The Honeymooners
The chaos continues
Inside the Explosive Meeting Where Trump Officials Clashed With Elon Musk
Having forgotten the laudatory language about teams of rivals from previous administration, the New York Times highlights any signs of conflict around DOGE as important.
This is natural. They’re adjusting.
‘The meeting was a potential turning point after the frenetic first weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term. It yielded the first significant indication that Mr. Trump was willing to put some limits on Mr. Musk, whose efforts have become the subject of several lawsuits and prompted concerns from Republican lawmakers, some of whom have complained directly to the president.
‘Cabinet officials almost uniformly like the concept of what Mr. Musk set out to do — reducing waste, fraud and abuse in government — but have been frustrated by the chain saw approach to upending the government and the lack of consistent coordination.’
Donald Trump Pulls Up Hard on Elon Musk
National Review comes down on the side of those arguing that Musk has been neutered.
‘Regardless of what Musk’s unflagging (and adorably credulous) worshippers will spin themselves into believing, the message is clear: As far as Trump is concerned, Musk has gone too far, created too many unnecessary messes, and comported himself too clumsily in both public and private to be allowed the kind of unfettered power he has heretofore reveled in. Yesterday marked his official neutering — in a meeting attended by every cabinet member, lest there be any doubt. It was a typically Trumpian move to bring a freshly restrained Elon along to apologize to the room (Politico: “According to one person familiar with the meeting, Musk acknowledged that DOGE had made some missteps”) and to recast his position, now properly understood, as merely advisory.’
Who benefited from these stolen funds, anyway?
‘Opposition to DOGE is driving Democrats to reject legislation to recover stolen pandemic unemployment benefits.’
The Limits of Apocalyptic Incrementalism
All the pushback on Musk is ultimately positive for DOGE’s prospects. Expectations got out of hand.
‘After last week’s cabinet meeting and some pushback on Capitol Hill, DOGE may be in a less manic, but potentially more fruitful place. Personnel matters should be coordinated with cabinet heads, and Congress should pass rescissions cutting spending.
‘If none of it will balance the budget or end the administrative state once and for all, it could slim down and rationalize the federal government, which is more than prior Republican administrations have been able to achieve. If DOGE ultimately works out, it will prove an exercise in successful incrementalism.’
Trump wants his Cabinet and Musk to play nice on DOGE cuts
The reason why it’s hard to do what DOGE is trying to do is that well, it’s Chinatown, Jake.
‘This week, the president publicly lauded those efforts while privately trying to strike harmony between Musk and his Cabinet, which has been growing increasingly frustrated by the tech mogul’s incursions into their agencies.’
Musk Doesn’t Understand Why Government Matters
The New York Times argues that government, unlike business, cannot take risk. Allrighty, then.
‘Even where Mr. Musk’s actions have remained within the bounds of the law, he has shown little understanding of the differences between business and government. Mr. Musk built his rocket company, SpaceX, by repeatedly launching rockets that failed until he learned how to launch rockets that worked. Even now, the company often conducts experiments that fail, and Mr. Musk has argued, compellingly, that “if things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.” But managing the nation’s air traffic control system or its Social Security payment system requires a different calculus.
‘Businesses can take risks in pursuit of profit because it’s OK if they fail. Americans can’t afford for the basic functions of government to fail. If Twitter stops working, people can’t tweet. When government services break down, people can die. While governments are often guilty of inefficiency, it is in the public interest to tolerate some inefficiency when the alternative is a breakdown of basic infrastructure.’
This is an impressive and thoughtful list from someone else who is trying to model out what is happening. This point (of the fifty) left a mark, though.
The current focus is on cost-cutting not deregulation.
Will that persist?
‘The Vivek model of DOGE had a theory that overregulation constrains American economic growth, and it’s a theory I mostly subscribe to. But DOGE as it exists now is not especially focused on regulatory rollback, and to the extent that it’s happening it’s elsewhere in the Trump administration.’
White House unleashes on 'rogue bureaucrats' after agency head refuses DOGE entry to headquarters
Does the President control the executive branch or not?
‘Elon Musk's DOGE team members and acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Peter Marocco, in accordance with President Donald Trump's executive order to downsize the federal government, sought to enter the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) building on Wednesday, but were denied entry after reportedly being intentionally locked out by members of the staff.
‘The cost-cutting team returned to USADF the next day with U.S. marshals after the Department of Justice (DOJ) determined that they had a right to enter the building, a White House official told Fox News Digital, prompting a lawsuit from USADF President Ward Brehm, who asked a district court to bar the administration from removing him from his position.’
If there is a British DOGE, my prediction is that it is too timid to succeed, based on this description, at least.
‘Highly controversial plans to revolutionise Whitehall by introducing performance-related pay, an accelerated exit process for under-performing mandarins and more digitalisation will be announced this week in what ministers say is a programme to “reshape the state” so it can respond to a new “era of insecurity”.
‘The proposed changes, to be announced by Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden, will inevitably provoke alarm and resistance from civil service unions, and be seen as the government using the current wave of global uncertainty as cover to drive through radical modernisation of civil service methods and culture…’