WEBVTT - Part 2: What happens to America if DOGE succeeds 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:02.920 This is part two of a two part interview with 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:08.240 Victoria Elliott, a reporter at Wired. Victoria covers power and platforms, 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.640 and she's been tracking a law Musks stage. If you 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.400 haven't already listened to part one, Inside a Law Musk's 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:17.400 takeover of the US government. 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:23.080 People in Trump's orbit are a little uncomfortable with how 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:27.600 much power Musk has started to wield, the fact that 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:31.240 he's sort of running this almost parallel executive branch right 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.000 via Doge. 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.120 The New York Times reports the meeting of the minds 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.040 this week wasn't so cordial, with Secretary of State Marco 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.159 Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy reportedly getting into it 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.440 with Musk over staffing cuts at their departments. 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.600 Trump himself has not expressed these feelings. You know, He's 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.200 done a lot to show that he and Musk are 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.160 on side. He literally seems to have bought a Tesla 0:00:58.200 --> 0:00:58.800 this week. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.319 What's your best of what do you well? 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:03.280 The car that I drive is the Models? 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.319 Which is that one red one? In the moment, I 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.920 like that, yeah, yeah. And he he has said very 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.360 publicly that whatever Musk is doing has his blessing. 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:17.360 I'm just telling people. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:22.000 This man is a great patriot, and you should cherish him. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:23.040 You should cherish him. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:24.200 You know, I have a little statement. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.600 We have to take care of our high IQ people 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:28.240 because we don't have too many of them. 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.040 We had to take care of Donald Trump's full throated 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.320 support of Elon Musk continues, despite more and more people 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.880 questioning one unelected billionaire has this much power over the 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:44.320 future of the American government. Well, Musk claims to be 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.720 bringing his business experience to cutting waste. His deeper motives 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.920 are becoming clear, as Victoria Elliott's found Musk's actions come 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.920 straight out of an ideological playbook that wants to weaken 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:59.120 the government and unshackle business from overside. In Part two, 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.040 we find out more about what Musk wants and what 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.840 hey and He's loyalists will get when the job is done. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.119 Victoria is dieg has been making cuts? What has Congress's 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:13.880 been doing about it? 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.359 Yes, so there have been hearings, people have submitted testimonies. 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:22.440 Get the empty seats here, where's Elon Musk. I'm sure 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.239 he's a genius and is a very incredible person because 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.320 of the wealth he's accumulated, but that does not put 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.680 him above the law or the responsibility to come before 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:35.800 this committee in this Congress. 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:37.000 If he's so. 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.280 Great, if these plans and all the fraud and abuse 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.919 that he's found are so eminent, why isn't he here 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:50.840 explaining it? You know why? Because he's out to privatize. 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.680 But the reality is that congressional investigations can take months, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.240 they can take years, and so much of the Doge 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.400 ethos is really bringing that Silicon Valley move fast and 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.600 break things. You know, Congress could do an investigation, but 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.200 the reality is that by the time they're investigating this, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.440 people will have moved on to new jobs, work will 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.799 have ceased, things will have changed. The biggest thing that 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.640 we're seeing is that people have taken to the courts, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:26.080 and the courts have issued injunctions against some of Doge's work. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.200 A federal judge, citing a risk of irreparable harm, has 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:35.520 temporarily restricted Elon Musk's Government Efficiency team from accessing a 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.440 critical Treasury Department payment system, the judges ordered. 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.680 But even then, whether or not we're going to see 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.880 sort of permanent rulings around some of this stuff is 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:46.640 off in the future. 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.800 How the federal work has been reacting to Dodge's agenda. Man, 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.960 what's the atmosphere lock within these agencies? Amanible is turmoil. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.160 I think a lot of them are really sad. I've 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.920 talked to people who have spent twenty thirty years in government, 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.240 who have dedicated their lives to this work, who have 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.320 forewent jobs that would have paid them more money. There's 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.640 all these rules when you work in government, right like activities, 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.479 you can participate, and you can't necessarily like and be 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.360 politically active in the same way that a regular citizen 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.360 can be. They have forewent sort of all of these 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:28.440 different things because they believed in their work, and they 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.760 believed in their commitment to serving the country. And I 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.479 think a lot of them feel really bewildered as to 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.279 how they have become the bad guy in this moment 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:39.479 for Tory. 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.839 You said, we are never really going to say the 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.800 savings that have been promised by muskindage. So what is 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.520 this really about? Can you tell me about the audiological 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:50.520 reason for all of this activity. 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:53.960 I definitely don't think it's about saving money. I think 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:59.000 that there are experts who are more well versed in 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.920 the federal budget than I that can sort of show 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.600 you the ways in which getting rid of these programs 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.080 is actually, over time, maybe less cost effective because you're 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:10.880 probably going to have to outsource it to the private 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.600 sector because that service may still need to exist. Things 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:19.200 like that. First and foremost, anyone who was deeply concerned 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.960 about waste, fraud and abuse, there's a system that exists 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.839 for that. We already have government auditors. There are actually 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.600 people who are specialized in this work, who know how 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.159 to go into a technical system and evaluate, who know 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.240 how to go line by line on a budget to 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.800 make sure things are being spent correctly, who know how 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.360 to go out to the field and do interviews and 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.120 figure out if a program is wasteful. We actually have 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.080 a whole system for that. And if DOSEE was really 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.760 concerned about saving money, they might seek the advice of 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.600 those people, or they might be particularly interested in reviewing 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.880 the auditing system and making that more streamlined and faster, 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.320 but they haven't. Ideologically, I think think we are dealing 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:06.360 with people like Musk, Peter Thiel, David Sachs, who's the 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.760 cryptos are that really do fundamentally on an ideological level, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:16.800 believe that the best thing for them and their businesses 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.640 and people that they considered to be in their orbit 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:23.320 is to destroy the administrative state. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.679 Coming up after the break, how those aligns with Project 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:40.400 twenty twenty five. We heard at the lead up to 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:44.240 the election about a thing called Project twenty five is 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.200 planned by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative I think tank. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.040 There's a lot of fear about that plan, a lot 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.560 of criticism. Trump denied he would be following it. But 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.760 what's happening now sounds remarkably like what a Project twenty 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.720 twenty five is actually asked for. So is that what's 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.159 really going on? He is gotting the federal government and 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:03.400 stacking it with loyalists. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.280 I think that's a big part of it. Yeah, Project 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.200 twenty twenty five lays out a lot of different things, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:15.840 rolling back regulation, dissolving certain agencies or certain functions of agencies. 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.000 I think we see a lot of parallels with Project 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.800 twenty twenty five. But again, Project twenty twenty five is 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:26.240 not the only place where this comes from. You know 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.720 JD Vance, who you know himself worked with Peter Thiel 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.640 before he was a senator. There's an ideological bent in 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:39.360 Silicon Valley that in those spaces that really says that 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.520 the regulatory and administrative functions of the government should be 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:46.960 extraordinarily curtailed, and that more and more power should be 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:51.080 concentrated under the executive branch. There are certainly certain parallels 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.640 in the US and the twenty twenties to Germany in 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:58.360 the nineteen twenties, where you know, you know, liberalism is exhausted. 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:03.560 One suspects that office, whatever that means, is exhausted, and 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.120 that is really what's happening here. By gutting these agencies, 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:12.800 you are fundamentally undermining the power of Congress because these 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.800 agencies are established and funded by Congress, meaning that if 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:21.200 Congress lets this happen, if they're able to cut these agencies, 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.600 take them over, access their data, possibly break many privacy 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:29.160 laws in doing that, depending on how it's being handled. Really, 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:34.319 what they're doing is they are demonstrating that the executive 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.880 branch is the one that holds all the power. They're 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:40.839 really looking at challenging the power of Congress and the 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.120 challenging the power of the courts, and trying to concentrate 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.200 the full power of the American government under the executive branch. 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.560 Say Victoria is a tech rouder and someone very familiar 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.920 with Silicon belly. The sands slock. They're trying to run 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.000 the US government block a tech company. What are the 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.440 risks of that happening, and what's the fallout from running 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.680 a country luck America luck a tech company? 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.400 Well, I mean, the country is not a company. Not 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.760 everything is a market gap. When your education system fails, 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:17.679 that isn't a market gap. If you run America like 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.880 a company, you're going to leave behind so many people. 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.040 And also the stakes of getting it wrong are so 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.720 much higher. For instance, if you run a tech company, 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.200 say an app like Uber, and your app goes down 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.160 for the night, it will be extraordinarily annoying for me, probably, 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.679 but certainly there are taxis and there's public transportation. There 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.560 are other ways for me to get home. But if 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:51.920 the government suddenly, say, shuts down payments out of the treasury, 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.600 if the Department of Health and Human Services decides that 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:03.680 we're no longer inspecting particular medical products or food, that 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:08.920 impacts everyone. A failure in any of these systems has 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:14.280 such greater consequences than anything that could happen with any 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:19.480 particular app. And again, some of the most impactful things 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:24.120 are not built to be for profit. You know, I 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.560 think when I was working in international development. One of 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.800 the initiatives that we really talked a lot about as 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.640 something that was really important was GOVI. It's an initiative 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.679 to develop vaccines for diseases where the people that are 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.440 most affected by them are not essentially going to be 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.720 great markets for pharmaceutical companies. So then vaccines for those 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.000 diseases don't get developed because they're mostly for poor markets. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.520 So you need to have some kind of other way 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.280 of funding the development of that kind of medical care. 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:01.520 And even if the initial impotent is because you're addressing 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:03.920 the needs of people in poor markets, the reality is 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:09.320 we live in a global world. Addressing health needs somewhere 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:13.280 else is key to making sure everyone stays safe, and 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:18.160 there is no clear ROI on that until you avert 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:19.559 a pandemic, you. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:24.160 Know, Yeah, what is the project late? What happens if 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.920 succeeds with what they're doing, Where do we end up? 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.120 Well, I'm going to have a very long four years, 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.640 but I think we will see a terrifying amount of 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.920 power concentrated in the executive branch. I think we will 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.280 see a greater divide between the rich and poor, as 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.760 people who are poor and rely on government services, maybe 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.280 don't have access to them anymore, and I think we 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:57.280 will see possibly exactly how well the American government was 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.080 functioning beforehand in the act absence of the services that 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:02.280 many people take for granted. 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.000 And finally, Victoria, I just want to check in with you. Actually, 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:11.199 I mean, you've been report experience reporter across the number 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.720 of areas for for a while, and now what's the 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.800 bean locked reporting on what's been happening at this time? 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.160 What kind of impact has have been having on you? 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:26.439 Very tired? I think it sort of feels like I 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.240 feel a little like a top spinning that like if 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.920 I stop moving, all kind of collapse. So it's better 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.960 to keep moving and keep reporting, keep doing stuff. The 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:42.760 thing that I feel most urgent about is the fact 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.040 that you know, there's so much we still don't know, 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.120 and you know, we're a small team. Other people are 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.760 doing stuff now, so that's appreciated. But I think it's 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.680 I think it's mostly that that the reality is we 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.560 only have so much time. They're moving really fast, and 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:00.640 we need to move fast. 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.440 To Victoria, thank you so much for your time. 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.360 Thank you. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:23.040 You can find Victoria Elliot's reporting at Wired dot com. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.400 Also in the News today. Prome Minister Anthony Albernezi has 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.280 said the government is open to request to send peacekeepers 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.440 to Ukraine, and a virtual meeting attended by European and 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.560 Commonwealth leaders on Saturday night, British Prime Minister Sakias damacall 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.640 for countries to sign up to a coalition of the 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.280 willing to protect Ukraine and push Russia for a ceasefire. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.720 Alberzi said it's in Australia's national interest to stand with 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:50.960 Ukraine and Trade Minister Don Farrell will meet with White 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.560 House Trade Representative jameson Greer today following a meeting he 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.640 had with US Trade Secretary how it looked Big on Friday. 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:00.760 The discussions are part of the ministers appeal to the 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:05.199 United States that Australia should gain exemptions from President Trump's tariffs. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.160 Farrells is it's his job to find an offer the 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:13.000 Americans can't refuse. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:13.800 Thanks for listening.