Musk and Trump. © Mandel Ngan—AFP via Getty Images
The heat continues to build on Elon and DOGE’s efforts as fresh polls showing general dissent from the public are released. A raucous cabinet meeting erupted, where department secretaries scrambled to reclaim lost territory. Lawsuits are beating down the door, and enough wealth has been lost to almost make you feel sorry for him—until you remember he is still a billionaire many times over. So, just like any transparent do-gooder would respond, Elon is looking for ways to hide his hand, limit damage to the “good” politicians, and just keep rotating through the same set of lies anytime a microphone is placed in front of him. For what it’s worth, the slow steady courts landed a few knocks on him this week.
Last week, there was another round of embarrassing errors reported from DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” and a list of reportedly cancelled leases that still hasn’t reappeared. It’s clear from the supposed savings reported by the young folks running DOGE that they didn’t know how to interpret federal contracts. This is understandable, but it’s also likely they didn’t realize that all this information is public and their work could be checked. The contracts posted on DOGE are posted from the Federal Procurement Data System, where you can just look stuff up. Don’t know how to use the system, or navigate the interface? The manual is public. What about those horrible DEI grants? Just search for those, and you might even find one for yourself on grants.gov. Want to reminisce about the foreign aid we used to send out? Foreign Assistance.gov lets anyone search by region, agency, or personal grievance. As much as those on the right like to complain about the supposed lack of transparency in our government, it’s not because the information isn’t readily available, it’s that it’s complicated and takes a while to put together. However, if you want to motivate people to start, digitally overthrowing the government certainly works for some.
Elon’s response to this is to be maximally transparent make it
harder to find his errors at all. Before, the Wall of Receipts had enough
identifying information that users could search through the federal
databases to confirm that his receipts were false. The newest batch of
receipts no longer include that identifying information and when the
NY Times
found the information still in publicly available source code, DOGE
scrubbed that as well. Elon has fully evolved to the “trust me bro” level
of accountability.
Of, course, there is quite a bit of wheeling and dealing over what actually ends up getting cut, so that makes things hard. Lawmakers in Congress aren’t given any sorts of heads up before the cuts hit their district. Republicans talk a good game in public, but when you look at the numbers, red states are more reliant on federal money and are generally in areas with more federal workers. Outside of dodging their constituents at town halls, they privately use their access to secure relief for their districts. It’s the reverse of Republicans voting against Infrastructure bills while also claiming credit for the projects that bill funded for in their election ads and ribbon cutting ceremonies. And the Democrats? No such access for them. Good thing blue states can pay their own bills.
In other attempts to hide their work this week, the Government argued in court that DOGE wasn’t subject to FOIA, because they were an “advisory department.” Such entities are allowed to avoid such laws because their role is advising the president and not doing. But DOGE is doing and a US District Judge said they were probably subject to FOIA, so they needed to prep their records. In another federal lawsuit, the judge ruled that Musk and DOGE are absolutely subject to discovery and must provide documents and answer questions about their mass firings (that they said last week they actually didn’t do). Another judge ordered the probationary employees fired be reinstated, but an appeal is likely there.
However, the courts are slow and the Dems have no power. The Republicans of Kentucky are putting up an interesting show of selective disagreement. Of course, Mitch McConnell sorted out his conscience just in time to announce his retirement. No surprise there, and if he survives to 2026, I’m sure he longs to be the Republican shaking his cane at Trump. Meanwhile, Thomas Massey broke with Republicans on their Continuing Resolution to fund the government, which is his typical principled stance—to which, Trump is now threatening to primary him. Ron Paul also looked to force a vote to codify the cuts at USAID. Partly because he wants his Republican Colleagues on record—knowing full well they won’t vote to make the cuts if it’s on them.
And this all comes back to the game being played. All the people that claim to want these cuts, don’t want the consequences of these cuts. And really, when they say they want these cuts, it really means they want someone else’s stuff cut. None of this is about fiscal responsibility, transparency, or accountability. In fact, they weaponized all those things against the federal government that was trying to meet those standards. The people pushing these cuts aren’t going to feel the consequences and they are lying to the people that will.
DOGE and Elon are the latest examples of how bad faith actors manipulate the system, bend the truth, and dodge accountability while pretending to serve a noble cause to further distract and lie. The courts are doing what they can, but they are subject to the same overton window that shapes public debate. A few hours ago, the Dems agreed to pass the Republican CR. They reasoned, allowing the government to shut down would give Elon more ability to disseminate the institutions. Maybe they are right, but somehow, the incentives have to change. Being the grown up in the room doesn’t work if the other side never has to grow up at all.