Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk said Tuesday evening on Fox News that his team “must be over the target” for Democrats to be so upset about their efforts to address government waste within the Trump administration.
Democrat lawmakers began protesting in Washington, D.C., after Musk announced on an X space discussion Feb. 3 that he and President Donald Trump had agreed to upend the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), placing it under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Despite Musk and his team identifying billions in taxpayer dollars wasted on some of the USAID programs, Democrats said the move was unlawful and intensified their criticism of Musk’s role in the Trump administration.
On “Hannity,” host Sean Hannity questioned Musk about the pushback, pointing out Democratic talking points that his involvement and efforts to target government waste were unconstitutional.
“Why are they reacting like this?” Musk asked. “I guess we must be over the target or doing something right. They wouldn’t be complaining so much if we weren’t doing something useful, I think. What all we’re really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president. What we’re finding is that there’s an unelected bureaucracy — speaking of unelected, there’s a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president and the cabinet.”
“You look at, say, D.C. voting, it’s 92% Kamala. OK, so we’re in 92% Kamala. That’s a lot,” Musk added. “I think about that number a lot. I’m like 92%, that’s basically almost everyone. If the will of the president is not implemented and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented. That means we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy. So I think what we’re seeing here is the sort of thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people.”
While Democrats have protested outside buildings in Washington, D.C. over Musk’s access to citizens’ data, the DOGE team has continued to push forward, calling out issues such as the government’s federal retirement files being hoarded in a Pennsylvania limestone mine and potential fraud within the Social Security Administration.
In an interview with Fox News, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump approves of DOGE’s efforts, adding that the president’s latest directive for the team was to “identify fraud” within the Social Security Administration. Leavitt said Musk and his team would identify “duplicate payments and to end them.” They would also identify payments going to deceased people and then protect “the integrity of this system for hard-working Americans.”
Democrats, however, have already attempted to halt DOGE’s efforts through the court system, as plaintiffs represented by one of the largest federal labor unions, AFL-CIO, filed a lawsuit against Musk’s access to the Health and Human Services Department, the Labor Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau records. Federal District Washington, D.C. Court Judge John D. Bates gave the Trump administration and Musk’s DOGE team a win on Saturday after ruling that the lawsuit from the plaintiffs did not meet the standard necessary to block the access.
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Additionally, in a CBS News poll released on Feb. 9, Trump received the highest approval rating of his two terms, with 53% of Americans supporting him and 70% stating the president was following through with his campaign vows. Just weeks into his second term, 49% of respondents said the president was doing more than they had expected, 41% said it was as much as they had expected and only 9% thought it was less than they had expected.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.