Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
Good afternoon, everybody. I'm proud to be joined by
Senators Murray, Warren, Schatz, and Wyden.
Now, before our very eyes, an elect on sorry, Before our very
eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a
hostile takeover of the federal government.
Last Friday, DOGE forcefully gained access to the Treasury
Department's payment systems and to the most sensitive
information of virtually every U.S. citizen.
Donald Trump basically handed Doge the Social Security data of
virtually every American citizen.
Donald Trump. He gave Donald Trump gave Doge
access to America's personal tax refund data.
He gave DOGE access to people's Medicare and Medicaid benefits,
disability payment data. Veteran debt benefit data.
Worst of all, we don't know what DOGE intends to do with this
information. If you want to know how an
unelected shadow government operates, look no further than
DOGE. Those staffers, whomever they
are, now have unprecedented access to the most sensitive
payment data in the entire federal government, with no
transparency, with no guardrails.
And guess what? The one independent watchdog who
could have provided oversight was fired by Donald Trump over a
week ago. The Treasury Secretary must
revoke Dosa's access to the Treasury payment system at once.
If not, Congress must act immediately.
That is why Leader Jeffries and I are working together on
legislation which we will introduce to stop unlawful
meddling in the Treasury Department's payment systems.
We must protect people's Social Security payments, their
Medicare payments, tax refunds from any possible tampering by
DOGE or any other unauthorized entities.
Let's be very clear. DOGE is not a real government
agency. It has no authority to make
spending decisions. It has no authority to shut
programs down or ignore federal law.
To give those a chokehold on Treasury payments is
outlandishly dangerous. It's like putting a tiger into a
petting zoo and then hoping for the best.
It's impossible to overstate that this is playing with fire.
The Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which overseas these
Treasury Department payments, executes over 1 billion billion
transactions a year, worth $6 trillion.
If these payments were ever intentionally or even
accidentally halted or manipulated, it could paralyze
our economy. If we're not careful, one
mistake and people's Social Security benefits could freeze.
Disability payments, aid to veterans, loans to small
businesses, they could all be endangered.
The Treasury Department is already using extraordinary
measures to ensure we do not default on the debt.
If Dozier's careless meddling caused us to default, it could
trigger a worldwide financial crisis.
This all begs an obvious question.
What does DOGE really want with this data?
What possible reason is there to give right wing extremists
people Social Security payments, Medicare payments, and personal
information? Will Doge try to halt Social
Security or Medicare or Medicaid payments?
God forbid. God forbid.
Will Doge cut funding to programs approved by Congress
that Donald Trump decides he doesn't like?
What about Cancer Research? Food banks?
School lunches? Veteran's aid?
Literacy program? Small business loans?
How do we know those won't use its access to the Treasury to
enrich Donald Trump's billionaire friends?
What if they go after business competition of Doge's
leadership? It is laughably naive to look at
the wealthy billionaires who run DOGE and take them at their word
that all they care about is efficiency.
Give me a break. The Treasury Department must
revoke those his access to the Treasury payment system at once.
We must halt this unlawful and dangerous power grab.
DOGE has no business anywhere, anywhere near the federal
government's payment systems nor America's private data.
Senator Murray. Well, we're two weeks in and it
is already painfully clear. This is the most corrupt
administration in our history, and it's putting our economy,
our government, and our most at risk communities in serious
jeopardy. In particular, we learned that
Elon Musk now has access to the Treasury Department's most
sensitive payment system, hand handling $6 trillion every year
and managing nearly all federal disbursements.
It's a system that contains extremely sensitive personal and
commercial information, and I've been hearing from people across
my state who are truly alarmed about what Musk and his
associates having access to this system could mean for their data
and for funding that they count on.
Let's not mince words here. And unelected, unaccountable
billionaire with expansive conflicts of interest, deep ties
to China, and an indiscreet axe to grind against perceived
enemies is hijacking our nation's most sensitive
financial data systems and it's checkbook so that he can
illegally block funds to our constituents based on the
slightest whim or wildest conspiracy.
Funds, mind you, that Congress passed on a bipartisan basis.
Some Republicans are trying to suggest that Musk only has
viewing access to Treasury's highly sensitive payment system,
as if that's acceptable either. But why on earth should we
believe that, Particularly when he is saying the exact opposite
loudly and repeatedly for everyone to see?
What funds will Elon target next?
Life saving, medical research? Housing assistance?
Food banks? We already know he is falsely
attacking faith-based organizations that help people
and promising to cut off funds based off conspiracy theories.
The world's richest man has vowed to cut off funding that
helps the least among us. Think about that, and next think
about how many dollars he himself makes from government
contracts and the Trump administration is handing the
keys of the Treasury to him. It does not get more blatantly
corrupt than that. And let me under score just how
dangerous this is. Because now that Trump has
handed over Treasury's checkbook, what if Elon decides
he doesn't like how Ford is getting federal funds to build
an EV battery plant? What's next?
All Elon has to do is say, oh, they're woke and he can convince
Trump to illegally cut off those funds.
Maybe Elon will decide he doesn't like that Blue Origin
and not SpaceX gets a contract so he wants to gum up the works
on their payments. Private corporations and
competitors take note, and anyone who thinks that surely
won't happen has not been paying attention.
Now, make no mistake, Trump and Musk have absolutely 00 legal
authority to hold up any federal payments that are law, but that
has not stopped them so far. This country is still reeling
from the chaos of last week's blanket spending freeze, and
Trump's illegal EOS to withhold funds are still not yet revoked.
Trump and Musk have yet to find a law they think applies to
them. That is not how things work in
this country. We have a democracy, we have
checks and we have balances where the president is
accountable to Congress, where we pass the laws and he
implements them. But some of my colleagues across
the aisle seem to be forgetting that our democracy doesn't work
by magic. We have to hold our do our part
to hold the president accountable.
Our job is not to say yes to everything any president does,
no matter how lawless or harmful.
Democrats are pushing back with the tools that we have.
We'll speak out. We will press this
administration, we will open investigations, and we will
demand accountability. The one tool we do not have is
the majority in this Congress. So that means our Republican
colleagues have to say enough. We need them to join us.
We need them to stand up to the corruption and lawlessness and
stand up for the people they represent.
Ron. Thank you, Senator Murray.
And I got horse flying all night, so no filibusters from
me. Our finance investigators got
confirmation from whistleblowers late Friday that the Treasury
Secretary had turned the keys over to the Musk Hatchet Squad.
And here's where we are now. It is clear that unqualified and
unaccountable people have seized control of the flow of taxpayer
funds and a trove of extremely sensitive data.
They are seizing the tools you need for a coup.
Their first target, I'll be Gate, wasn't anything to do with
fraud or waste. It was a religious charity for
poor people. If Donald Trump cared about
improper payments, he wouldn't have fired the inspectors
general. Nobody should fall for that bit
of misdirection now. A few hours ago, Trump claimed
that Musk only looks at payments and doesn't have the authority
to shut any down. That's Donald Trump.
It's pretty clear, folks, that Musk sees it differently as
Trump and must continue targeting Americans they don't
like. There's nothing to stop them
from cutting off Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid,
penalizing cities and states that defy Trump's illegal
orders. And a lot of us care deeply, as
our constituents do, about privacy.
Musk has access to the personal information of hundreds of
millions of Americans, bank accounts, tax data, Social
Security numbers, home addresses, if people are creeped
out. And you heard from Senator
Murray how folks in the Northwest feel about this Elon
Musk and his hatchet squad. Having your bank accounts, your
home address, Social Security number.
Trust me, folks in the Pacific Northwest think that this is way
out of bounds for government. The Musk hatchet brigade has
infiltrated a goldmine of data that every foreign spy and every
corrupt actor would love to see. It is a prescription for
nightmares. Let's remember that Musk
reportedly couldn't get a security clearance because of
his financial ties to the Chinese government and his other
foreign connections. That's the guy, folks, who's now
got his hands on the personal data of hundreds of millions of
Americans and some unknown number of businesses and groups.
Last point, the Trump administration caused chaos in
Medicaid and other services that are important to Americans last
week when they shut down the primary payment portals to
States and social service agencies.
These are incompetent people. They don't care about the damage
they're doing. And now they may be in charge of
the tightrope walk the Treasury has to do to avoid defaulting on
out of debt. We're one mistake away from
economic catastrophe. Senator Murray, who we going to
next? Senator Warren.
Thank you. Thank you.
So I just want to be clear about what's going on here.
The system to make sure that your granddad gets his Social
Security check, the system that makes sure that your mom's
doctor gets Medicare payment to cover her medical appointment,
and the system that makes sure that you get the tax refund that
you're owed has been taken over by Elon Musk.
And every organization, from your state government that uses
federal money on that bridge project to the local Head Start
that takes care of little kids while their mommies and daddies
go to work is now at the mercy of Elon Musk.
Maybe you get paid, or maybe you don't.
Because now it appears that all of us work for Elon Musk.
Elon just grabbed the controls of our whole payment system,
demanding the power to turn it on for his friends or turn it
off for anyone he doesn't like. One guy deciding who gets paid
and who doesn't. It is not the law, but it is the
reality. Now there's a second problem
here. It's not just payments from the
federal government that are now in Elon's control.
Elon and his handful of friends now have full access to your
personal and financial information that's in the
system. Your payment history, your
Social Security number, your bank account numbers.
Elon now has the power to suck out all of that information for
his own use. Now, whether it's to boost his
finances or expand his political power, it is all up to Elon.
And there is a third problem. In order for this handful of
programmers to gain access to our $6 trillion payment system,
we don't know what safeguards were pulled down.
Are the gates wide open now for hackers from China, from North
Korea, from Iran, from Russia? Heck, who knows what Black Hat
hackers all around the world are finding out about each one of us
and copying that information for their own criminal uses?
Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies are determined to take
over this government to make it work better for themselves and
worse for everyone else. And this is just the start.
As we gear up for the tax fight, it will become even clearer that
Trump will open the doors for his billionaires and giant
corporations to find more ways to loot the government at your
expense. Meanwhile, everyone else pays
more for groceries, more for housing, more for prescription
drugs, and more for healthcare When unelected billionaires
start ransacking our government offices.
This is not business as usual. Nope, nothing is normal.
We are living a nightmare created by Donald Trump and Elon
Musk, and we need to wake up. We need to use every tool we
have to fight back. And in the Senate, we can start
by saying no to dangerous Trump nominees like Tulsi Gabbard and
Russ Vote. That's it for me.
Go ahead. I just want all of you to
imagine yourself a foreign correspondent.
How would you cover this? If this were in South America or
Central America or sub-Saharan Africa, how would the coverage
change? If you don't like an agency, if
you don't like a spending provision, propose a bill.
Pass a law that is so foundational to the American
system of government that I don't want to race past this
idea that you can wave away a federal law because you don't
like it. And so it is both an outrage and
an illegal act. But it also gives us some
confidence, and the public should have some confidence.
The law here is absolutely on the side of the American people
being in control of taxpayer funds through the Congress,
through the Congress. And so they are depending on
some sort of sense of swagger and inevitability to storm into
buildings and take over the servers and to run the databases
and to relieve people of their duties.
Like this is some hostile takeover of a tech company.
This is your government, and you can hate parts of it and love
parts of it and be neutral about other parts of it, but it's
still your government. And the way a person expresses
their views about spending is by electing a member of Congress
who believes what they believe. And so if anyone in the Trump
administration wants to modify the spending law that was
enacted, you got to come back to Congress and modify the law that
was enacted. This is not some minor
transgression. This is an illegal act.
They stormed in the buildings. They shut down agencies
illegally. And sure, first it was USA, but
they are now systematically going into the Small Business
Administration, the Department of the Treasury, and they will
not stop until they believe they have total control over
spending. And that's not the way the
American system of government is supposed to work.
Thank you. I have a question.
I know, Senator Schultz, you had put a hold on all the State
Department nominees, but this is to all of you.
Why not go to the mat? You have all these nominees on
the floor. I know they're coming in and out
of executive session on the bus to vote.
Why not? If you're so upset about this,
then this is such a damning action down there.
Make them go through every single parliamentary hurdle, go
in and out of executive sessions, put holds on every
single nominee and make this as difficult as possible.
We are pursuing every action that we think we can do.
But I will tell you this, we are here to pull the fire alarm.
We are pulling the fire alarm. It is up to Republicans who are
the majority in Congress, who are passing these nominations,
who are sitting silently by while Elon Musk goes into
departments, into agencies and takes your information.
It is up to them to decide whether they want to get out the
fire hoses or sit in the fire. And I think we know what they
need to do, and we're calling on them to.
Do that, Chad. One fact I know, because you
follow the Finance Committee, the filing season has just
started and we got word that Musk apparently doesn't agree
with the Treasury Secretary. The Treasury Secretary said that
he was going to allow direct file this new approach that
Senator Warren and a whole group of us have been after for years
because we're the only Western industrialized nation that
doesn't use this approach and we've got to run this to ground.
But it's our understanding that Musk is going after that.
And if that's the case, that will be an immense burden on
people who've already started to file their taxes.
This is out of control and simply cries out for some
accountability. And that's what we're focused
on. And a bunch of us that are on
the tax committee and are already working on it.
Yes. Can you just expand on that a
little? Bit you are a minority right now
you are finding. This through.
Your communication, but what? Other steps can you?
Like you say. Well, first of all, remember
last. Oh, here we are a week later.
A week ago, the Trump administration illegally started
impounding money that Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, had
agreed to put into law. Within a few days, we had legal
challenges to that in the courts and every judge that has seen
this to my knowledge, has told them that this is illegal and
that they need to start the payments again.
I will ask them aside, tell you I spent the day on the phone
with a number of my constituents who were calling who still don't
have access to their funds. So we have an administration
right now who doesn't believe the law applies to them.
We will pursue this in the courts.
We will demand that our counterparts in the Republican
caucus also call on the president to follow the law.
And we will again, ask everyone out there to let your legislator
know, use your voice to let your members of Congress know you
will not stand for this. That's what changed last week.
And that's one final thing on the procedural stuff.
We're just not going to preview. We're we're just not going to
preview all of our parliamentary moves.
We have leverage. We don't have extensive
leverage, but we we're not without tools and we will be
using them, but we're not going to announce all of what we're up
to today. March 14th Government.
Funding deadline performed leverage?
And if so, how do you fund? Well, I don't, I don't know that
it's a point of leverage. It's a fact.
On March 14th, the government shuts down.
Between now and then, we have to have an agreement, bipartisan
that goes through Congress, that is passed by the House and by
the Senate. And what is giving me great
pause right right now is what if we do all that and come to an
agreement? And, you know, we like some, we
don't like some, but we voted in and this administration says
that's bunk. We don't have to go by that.
So the level of trust is at the lowest I have ever seen it here
in Congress in our ability to work together, find a compromise
and get it passed. It is up to our Republican
colleagues to stand up to this and assure us that an agreement
and a law is real and that they will follow up with us.
So yes, we're, we're all worried about the government shutdown
deadline of March 14th. No Democrat wants the government
to shut down. We have all worked extremely
hard to come to an agreement. We expect our Republican
colleagues to stand up and work with us to get it done in a
system of trust that this democracy is founded on.
Senator, why didn't you? Follow you expand on how you
know. Well, we've heard it several
places. Mr. Kerry can get you some of
the details, but yeah, and the point really is it's almost
government by whim. You know, we're used to rules
and the opportunity for all sides to be heard on the Finance
Committee. We have worked on this for years
and years. And we said we want to save
five, 600 bucks for the working guy.
It is now the filing season and based on what we've heard,
essentially Musk, I guess says he's now going to be secretary
of Treasury as well as everything else because he's
telling Besson, you know, he's going to go in there.
And, and Besson told us in the Finance Committee when I asked
the question, he said it is on for this year and people have
started filing. Have you tried?
Getting a hold of the Treasury Secretary in these last few days
and has he responded? He certainly didn't consult with
us under normal circumstances, the Treasury Secretary consults
with the committee and we've heard nothing from him on this.
I ask a question about. USA last question and we'll let
for and take you to say. Now your former colleague,
Senator, now Secretary of Rubio said today of USAI, we said our
frustrations with USA, we go back to my time in Congress.
It's a completely unresponsive agency and supposed to be, it's
supposed to respond to the policy directive to the State
Department and it refuses to do so.
I know that some of you all have the relationships with him.
Have you tried to reach out to him today about USAID?
Do you remember him talking about this when he was a member?
Have you purchased from other? Republicans, we've been in
constant my office and, and, and a number of us in the Senate
have been in constant contact with Secretary Rubio about this.
He's been obviously overseas, so a little harder to catch.
Here's what I would say about that.
If there is an opportunity to look at reform, I am all ears.
I'm now the ranking member of the S Fobs subcommittee.
Lindsey Graham and I had a conversation about the kinds of
reforms that were being contemplated by the secretary.
But we cannot have a negotiation when the whole agency is
illegally shut down. If the agency is reopened, then
we can start acting like adults again and have a negotiation.
But right now, they've illegally shut down all foreign aid.
One other point of fact for you is we passed the foreign
assistance appropriations bill in Congress last year was
completely everyone voted for it on a bipartisan basis across the
board, every single member, no one raised any issues that you
just stated. No one.
And we had a full committee hearing and markup and none of
that was raised. I just have.
One follow up, I have heard from someone in the USA station
abroad who has not been locked out of their system.
You're saying everything is shut down?
Is that the case? I I can't speak to individual
employees. What I can tell you is that
money is not flowing. I can tell you that medicine is
not being delivered. I can tell you that there is
medicine on the dock that was abandoned and spoiled.
I can tell you that people are evacuating countries.
I can tell you that there is an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda and
Marburg virus in East Africa. And all of those programs are
either completely shut down or hobbled to the point where
people can't deliver aid. And, and, and it's not just
about providing life saving care, it's about maintaining
stability overseas so that that instability doesn't visit us in
the United States. Thank you all very much.
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