'No concern': Trump and Musk accused of 'enriching themselves' while firing federal workers

12 February

After he took office, President Donald Trump gave Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and his "Department of Government Efficiency" (which is not yet an official federal agency) the power to rapidly transform federal agencies. Now, experts are questioning if the human toll of Trump and Musk's budget cuts are worth the negligible savings.

During a Wednesday segment on MSNBC, host Chris Jansing spoke with New York Times reporter Jeremy Lipton and Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude about the increased level of power and influence Musk appears to have in the second Trump administration. Jansing pointed out that Trump and Musk now have a rule that only one new federal employee can be hired for every four who are fired. However, she noted that even if Trump managed to reduce the total federal workforce by 25%, it would only account for roughly 1% of the federal budget.

"You're only getting one percent of the federal budget? What are the human costs?" Glaude said. "Think about folk who are taking care of — who are raising families, who have mortgages, who are trying to pay for college. And what is happening here? And for what purposes and what ends? These people have no concern for the people they're leaving on the cutting floor."

Lipton pointed out that even though Trump ran as a populist who promised to put the concerns of the working class at the top of his agenda, his actual policies have so far instead largely benefited the billionaire class. The Times reporter observed that Trump's and Musk's goal of hollowing out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is particularly beneficial to the wealthy, as the agency is tasked with protecting ordinary consumers from financial scams and making them whole.

"They are enriching themselves and their billionaire friends. They are looking out only for the wealthiest Americans here by eliminating the CFPB," Lipton said. "What Trump is doing here is in fact not looking out for the little guy."

Glaude called on Americans to "unpack the ideology driving this," arguing that there was more to DOGE's efforts than its publicly stated mission of helping the U.S. government save money.

"There's greed, of course. There's grift, of course. But there's also this idea of deconstructing the administrative state, which reveals they don't have a real robust sense of the public good," Glaude said. "What is the responsibility of government? To ensure a certain standard of living for everyday, ordinary Americans. To ensure that we're eating healthy food. To make sure that our children are vaccinated. And so they are deconstructing all of these elements, and you have to ask, for what ends and for what purposes?"

Watch the full segment below, or by clicking this link.

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