Washington. His wife and several family members work for USAID.

YORK: To my mind, proper management doesn't look like if you get a splinter in your finger that you cut off your arm. Proper management is dealing with issues on a case-by-case basis and responding accordingly.

But the Trump administration, and growing numbers of Republican lawmakers, say USAID has been funding anti-American activities… and wasting money on a large scale.

They argue Trump’s stop work order is part of a necessary audit. Trump and Musk have accused the agency of using taxpayer dollars for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or even funneling aid money indirectly to terrorist organizations. Trump has named Secretary of State Marco Rubio the acting administrator for the agency. Here’s Rubio…visiting a maintenance company in El Salvador last week.

RUBIO: Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, that program will be aligned with the national interest of the United States, and USAID has a history of ignoring that and deciding they are somehow a global charity. These are taxpayer dollars.

So what does Elon Musk have the authority to do? Democratic lawmakers say he is exceeding the advisory role the White House gave him. Delaware Senator Chris Coons told WORLD his office phone has been ringing off the hook.

COONS: I've gotten calls about Department of Education, I've gotten calls about DOD, I've gotten calls about USAID, but the 1,100 calls were mostly about how did Elon Musk and Doge get access to Americans' private information

Legal experts say Musk’s role is testing the separation between legislative and executive powers, but that does not mean it’s illegal.

TOM RENZ: There's no evidence that he's anything more than another employee or appointee.

Tom Renz is an attorney and conservative talk show host. He explained that while Musk has massive wealth and social influence, his government role is limited to leading a rebranded federal agency. Former President Barack Obama created the Digital Services Department in 2014…after the bumpy rollout of the healthcare web portal created by the Affordable Care Act. Now Trump has repurposed that department into DOGE.

RENZ: All they did was they put Musk, who just happens to be a software genius, in charge of the department that was looking over the software for the government. And I haven’t seen any direct evidence that these guys are doing anything illegal. Now you can debate about whether or not it's acceptable to shut down, you know, this funding or that funding. I mean, that we can talk about, but that's not DOGE. What DOGE is doing is just simply looking at the software, which is definitely within the purview of the USDS.

But Democrats say DOGE is doing more than an audit. Employees gained access to Treasury Department systems and shut off payments to USAID contractors. DOGE staffers then sent emails telling employees in Washington not to come to the office.

Many blame Elon Musk for the changes, but Renz points out that the executive order establishing DOGE did not grant decision making power to Musk.

RENZ: We don't know precisely who's making the decision, but we know that a lot of that's being done elsewhere… 

President Donald Trump said in a news conference last week that checks and balances still apply.

TRUMP: "He's got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good if we agree with him and it's only if we agree with him. He's a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs… Where we think there’s a conflict or a problem, we won’t let him go near it

According to the White House, Musk holds a special government employee status. He’s unpaid, but has direct access to the president. He’s also exempt from filing conflict of interest forms even though companies he owns do business with agencies he is investigating. Jim Copland, a legal fellow at the Manhattan Institute, says that is not something to ignore.

COPLAND: Sure, he's got conflicts of interest. And, you know, this is what the press is about, is trying to watch that. And that's what congressional oversight committees are about, is trying to watch such things and make sure there's not impropriety.

Congress traditionally holds the power of the purse, and it is also Congress’ responsibility to close or create federal agencies. But Republican lawmakers say Musk’s budget cuts accomplish what they haven’t been able to with narrow majorities. I spoke with Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas near an elevator in the Capitol:

MARSHALL: I think Elon's doing a great job, the will of the people are behind him. So the American people want President Trump to address fraud, waste, abuse, and incompetence.

Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska said he’s all for efficiency updates, and that’s under the White House’s purview.

RICKETTS: The executive branch is the only place that you can really effectively do process improvement. Congress doesn't have an operational role, so therefore we can certainly encourage those sorts of things. You need the executive branch to actually do it.

Few Republicans have expressed concern about Musk’s level of access. Instead, most say they’re comfortable giving the billionaire a long runway. That includes Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.

DONALDS: I think it's everything went so horribly wrong with Joe Biden that the American people are giving us a lot of room to clean this thing up and that's what we're gonna do.

Yesterday, a federal judge blocked DOGE employees from accessing Treasury Department payment systems. Another federal judge blocked a deadline last Friday for federal employees to accept a buyout offer and resign from their posts. And yet another federal judge temporarily paused a February 7 deadline to place all USAID direct hires on indefinite administrative leave.

Here’s Copland with the Manhattan Institute.

COPLAND: Ultimately the president may lose some of that if they're really trying to, to curtail appropriations without congressional authority, but to the extent that they're freezing certain payments that are going out where there's not an express congressional directive and then they're repurposing that in some other direction, I think a lot of that's going to pass muster.

Trump has said Musk will also look into the Education department and the Pentagon. And during a news conference yesterday, Elon Musk explained why DOGE exists.

MUSK:If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the President and the Senate and the House, then we don't live in a democracy we live in a bureaucracy.

As an unelected federal worker himself, Elon Musk said his department will be transparent. Reporters asked who manages conflicts of interest, such as Musk’s federal contracts with the Pentagon. Here’s how he answered:

MUSK: Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X and to the DOGE website. So all of our actions are maximally transparent… you can see am I doing something that benefits one of my companies or not.

After the news conference, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to comply with DOGE. It also says agencies must plan for large-scale workforce reductions.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington.

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