The magazine Time He took Elon Musk on his last issue after the Oval Office of the White House, as if he were the authentic president of the United States. Without reaching so much, Musk has appeared on Tuesday with Donald Trump for the approval of a decree to launch “large -scale” dismissals in the administration. The Standard orders federal agencies and departments to collaborate with the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in their work to apply cuts. With Trump and Musk, in the Oval Office there was also X Æ A-XII, the four-year-old son of the businessman, who was restless in that stage. Musk has launched fraud accusations without concrete evidence or complaints.
Trump has talked about eradicating “corruption” and then has given the word to Musk. “The bureaucracy, has, in many ways, currently, more power than any elected representative. And this is not something that people want. ” Not being chosen is just one of the reproaches that the Democrats direct to him for the competences he has assumed without going through the polls. “We have a two billion deficit. And if this, if we do not do something with respect to this deficit, the country goes bankrupt, ”added Musk. One of the measures that has contributed the most to raise the deficit was the Trump -driven tax reduction in its first mandate, which mainly favors billionaires with very high income and that Trump wants to extend and extend.
“It is really amazing that only the interest payments of the national debt exceed the budget of the Department of Defense,” added Musk. Precisely, in Trump’s first mandate, records of public debt increases were beaten. Now, with its ads of tariffs and fiscal sales, it has created an inflationist uncertainty that has raised the interest rates of the debt, which makes financing more expensive.
THE BULO OF THE CONDONS
With a black cap with a Trumpist motto, Musk has used that deficit and debt to affirm: “It is not optional for us to reduce federal expenses. It is essential. ” Trump has asked him to mention some of the “crazy” figures that the Doge team has found. Without responding immediately with an example, Musk has said that some are “enriching at the expense of taxpayers,” has launched suspicions without specifying and without proof of officials who have accumulated a high heritage (“dozens of millions of dollars”) and has defended their cuts. They are only common sense measures, not “radicals” or “draconian”, he said, days after announcing the dismissal (judicially paralyzed) of more than 95% of employees of the foreign aid agency.
Then asked about the bulge spread by Trump and his allies that they had prevented “50 million dollars in condoms for Hamas”, Musk, Musk has recognized that some things that have been said could be “incorrect” and that there could be “errors ”, But they would correct them very quickly. That is the main example of waste that Trump has put, with the little detail that it is false: they were neither 50 million for Hamas nor for Gaza nor were they for condoms. Weeks have spent without that “error.” When asked to Musk, Trump smiled and headed for a sign of disgust.
Kevin Lamarque (Reuters)
Finally, he has set as the only example, without citing names or amounts, which continued to pay the pension to “150 -year -old people.” “Do you know someone 150? I don’t. Okay. They should be in the Guinness book of records. They are missing it. So that is a case in which I think they are probably dead, it is my conjecture, ”he said. If that is true, during Trump’s first presidency, those pensions continued to be paid to people who then I would have 145 years.
Another example that has put is the contracts that were initially signed for three months and have been paid 20 years (including the four of Trump’s first presidency). He has also criticized the retirement system of the officials, which is manually managed in the same way, as he said, since 1955, as if it were “a time machine”. Trump, who also did not correct that during his first term, has presented those examples as a test of inefficiency, corruption and fraud.
Musk has said that the treasure lacks essential controls such as those that companies have to process their payments. “What we are talking about here is just to add common sense controls that should be present and have not been,” he said.
Musk has been asked about criticism that Doge is carrying out a hostile OPA spice about the administration. “The people voted in favor of an important reform of the administration,” Musk argued. “The president talked about it on all rallies and that is what people are going to get. They will get what they voted. Many times, you know, people do not get what they voted, but in this presidency, they will get what they voted, and that’s what democracy is about, ”he added.
The decree, published on Tuesday, indicates that it is destined to significantly reduce the size of the administration and limit hiring to essential positions. According to their content, the agencies may hire a maximum of one employee for every four workers who leave their departments, according to the document. Exceptions are made for positions in the areas of citizen and national security, immigration and public security.
The rule orders those responsible for the agencies “undertake without delay the preparations to initiate large -scale personnel reductions.” The cuts will initially focus on offices that perform functions not expressly required by laws, “including all initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion of the agency; all the initiatives, components or operations of the agency that my administration suspends or closes; and all components and employees that perform functions not required by statutes or other laws that are not normally designated as essential ”during periods of partial closure of the administration.
In addition, the decree gives a period of 30 days to the heads of departments and agencies to submit to the Director of the Office of Administration and Budget a report that identifies any regulations established by the agency, or subcomponents of the agency, as entities required by law . The report must analyze whether the agency or any of its subcomponents must be eliminated or consolidated.
Musk has also rejected on Tuesday the accusations of conflicts of interest, ensuring that he tries to be as transparent as possible. “Transparency is what generates confidence,” he said, the same day that he has transpired that there will be opacity about his declaration of interests and heritage, against usual. Musk has lied saying that all Doge actions are published in the Department account in his social network X. “All our actions are of maximum transparency. In fact, I don’t think there has been, I don’t know, the case that an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization, ”he insisted, despite the evidence in the opposite direction.
Trump, on the other hand, has assured that there was no problem and that, if he believed that there is any conflict of interest, he would not let him do what he is doing. Then he said that he has seen many “bribes” in some government contracts. Also, given the multiple judicial resolutions that have suspended some of their decisions, he added that he expected the courts to allow him to do what had been elected and said that some judges have “inclinations”, it is understood that against him. The president, in any case, has assured that he will comply with judicial decisions and that if he needs to go to Congress to support his measures, he will do so.
“I will always comply, and we will appeal, but the appeals have been,” he said. “If we need a vote in Congress, I think we will get it very easily because we now have a history. We have already found billions of dollars of abuse, incompetence and corruption, a lot of corruption, ”said Trump, without knowing for now that he has filed any concrete complaint for corruption.
The billionaire has said that only with “competition and care” the public deficit would be reduced from two billion to one billion dollars. The last draft of the Doge is 900 million dollars to the office of the Department of Education that monitor the progress of US students.
Musk has been willing to account and undergo scrutiny, “to a daily examination of proctology,” he said. “They will examine me without stopping, but with the support of the president, we can reduce the budget deficit in half, from two billion to one,” said Musk, which initially had aimed to reduce spending by two billion dollars and that Now it seems to lower the goal. And, with that, he said that in 2026 there will be no inflation. “Imagine going to the supermarket hall and that prices from one year to another are the same, and that the mortgage and all the debts payments are reduced. Isn’t it great for the average American? For now, prices continue to rise and long -term interest rates, too.
