Congress
Musk steamrolls Washington with Trump’s blessing
Elon Musk worked at breakneck speed over the weekend to wipe out the U.S. Agency for International Development. His allies got access to the Treasury’s payments system. His aides reportedly locked out government employees from their computer systems that hold sensitive data.
And President Donald Trump is OK with it — for now.
“He’s a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs,” Trump told reporters Monday. “We’re trying to shrink government, and he can probably shrink it as well as anybody else, if not better. Where we think there’s a conflict or there’s a problem, we won’t let him go near it.”
Musk’s dizzying takeover of Washington, which has frightened Democrats and some Republicans, has renewed speculation within GOP circles about whether the mutually beneficial relationship between the world’s richest man and the president will eventually implode. Musk’s recent moves also underscore how serious he is about executing his far-reaching plans to reshape the government, flying in the face of critics who argued his so-called Department of Government Efficiency would be a do-nothing blue-ribbon commission.
Trump is broadly aware of and supportive of Musk’s moves to blow up USAID, according to a person close to the president who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. And although he likes the idea of Musk handling “the dirty work” of slashing through the federal bureaucracy, Trump could always change his mind about the situation if there is a political price to pay down the road, the person added.
“He’s fine with Elon being the bad guy,” the person said, noting that Trump typically pays close attention to news coverage but may care little himself about the details of whether USAID would be folded into the State Department or shuttered altogether. “But things can always change.”
Trump has maintained close ties to Musk, even though the tech billionaire has angered influential voices in the MAGA movement who believe he isn’t aligned with them on immigration and other key issues, including former top Trump adviser Steve Bannon. One reason, some people close to Trump said, is that the president believes Musk, the single biggest donor in the 2024 presidential election, played a major role in helping him win the election and is extremely smart.
Republicans on Blue Light News are also largely giving Musk and Trump the benefit of the doubt, dismissing criticism from Democrats that they are infringing on their congressional powers. Instead, they are leaning on comments from one of their former colleagues — Secretary of State Marco Rubio — instead of directly grappling with Musk’s actions.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), asked if Trump has the ability to close USAID unilaterally, said the administration’s goal is to ferret out waste.
“I think it’s a lot more about finding out how the dollars are being spent, where they are going and whether or not they’re consistent with this administration’s and our country’s priorities,” he said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Judiciary Committee, said that it is a “constitutional question” when asked if Trump can end USAID without congressional approval.
“It’s how you define the executive powers of the president of the United States,” he said, “and I can’t define that for you.”
Career government officials, Democratic lawmakers and nongovernmental organizations have scrambled to shine a light on Musk’s efforts, many of which they’ve argued he doesn’t have the legal authority to carry out absent approval from Congress. Even some conservatives have raised concerns over Musk’s actions. So far, though, they have been vastly outpaced by Musk, who has taken to his social media platform X to build public support for shock-and-awe efforts.
Though Musk posted on X throughout the weekend that it was time for USAID to “die” and bragged that he was “feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that Democratic lawmakers held a press conference in hopes of saving the agency.
Likewise, days after Musk’s allies gained access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) would work on legislation stopping the “unlawful peddling.” Schumer said, “It’s like letting a tiger into a petting zoo and hoping for the best.”
A spokesperson for DOGE did not respond to a request for comment. On X, Musk reposted accounts arguing Americans voted for Musk to play a major role in the Trump administration.
At the event outside the USAID headquarters Monday, Democrats accused Musk and Trump of acting like autocrats. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said, “This is a constitutional crisis that we are in today. Let’s call it what it is.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said, “Elon Musk may get to be dictator of Tesla. And he may try to play dictator here in Washington, D.C., but he doesn’t get to shut down the Agency for International Development.”
But Musk may have boxed Democrats into defending an institution that voters aren’t terribly fond of. Democratic and Republican strategists said that voters in polls and focus groups either know little about foreign aid or believe it is a poor use of resources.
“You’ll hear a lot of people say, ‘Well, sure, it’s nice to help people in Ukraine’ or ‘Sure, it would be great to do charity work across the globe, but we have people who are homeless here. We have a drug problem here,’” said Democratic pollster Jason McGrath. “That’s obviously not the way the federal government works, but it’s a sentiment that the Trump campaign and Musk have cynically taken advantage of.”
As for Republicans, conservative consultant Ryan Girdusky said that many are willing to give Musk the benefit of the doubt because they support him rooting out government waste. But he said there should be protections in place to ensure that personal data is not compromised by Musk’s efforts — a concern others on the right have expressed privately about the tech tycoon.
“I agree that the federal government is bloated and that some employees need to go, and there’s a lot of waste and fraud and abuse in the system. And I’m happy Musk is doing that,” he said.
But, he added, “It is deeply concerning that a man who has built his fortune on federal contracts, federal subsidies, he’s in the process of building an AI company and he is building the eight ball. There are a number of companies who are much further on AI than Musk is. So how do you jump past all of them? You get a hold of the data that no one else can access.”
Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley rescheduled a planned vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general late Friday in a preemptive move as negotiations between the Trump administration and GOP holdouts continue.
The vote, now set for Tuesday after a scheduled Thursday vote was postponed, isn’t an indication that a deal allowing for Blanche’s confirmation is near, so much as it is a nod to Judiciary Committee rules that require three days of notice for a panel meeting.
There is no sign that President Donald Trump is about to acquiesce to the unflinching demands of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who wants a controversial settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS substantially pared back.
Cornyn, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate, wants the Justice Department to nullify a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and limit the scope of a tax audit immunity component of the pact.
Trump told reporters earlier Friday the fund is “dead” but added “I wish it weren’t.”
“I’d like to see them compensated,” he added, referring to people he considers victims of government abuse, including participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
To advance Tuesday, Blanche needs to pick up Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another senator on the panel with similar concerns. He can’t lose any GOP votes if he wants to be reported favorably out of the Judiciary Committee.
“Chairman Grassley wants Todd Blanche’s nomination to be successful,” said a Judiciary Committee spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Noticing the markup gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee. Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess as he has an excellent record restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.
Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.
Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.
After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.
He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.
President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.
Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.
“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.
Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.
“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”
On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.
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