Elon Musk faces 1st questions on DOGE’s transparency as he joins Trump in Oval Office
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(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday, where he addressed reporters for the first time amid his controversial cost-cutting efforts across the federal government.
Musk defended DOGE as Trump asked him to speak about the team’s work. The Tesla billionaire brought his young son “X” and was wearing a black “Make America Great Again” hat.
“If there’s not a good feedback loop from the people to the government and if you have rule of the bureaucrat, or if the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?” said Musk, who is an unelected official himself.
Musk had not faced questions since taking the lead on Trump’s mandate to dismantle federal agencies. The White House has said he is classified as a “special government employee” and it’s unclear to whom he is accountable to, other than Trump.
ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott pressed Musk on what checks he faces and whether he is policing himself. Musk in response claimed his actions are “fully transparent.”
DOGE has faced early setbacks from the courts, with a federal judge temporarily blocking Musk and his team from accessing Treasury Department material, including sensitive information such as the Social Security numbers and bank account information of millions of Americans.
The administration and some key Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have criticized the court action against DOGE. Johnson earlier Tuesday said the courts should “step back” and let DOGE work.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Before deciding to resign from the Office of Personnel Management, a senior agency official was asked a question by a staffer from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): “What’s going to break?”
The official, a civil servant serving in a nonpartisan role, who asked that their name not be used, is now one of the tens of thousands of federal workers taking up the “deferred resignation” offer to leave the government.
OPM manages more than $1 trillion in assets and federal retirement, health and life insurance benefits for millions of current and former federal employees and their spouses, along with sensitive data on millions of government employees. It’s now being directed by officials and appointees with links to Musk’s team who have control over its systems, according to sources familiar with its workings.
The agency also helps the government pay its bills: The Treasury Department borrows money from the trust funds OPM manages for employee retirement programs and health benefits under “extraordinary measures” to avoid breaching the debt ceiling. The funds are made whole once Congress acts to suspend or lift the debt ceiling.
OPM is leading efforts directed by President Donald Trump to shrink the federal workforce and could be facing deep cuts of its own, which current and former officials worry could impact its day-to-day business. The agency’s chief financial officer, Erica Roach, was pushed out of her role this week and chose to resign rather than move into another role after being asked to submit 70% cuts to her office, according to multiple sources familiar with the move. And Melvin Brown, who served as OPM’s chief information officer, was replaced on the second day of the Trump administration, sources told ABC News.
“Eighty-five percent of federal workers work outside the D.C. area,” Rob Shriver, the managing director of Democracy Forward’s civil service initiative and the deputy director of OPM under President Biden, told ABC News. “These are VA nurses, they are law enforcement officers. They are people who process Social Security benefit claims, they are people who inspect our food.”
He added, “They deserve to depend on getting their retirement benefits, the health benefits that the American people have promised them. Taking steps to harm that is going to hurt working class and middle-class people.”
Agency veterans worry that removing and reassigning career officials and accountants who manage these systems could lead to potential problems with government payments and systems – and, they say, raise the risk of missed payments or claims.
On Tuesday, OPM released a memo to government agencies recommending that chief information officers be redesignated as “general” roles rather than “career reserved,” a move that could allow for more political appointees to work in roles generally filled by career civil service workers.
“It’s a complex financial ecosystem, with major implications not just for federal employees but the federal government overall,” a source familiar with the agency’s work told ABC News.
A DOGE spokesman did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Current and former OPM officials told ABC News that Musk’s team includes engineers and aides who have joined him in government from across the private sector. Some of them wear the same “uniform” in the office and have been spotted sleeping overnight in the office building.
Others have refused to identify themselves in conversations with career officials, sources told ABC News.
“They’re scorching the earth,” one former agency official told ABC News, describing Musk’s team. “It’s a different mindset from SpaceX than providing services to the American people.”
“If you’re building an unmanned spaceship and you forget a screw, the ship might crash. You lose money, but no one is hurt,” the former official added. “If you’re delivering services to the American people and you stop financial assistance, that is impacting people.”
An OPM spokesperson declined to comment on internal agency deliberations.
Musk, who is working in the government as a special government employee, campaigned intensely alongside Trump, and vowed to help reshape the government.
Following an executive order signed by Trump directing his efforts, Musk’s team has embedded in agencies across the federal government, gaining access to IT systems and other crucial programs and data at individual departments and agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Commerce, Veterans Affairs and Transportation.
The Trump administration has effectively shut down the US Agency for International Development, recalling employees in the field and freezing most foreign assistance programs, with the help of Musk’s team and its access to agency systems.
On his social media platform over the weekend, Musk said he discussed the work on USAID with Trump and that the president agreed with “shutting it down.”
“None of this could be done without the full support of the president. And with regard to the USAID stuff, I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said. “I want to be clear. I actually checked with him a few times, ‘Are you sure?’ Like, yes, so we are shutting it down.”
The White House has repeatedly defended the work of Musk and his team.
“President Trump was an elected with a mandate from the American people to make this government more efficient,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday in a briefing with reporters. “He campaigned across this country with Elon Musk, vowing that Elon was going to head up the Department of Government Efficiency and the two of them with a great team around them. We’re going to look at the receipts of this federal government and ensure its accountable to American taxpayers.”
(WASHINGTON) — World Wresting Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon has been getting high marks from her meetings with the Republican senators who could decide whether she’ll be the next secretary of education.
McMahon has run a large government organization before — she led the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019 in President-elect Donald Trump’s first term — but critics say she has little professional education experience beyond earning a teaching certificate from East Carolina University.
Since then, McMahon has primarily focused her time as a WWE executive, serving on the boards of colleges and state education agencies, and as chair of the board for think tank America First Policy Institute.
McMahon allies suggest her business experience will not only disrupt but also help reshape a federal agency that’s long been criticized by Republicans. As a confidant to the president-elect who co-chaired his transition, McMahon is uniquely positioned to carry out his promises to close the education department, restore power to parents, and inject choice in schools, they say.
“Linda McMahon is a win for parents and will root out radical ideology and get DEI out of America’s education system,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn wrote in a post on X after their meeting on Tuesday.
McMahon said she will carry out Trump’s platform if confirmed by the Senate. When asked if she would dismantle the Department of Education like Trump campaigned on in her new role, she told ABC News, “If I am secretary of education, I will certainly fall in with what the president’s policy is.” However, it would take 60 votes in the Senate to dissolve the department, which is highly unlikely with just a 53-47 Republican majority.
The slim majority may not be enough to create immediate changes at the department, but senators who talked to ABC News expect her to be the department’s next leader.
What are senators saying?
Ultimately, McMahon’s nomination rests with the 100 senators who will vote on whether to confirm Trump’s Cabinet picks. The Senate hasn’t yet formally set a date for a confirmation hearing for McMahon, but she told ABC News she is looking forward to it.
Like Trump’s most vulnerable Cabinet nominees, McMahon has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill in advise and consent meetings with everyone from newly elected Senate Majority Leader John Thune to freshman Republican Sen. Jim Banks. The GOP senators McMahon has met with have signaled a smooth process ahead.
“She’s awesome,” Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin told ABC News. “I’m looking forward to getting her over to be the secretary of education. She’s going to do the reform that needs to be done there.”
Mullin added, “I think she’s going to get through pretty easy. She’s really good.”
McMahon first met with Mullin and most of his colleagues on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP). This committee is expected to hold hearings for the nominees to lead the departments of Education, Labor and Health. Mullin explained that he and McMahon discussed reforming Washington, not outright dismantling agencies such as the DOE.
“I think all these federal agencies need to have a hard look at,” Mullin said. “The American people were very clear about that in the election, they gave President Trump and they gave the Republicans a mandate that they want the government to start working for them and not working for a party.”
McMahon and her team have been marching through the Senate halls for weeks. The meetings typically last between 30 to 45 minutes. After his meeting, HELP Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he and McMahon “speak the same language” on education issues.
Tuberville, R-Ala., also stressed that McMahon is the right leader to execute Trump’s goal of closing the education department, arguing states already have their own departments of education so Washington doesn’t need one.
“I’ve seen the downgrade of our curriculum, of the discipline, you know, between the students and the parents and the teachers,” Tuberville said. “We need to be more of a family when it comes to education, instead of an individual agency. We need to make it more personal, and I think that she’ll have a great opportunity to do that. She knows a lot about it.”
Tuberville is one of five current or former GOP members on the HELP committee who told ABC News the closed-door meetings with McMahon have been going “great.” McMahon has not told ABC News if her meetings will include Democrats.
HELP Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., told ABC News she wants to see full vetting of Trump’s nominees including FBI background checks. Baldwin said she hopes McMahon is going to be a “good steward” of the education department and looks forward to reviewing her case to be its next secretary.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., struck a different tone condemning Trump’s nominees.
“[McMahon] definitely wouldn’t be my first choice or my second choice, or third choice, or fourth choice, or fifth choice, or sixth or seventh,” Fetterman said, then added, “But I forgot they won, so, they can pick these kinds of things.”
(WASHINGTON) — In a new letter, Democratic lawmakers are asking federal regulators to look into legal and ethical questions around the meme cryptocurrency coins launched by President Donald Trump and the first lady.
The letter formally raises concerns about the risk of foreign countries trying to curry influence by buying the coins — and the ethics of Trump making “extraordinary profits off his presidency.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and an advocate for crypto regulation, co-wrote the letter with Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., who sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Warren and Auchincloss point to the foreign emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states “[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
“Anyone, including the leaders of hostile nations, can covertly buy these coins, raising the specter of uninhibited and untraceable foreign influence over the President of the United States, all while President Trump’s supporters are left to shoulder the risk of investing in $TRUMP and $MELANIA,” Warren and Auchincloss wrote to the Office of Government Ethics, the Treasury Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The meme coins also pose a conflict of interest, they write, because Trump’s family members are expected to directly profit off an industry he is charged with regulating. The president nominates the Chairs of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission, the Directors of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Secretary of the Treasury.
“This creates an unavoidable conflict of interest, as he will be in a position to both benefit directly from the sale of the tokens while also setting the policy on how these markets are regulated. He will be in a position to seek commitments from agency heads, to not only decide how the market is valued, but to implement lax policies to crack down on crypto scams like pump-and-dump schemes that are regularly conducted through meme coins,” the letter says.
ABC News reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump launched the $TRUMP coin Friday night, just days before he took office. Its estimated value is now $7 billion, according to CoinGecko. The $MELANIA coin is worth around $400 million. A big share of the profits from these coins go toward Trump and his businesses, according to financial disclosures. (If Trump divests of his interests in these companies like he did with most of his assets during his first term, his family could still profit off them.)
Meme coins are a highly volatile type of cryptocurrency that allow people to bet on a popular personality or trend.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order seeking to support the expansion of cryptocurrencies.
