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Will Musk Trigger a Government Shutdown? · Trumponomics

0:02
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. Musk, for all the
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Speaker 1: kind of excitement he's caused among Republicans, could actually be
0:13
Speaker 1: setting them up for a real problem that's going to
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Speaker 1: hit when funding runs out on March fourteenth.
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Speaker 2: I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg,
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Speaker 2: and this is Trumpnomics, the podcast that looks at the
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Speaker 2: economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped the
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Speaker 2: global economy, and what on earth is going to happen
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Speaker 2: next This week, our question is will Elon musk campaign
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Speaker 2: to make the US government more efficient actually lead to
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Speaker 2: its shutting down altogether in a few weeks time. On
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Speaker 2: March fourteenth, the Continuing Resolution that funds the US federal
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Speaker 2: government will run out and its work will shut down
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Speaker 2: unless the Republican Congress and Donald Trump reach an agreement. Now,
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Speaker 2: that was always going to be tough, but Elon Musk
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Speaker 2: scorched earth overhaul of the US government via the so
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Speaker 2: called Department of Government Efficiency DOGE appears to have made
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Speaker 2: it a whole lot harder. So that's left me wanting
1:15
Speaker 2: to know what exactly are the chances the federal government
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Speaker 2: shuts down in a few weeks. And if it does,
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Speaker 2: will DOGE shut down as well? Or will that be
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Speaker 2: an opportunity for Elon Musk and his team to really
1:26
Speaker 2: go to town. Now, of course, nobody knows the answer
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Speaker 2: to those questions, but I have two people here who
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Speaker 2: can speculate much more wisely than most. Josh Green, National
1:36
Speaker 2: correspondent at Bloomberg BusinessWeek, author of the New York Times
1:38
Speaker 2: bestseller Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the National Uprising. Josh,
1:43
Speaker 2: great to have you back.
1:44
Speaker 1: Could to be with you and Laura.
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Speaker 2: Davison, our White House editor specializing in DOGE taxes and
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Speaker 2: fiscal policy. I think of you as the DOGE czar,
1:53
Speaker 2: but it just doesn't sound like a very nice name, Laura,
1:56
Speaker 2: so I won't call you that, but very good to
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Speaker 2: have you.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
2:06
Speaker 1: So.
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Speaker 2: I think in a more normal year, we'd have talked
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Speaker 2: about the prospect of a government shut down long before now,
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Speaker 2: since we're so close to that formal deadline. But frankly,
2:15
Speaker 2: there's just been too much going on.
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Speaker 3: Josh.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you did draw attention to this a few
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Speaker 2: days ago in your excellent Business Week newsletter, but you
2:23
Speaker 2: describe their Elon Musk rampaging across Washington like Godzilla leveling Tokyo,
2:28
Speaker 2: packing away at federal agencies and firing workers on mass
2:32
Speaker 2: through Doge, I think, very good visual image. You had
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Speaker 2: fun there. Doge appears to be having quite a lot
2:38
Speaker 2: of blowback out in people's constituencies. Is certainly causing a
2:44
Speaker 2: lot of headlines, a lot of stories. But there's a
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Speaker 2: very specific problem for the Republican leadership in Congress when
2:50
Speaker 2: it comes to these upcoming votes to keep the government running.
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Speaker 2: So can you just take us through what they needed
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Speaker 2: to happen and how Musk has made it harder.
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Speaker 1: The vibe in Washington right now among republic pilkins is
3:00
Speaker 1: very positive and very excited, and a lot of Trump
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Speaker 1: fans have really enjoyed watching Musk shutter agencies, fireworkers, create
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Speaker 1: all this chaos that has Democrats so upset, and of
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Speaker 1: course that's where all the news focus has been. But
3:14
Speaker 1: if you look right now, the conference is divided between
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Speaker 1: a small group of hardline deficit hawks and the broader group,
3:21
Speaker 1: which includes moderate Republicans from districts that Joe Biden won
3:25
Speaker 1: who are concerned about deep spending cuts and so Republicans
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Speaker 1: haven't been able to agree on a spending bill. This
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Speaker 1: is not something that's new. In the past, Republicans have
3:36
Speaker 1: run into the same problem In twenty twenty three, Kevin McCarthy,
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Speaker 1: the House Speaker, had to rely on Democratic votes. Last December,
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Speaker 1: Mike Johnson, his successor, again had to rely on Democratic
3:46
Speaker 1: votes to averta shutdown. So before Elon Musk, there had
3:50
Speaker 1: always been this kind of off ramp when I think
3:52
Speaker 1: of as an off ramp, where a Republican House Speaker
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Speaker 1: who was in trouble could at the last minute cobble
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Speaker 1: together some kind of a deal with Democrats to keep
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Speaker 1: the government funded. This time, however, the Democrats I've spoken
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Speaker 1: to have been very angry about what Elon Musk is
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Speaker 1: doing and what Donald Trump is doing. And a couple
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Speaker 1: of them it said to me in the last couple
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Speaker 1: of weeks, why would we help out Speaker Johnson and
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Speaker 1: Republicans and agree to any kind of a deal. How
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Speaker 1: could we possibly trust it if Elon Musk and Trump
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Speaker 1: could just go ahead and summarily tear apart anything that
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Speaker 1: we'd agreed to. And to me, that raises an interesting
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Speaker 1: tension that a lot of people aren't focused on yet.
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Speaker 1: That Musk, for all the kind of excitement he's caused
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Speaker 1: among Republicans, could actually be setting them up for a
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Speaker 1: real problem that's going to hit when funding runs out
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Speaker 1: on March fourteenth.
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Speaker 2: You mentioned that they've needed Democratic votes in the past.
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Speaker 2: Just to be specific about it, there are quite a
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Speaker 2: few Republican congressmen who and people who have never voted
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Speaker 2: for one of these continuing resolutions, even with larger majorities
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Speaker 2: than they have now, they've always had to go to Democrats.
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Speaker 2: Given that direct linkage that you're making with Elon Musk's
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Speaker 2: unpopularity with Democrats and the need to get some Democrat votes,
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Speaker 2: do you get the sense that they're going to link
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Speaker 2: the two in any way, that they're trying to put
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Speaker 2: some restraint on Doze or on President Trump more generally
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Speaker 2: in return for that support, or would that be too
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Speaker 2: explicit for them.
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Speaker 1: No, that's exactly the question that I've been asking, and
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Speaker 1: the feedback I've gotten has been twofold. On the one hand,
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Speaker 1: there's the obvious worry, which you've mentioned, that how can
5:23
Speaker 1: we have assurance that any deal we strike won't immediately
5:27
Speaker 1: be torn apart or ignored by Musk? The question I've
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Speaker 1: been asking is would you actually write legislative language into
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Speaker 1: an agreement saying Elon Musk cannot cut this agency? Or
5:37
Speaker 1: perhaps Trump could do what's called a presidential signing statement.
5:40
Speaker 1: George W. Bush used to do these a lot, that
5:43
Speaker 1: would specify his intentions for what a bill means and
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Speaker 1: how it should be interpreted. To guard it against Elon Musk,
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Speaker 1: There's got to be some kind of an assurance from
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Speaker 1: Democrats that the deal they agree to is going to
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Speaker 1: withstand Doge's attacks. But then the other factor in all
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Speaker 1: of this is that the Democratic Party is very unpopular.
6:03
Speaker 1: It's favorability rating is something like in the mid thirties,
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Speaker 1: and so there's a lot of pressure on Democratic lawmakers
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Speaker 1: from Democratic voters not to simply roll over and enable
6:14
Speaker 1: Trump and Republicans to continue what they view as an
6:17
Speaker 1: assault on government. So there are a lot of forces,
6:20
Speaker 1: I think, behind the scenes that are pushing the two
6:23
Speaker 1: sides toward what looks to me to be a pretty
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Speaker 1: high chance of a government shutdown.
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Speaker 2: I guess, just to be clear, everyone in Congress is
6:29
Speaker 2: pretty unpopular, right. The Republicans in Congress are not super popular,
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Speaker 2: or you would say, you think specifically as the Democrats.
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Speaker 1: I think the Democrats right now are more unpopular. I
6:38
Speaker 1: saw Paul the other day that had Democrats running about
6:41
Speaker 1: twenty points behind, I think, in popularity behind Republicans. When
6:44
Speaker 1: Donald Trump even got a bit of a honeymoon, he
6:47
Speaker 1: had higher favorability ratings and unfavorability he rings for the
6:50
Speaker 1: first month or so of his presidency. But it's the
6:53
Speaker 1: view of Democrats among their own voters that is so
6:56
Speaker 1: worrisome to Democratic elected officials because they need this support
7:01
Speaker 1: in order to stay in their jobs, and they're very
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Speaker 1: alert and attuned to the dissatisfaction in the Democratic base.
7:08
Speaker 1: And that too is a factor that's going to play
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Speaker 1: into what Democrats are and aren't willing to agree on
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Speaker 1: when it comes to cutting it spending deal with the Republicans.
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Speaker 2: Okay, Joss, I might make you do a lot of work.
7:17
Speaker 2: I have one more question. Go on to something else,
7:19
Speaker 2: but I am interested. Do you think that doge has
7:22
Speaker 2: changed the politics of a shutdown because we don't normally
7:26
Speaker 2: talk about federal workers very much except if there's a shutdown,
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Speaker 2: But I feel like we spent the last two or
7:31
Speaker 2: three weeks reading loads of stories about federal workers debating
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Speaker 2: whether they're all useless, or whether any of them are
7:35
Speaker 2: really important. Do you think that maybe President Trump will
7:38
Speaker 2: be less frightened of a shutdown in this context? Will
7:41
Speaker 2: it just sort of muddy the waters around Doge.
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Speaker 1: They're eager to test the proposition that the government really
7:47
Speaker 1: doesn't need all these employees to function on it, so
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Speaker 1: I think there would be some appetite for a shutdown.
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Speaker 1: The danger with that is that in the past, Republicans
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Speaker 1: have gone into shutdowns saying, Oh, this isn't going to
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Speaker 1: be a big deal, it will be fine, the government
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Speaker 1: can cont you to run. In my view, we had
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Speaker 1: a test to that back during the first Trump administration
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Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, when Republicans allowed a
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Speaker 1: shutdown to occur because Trump wanted to secure immediate funding
8:11
Speaker 1: for a border wall, and the shutdown lasted thirty five days. Eventually,
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Speaker 1: there was a lot of blowback from ordinary Americans, and
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Speaker 1: Trump ended up agreeing to reopen the government without having
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Speaker 1: secured that funding. Republicans and Trump lost that shutdown because
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Speaker 1: the political pressure became too much for them to bear.
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Speaker 1: I think the longer a shutdown goes on, regardless of
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Speaker 1: how excited Republicans might be in the front end of that.
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Speaker 1: The political pressure on them to get the government running
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Speaker 1: again is only going to increase. Elon Musk may not care,
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Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans eager to fire government workers may
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Speaker 1: not care. But at the end of the day, Republican
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Speaker 1: elected officials want to keep their jobs and Trump wants
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Speaker 1: to maintain his popularity, and it's very hard for me
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Speaker 1: to see how they would be able to do that
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Speaker 1: over an extended government shutdown.
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Speaker 2: I can be come back to a bit later, because
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Speaker 2: I do want to think about the implications for doge
9:02
Speaker 2: itself and their activities if the government shuts down. But first,
9:05
Speaker 2: I mean, we've had a lot of politics, which is
9:08
Speaker 2: only occasionally allowed on Trumponomics, But I wanted to also
9:11
Speaker 2: think about some of the numbers involved here, and specifically
9:14
Speaker 2: have a quick think about whether all these firings and
9:17
Speaker 2: scary emails and all the fire smoke coming out of
9:22
Speaker 2: federal government thanks to DOGE, has actually produced a lot
9:25
Speaker 2: of savings for the US taxpayer. So Laura, you and
9:28
Speaker 2: your team keep a close eye on all this. And
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Speaker 2: I see that DOGE itself has claimed recently that it's
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Speaker 2: already found fifty five billion dollars worth of savings. Now,
9:37
Speaker 2: our chief economy is pointed out, and a woe pointed
9:39
Speaker 2: out on this show not long ago that you'd need
9:42
Speaker 2: around eight times that you'd need more like four hundred
9:45
Speaker 2: billion to really make a dent on the US borrowing trajectory.
9:50
Speaker 2: But still in just a few weeks, fifty five billion
9:52
Speaker 2: would be pretty impressive. Is it true so far?
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Speaker 3: No, And they actually recently updated that number just sixty
9:58
Speaker 3: five billion, But we still have seen their accounting of
10:01
Speaker 3: how they got there.
10:02
Speaker 2: So in the last few days it's gone up from
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Speaker 2: fifty five to sixty five.
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Speaker 3: Yes, but the underlying sort of accounting doesn't bear that out.
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Speaker 3: Doge has really made this claim that they are the
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Speaker 3: most transparent agency out there, that they are doing this
10:16
Speaker 3: all in public view. For the first couple weeks, what
10:19
Speaker 3: this really was was just an x account just posting, hey,
10:21
Speaker 3: we canceled this contract. We canceled that contract. In the
10:24
Speaker 3: past week or so, they have put this all on
10:26
Speaker 3: a Doze website and basically listed here are all the
10:29
Speaker 3: contracts that we have canceled. If you go through there's
10:32
Speaker 3: an At this point, I had a couple thousand there
10:34
Speaker 3: when we did the math last week on this There
10:36
Speaker 3: were about sixteen billion dollars worth of contracts listed there. However,
10:41
Speaker 3: there was one that doesn't add up to the fifty
10:44
Speaker 3: five billion that they were claiming at the top line.
10:45
Speaker 3: And then once you dug down into these contracts, we
10:48
Speaker 3: found one pretty major error that showed an eight billion
10:51
Speaker 3: dollar contract that was actually an eight million dollar contract.
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Speaker 2: That's the kind of a state you make when you're
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Speaker 2: the richest man in the world and you're just constantly
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Speaker 2: getting your millions and billions mixed up.
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Speaker 3: But truly, as you mentioned, that doesn't really move the dial,
11:03
Speaker 3: but it showed and caused a lot of called into
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Speaker 3: a question Doge and how transparent they are being. Actually,
11:09
Speaker 3: they've accounted for about eight billion dollars worth of savings.
11:12
Speaker 3: That's not that much here at Bloomberg when we're talking
11:15
Speaker 3: about tax policies, we sometimes don't even really start talking
11:17
Speaker 3: about them ntill they're about one hundred billion dollars.
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Speaker 2: Get out of bed for less than a few billions.
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Speaker 3: Other other colleagues have noted for various tax savings that
11:26
Speaker 3: in this bill that Republicans are looking to pass later
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Speaker 3: this year. Elon Musk personally could benefit by hundreds of
11:31
Speaker 3: billions of dollars. So the fact that his group is
11:33
Speaker 3: only saving eight billion dollars really just goes to show
11:36
Speaker 3: just how they're barely denting the surface.
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Speaker 2: And it's weird. I mean that particular example, the million
11:40
Speaker 2: billion one. I mean, we joke around it, but actually
11:42
Speaker 2: it's also one of those ones where it's just on
11:43
Speaker 2: its face it's mad. You sort of wonder, how if
11:47
Speaker 2: you just tell us a bit more about the detail
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Speaker 2: of what the claim is in terms of how this
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Speaker 2: contract would be bigger than anything that this company has
11:57
Speaker 2: had anything to do with ever.
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Speaker 3: Yes, so this was a contractor that's out in a
12:01
Speaker 3: Washington suburb. Their average contract going back was about a
12:05
Speaker 3: million dollars, so this having an eight billion dollar contract
12:08
Speaker 3: would just be wildly out of proportion.
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Speaker 2: And it is a DEI contract, right of course you
12:12
Speaker 2: want to claim that you were wasting lots and lots
12:14
Speaker 2: of money on DEI.
12:15
Speaker 3: Yes, And even for the agency this contract was going through,
12:18
Speaker 3: their entire budget was only about nine billion dollars. So
12:20
Speaker 3: the fact that they would have one single contract being
12:22
Speaker 3: eight billion on DEI just doesn't stand up.
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Speaker 2: And it was eight million.
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Speaker 3: It was for eight million. The other thing that was
12:28
Speaker 3: really called into question even of Okay, say you make
12:30
Speaker 3: that accounting change, you have eight billion dollars in which
12:34
Speaker 3: in what they say they've saved, all of these contracts
12:37
Speaker 3: that are listed basically have a maximum value, and that
12:40
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that top line number is actually what's spent,
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Speaker 3: So that eight billion dollars is probably actually much less
12:45
Speaker 3: after you go through a discount all of these contracts
12:47
Speaker 3: across the board. Doe just quick to point out that, look,
12:50
Speaker 3: this doesn't account for all of the the leases that
12:52
Speaker 3: we've canceled, all the personnel that we have pulled from
12:55
Speaker 3: the federal government roles. But even still, even if you
12:57
Speaker 3: give a very generous estimate to all of those, were
13:00
Speaker 3: still just talking a couple more billion dollars here and there.
13:02
Speaker 3: This claim that Musk started with a two trillion dollar
13:05
Speaker 3: goal of cutting two trillion dollars from the federal deficit.
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Speaker 3: He's now decreased that to one trillion. So the goalposts
13:10
Speaker 3: really keep moving here, just week by week.
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Speaker 2: I guess you could say he's providing the open goal
13:16
Speaker 2: by making all this transparent on the website, Given that
13:19
Speaker 2: a lot of people seem to be quite happy to
13:20
Speaker 2: take at face value that claims he's been making on x.
13:24
Speaker 2: I guess they deserve some credit for the transparency of
13:26
Speaker 2: the website, especially if it means we find all these
13:28
Speaker 2: errors and we can constantly criticize them.
13:31
Speaker 3: The other criticism, though, is that there's really not a
13:34
Speaker 3: lot of transparency requirements for DOGE. It is not a
13:36
Speaker 3: department as all the other Department of Homeland Security. It's
13:39
Speaker 3: really just an office within the White House. Musk himself
13:43
Speaker 3: doesn't have to disclose his finances publicly. They also don't
13:46
Speaker 3: have the same sort of scrutiny from a watchdog or
13:48
Speaker 3: an inspector general that would have the same sort of oversight.
13:51
Speaker 3: They don't have to report who the people are. There's
13:52
Speaker 3: questions of are these doze kids, as they've been called,
13:55
Speaker 3: going to these different agencies, a lot of them very young.
13:57
Speaker 3: Have they completed their ethics training, the t training. There's
14:00
Speaker 3: been some cases we've reported on lapses there that have
14:03
Speaker 3: cropped up. So they really aren't subject to the same
14:06
Speaker 3: hiring practices and scrutiny as any other of the federal
14:08
Speaker 3: workers that they're going in and auditing.
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Speaker 2: And to your point about the website, they don't seem
14:12
Speaker 2: to have done a lot of basic arithmesy. This actually
14:15
Speaker 2: takes us that the status of DOGE and the fact
14:18
Speaker 2: that it's not subject to a lot of these things,
14:20
Speaker 2: actually raises this much intriguing question of what happens to
14:25
Speaker 2: DOGE efforts themselves in the case of a government shutdown,
14:28
Speaker 2: And mean, I go back to you, Josh, what's your
14:31
Speaker 2: sense would we consider the DOGE effort to now be
14:35
Speaker 2: enough part of the federal government that all of its
14:37
Speaker 2: people have to go home? Or would it the counter's
14:39
Speaker 2: essential workers it's essential to be cutting the government even
14:43
Speaker 2: as you shut it down.
14:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. That's one that Democrats and
14:47
Speaker 1: Republicans have started to ask themselves. I spent yesterday talking
14:50
Speaker 1: to a couple of House and Senate staffers just asking
14:53
Speaker 1: the basic question, would DOGE be allowed to continue operating
14:56
Speaker 1: in a government shutdown? There isn't a clear answer, but
14:59
Speaker 1: the general sense that I got was that staffers both
15:01
Speaker 1: in the House and Senate think that it probably would
15:04
Speaker 1: be because the president does have a lot of leeway
15:07
Speaker 1: to declare certain workers essential to the government. And so,
15:10
Speaker 1: as one Democratic House staffer put it to me, I
15:12
Speaker 1: don't think DOGE would even pause, I did get an
15:16
Speaker 1: interesting illustration of the way that presidents used this power
15:19
Speaker 1: to manipulate public opinion. And I think it might come
15:22
Speaker 1: into play with Trump and Doze if there is a
15:23
Speaker 1: government shutdown. Back in twenty thirteen, when Barack Obama was president,
15:28
Speaker 1: there was a shutdown and Obama shut the National Parks down,
15:31
Speaker 1: and Republicans got very angry about that because they said,
15:34
Speaker 1: Obama has the power to keep this open. He's doing
15:36
Speaker 1: this for political purposes to get people mad at Republicans.
15:40
Speaker 2: And he was compliance right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
15:43
Speaker 1: But then during the twenty eighteen government shutdown when Trump
15:46
Speaker 1: was president, Trump made a point of keeping a bunch
15:49
Speaker 1: of stuff open, including the National Parks, in order to
15:53
Speaker 1: underscore the argument that shutdowns aren't that bad and it
15:56
Speaker 1: wasn't his fault when things got messed up during a shutdown.
15:59
Speaker 1: Think if you flip that around and put it in
16:02
Speaker 1: a Doze context, Trump, I don't see why Trump couldn't
16:05
Speaker 1: argue that Doze are essential workers. They're actually helping to
16:09
Speaker 1: balance the budget by continuing to kind of fire people
16:12
Speaker 1: and do these things at Trump and Musk think is
16:14
Speaker 1: so important. And I don't know what power Democrats would
16:17
Speaker 1: have to stop them. So while we don't have a
16:19
Speaker 1: clear and definitive answer yet, the assumption among people I
16:22
Speaker 1: talked to on the Hill is that DOGE probably would
16:24
Speaker 1: be able to continue operating in a shutdown.
16:26
Speaker 3: There's a lot of thought also with the DOGE that
16:29
Speaker 3: a shutdown would actually be very beneficial because they wouldn't
16:32
Speaker 3: be encumbered by all of the career staff that would
16:34
Speaker 3: be in the office. They've run into lots of issues
16:36
Speaker 3: where they want to access a data set, they want
16:39
Speaker 3: access to certain files, and the staff that's there says no. Suddenly,
16:42
Speaker 3: if you remove all those people from the building for
16:44
Speaker 3: an extended period of time, DOGE has a lot more
16:46
Speaker 3: leeway to just run roughshot and grab what they want.
16:49
Speaker 2: So you've raised the other sort of big question out
16:52
Speaker 2: of all this. I started off asking where Republicans now
16:54
Speaker 2: be less scared of a shutdown? Well, Democrats actually wonder
16:58
Speaker 2: about really concerned about the federal government. Should they be
17:02
Speaker 2: pretty concerned about shutdown?
17:03
Speaker 1: If you guys are right, it's a good question. I
17:05
Speaker 1: think everybody's trying to figure this out. The impression I
17:09
Speaker 1: have in talking to Democrats is that they're just very
17:12
Speaker 1: frustrated with the way all this is going, and so
17:14
Speaker 1: I don't imagine that a lot of them are going
17:17
Speaker 1: to be eager to just keep things rolling along. There's
17:20
Speaker 1: certainly an appetite among at least some Democratic staffers that
17:23
Speaker 1: I've talked to, that Trump just needs to get a
17:25
Speaker 1: taste of his own medicine, and he wants to shut
17:27
Speaker 1: the government down. Let's go ahead and do it, and
17:30
Speaker 1: let him deal with all the political blowback that happens
17:32
Speaker 1: as a result of that. But one other thing I
17:35
Speaker 1: think is worth mentioning is, and this is a concern
17:37
Speaker 1: among Democrats I spoke to, is that there is a
17:40
Speaker 1: lot of fear of what could doje in musk do
17:44
Speaker 1: during a shutdown if they were allowed to continue operating.
17:47
Speaker 1: And one particular area of concern is the treasury payment system.
17:51
Speaker 1: There's been talk in the past among Republicans that a
17:55
Speaker 1: shutdown wouldn't be so bad because they could sort of
17:57
Speaker 1: decide which bills to pay and which bills not to
17:59
Speaker 1: pay and keep things rolling for a long time. So
18:02
Speaker 1: you't government wouldn't default on treasury bonds, but it might
18:05
Speaker 1: shut down other payments. That is something that a lot
18:08
Speaker 1: of people view is very dangerous. To the market, to
18:10
Speaker 1: global markets if there were a shutdown. We now know
18:13
Speaker 1: that the dose folks do have access to a lot
18:16
Speaker 1: of these payment systems. Nobody really knows what could happen,
18:19
Speaker 1: what kind of mishift they could get up to, if
18:21
Speaker 1: this kind of scenario were to unfold.
18:23
Speaker 2: I guess we should say at this point it's got best.
18:26
Speaker 2: We've interviewed a couple of times in Bloomberg in the
18:27
Speaker 2: last couple of weeks. He comes from Wall Street. He's
18:31
Speaker 2: been very clear that this is we're all getting ahead
18:33
Speaker 2: of ourselves in worrying about specifically those functions and the
18:37
Speaker 2: running of the treasury market. He thinks all of that
18:39
Speaker 2: is hysterical. I think what you stated in terms of
18:43
Speaker 2: the possible leavers they would have and the lack of
18:47
Speaker 2: clarity we would have in the vent of a shutdown,
18:49
Speaker 2: I think is all true. But we should say there
18:51
Speaker 2: is supposedly someone who cares about these things sitting inside
18:55
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue that the Treasury Department. I guess
18:59
Speaker 2: one last question is just goes back to this broader environment,
19:04
Speaker 2: the rather febrile environment we have. If we have a shutdown,
19:09
Speaker 2: rightly or wrongly, is it seem to be the sort
19:12
Speaker 2: of defining battle between Congress and the executive This sort
19:16
Speaker 2: of ongoing tussle we've had with President Trump over who
19:19
Speaker 2: actually controls the power of the purse, who can control
19:22
Speaker 2: whether to actually spend money or not. You were hinting
19:25
Speaker 2: at it just now, Josh. Is this how it's going
19:27
Speaker 2: to come to a head, perhaps even more than all
19:29
Speaker 2: the court orders and all the cases that have gone out.
19:33
Speaker 1: I really don't know. I mean, right now, there's not
19:35
Speaker 1: a lot of contention between Trump Doge and House Republicans,
19:39
Speaker 1: Trump's own cabinet secretaries. Republicans in Congress have basically been
19:44
Speaker 1: willing to let Trump and Musk operate as they wish.
19:49
Speaker 1: At some point, maybe that battle comes to a head
19:52
Speaker 1: and it becomes more visible, more publicly contentious. I just
19:56
Speaker 1: don't know the answer of the question yet.
19:58
Speaker 3: I'd say we've just seen a glimmer of the sort
20:01
Speaker 3: of fissures starting to form between Trump allies and Musk.
20:05
Speaker 3: This really came to a head in this email that
20:07
Speaker 3: went out over the weekend where Musk said, every federal worker,
20:10
Speaker 3: send in five bullet points of what you've been doing
20:13
Speaker 3: over the past week. This caused a lot of alarm,
20:16
Speaker 3: ruined a lot of Cabinet secretary's weekends as they were
20:18
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to respond to this, and
20:21
Speaker 3: a lot of agencies said ignore it, do not reply,
20:24
Speaker 3: will handle this. Musk late last night got upset over
20:28
Speaker 3: this and said, Okay, if you didn't reply this time, fine,
20:31
Speaker 3: but we're going to send another email, and this time
20:32
Speaker 3: you have to reply or else you'll be fired. This
20:35
Speaker 3: runs in contrast of all of the guidance that both
20:37
Speaker 3: agency heads have given, and these are Trump hand picked
20:39
Speaker 3: people to run these places, as well as OPM with
20:42
Speaker 3: the Office of Personnel Management or the HR for the
20:44
Speaker 3: federal government. So we're starting to see this power struggle forming.
20:48
Speaker 3: We'll see where we are. The shutdown is, if it happens,
20:51
Speaker 3: is about fifteen days away. A lot can happen between
20:54
Speaker 3: now and then.
20:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talk about the battle between different arms of government,
20:58
Speaker 2: Congress and the White House, but if it's between Elon
21:03
Speaker 2: Musk and everyone else, that's what seems to be coming
21:06
Speaker 2: down to Laura occurs to me, you're not even I
21:08
Speaker 2: think when you're on shutdown, you're not even allowed to
21:10
Speaker 2: check your emails. So I guess he is if he
21:12
Speaker 2: does get if we do get shut down, Elon Musk
21:14
Speaker 2: is not going to be able to send a lot
21:16
Speaker 2: more emails to federal workers that they're supposed to reply
21:18
Speaker 2: to within a day or whatever.
21:20
Speaker 3: That would be a key point that would harm his
21:23
Speaker 3: strategy here of they would say, look, couldn't respond because
21:26
Speaker 3: you didn't let me.
21:27
Speaker 2: All right, well, Josh Green and Laura Davison, thank you
21:30
Speaker 2: very much. That was a great Thank you, Thanks so much,
21:38
Speaker 2: thanks for listening to this episode of trump Andomics from Bloomberg.
21:41
Speaker 2: It was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders, and I was
21:44
Speaker 2: joined by Laura Davison and Josh Green. Trump Andomics is
21:47
Speaker 2: produced by Samasadi and Moses and Dam with sound design
21:51
Speaker 2: by Blake Maples. Brendan Francis Newnan is our executive producer
21:56
Speaker 2: and please do rate and review us wherever you listen
21:59
Speaker 2: to podcasts, so a lot more people can listening. Turning