Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Peter Welch Rips Into Trump And Elon Musk Over DOGE, Calls It A 'Colossal Failure'

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Peter Welch Rips Into Trump And Elon Musk Over DOGE, Calls It A 'Colossal Failure' · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:05
  Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Will Walden, and if you're new here, this is a
• 0:11
  show all about Elon Musk and his groundbreaking work that he's
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• 0:16
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• 0:21
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  Pretty simple and straightforward.
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  It takes just a second for you, but it makes a huge difference
• 1:00
  for the show. I'd like to speak about Doge.
• 1:05
  The verdict is in. It's been a colossal failure.
• 1:10
  It's done immense damage to many of our institutions and
• 1:15
  inflicted immense pain on innocent people.
• 1:20
  Also, it's not going to be successful in a stated goal of
• 1:25
  reducing spending and wasteful spending.
• 1:28
  But before I do, let me just say what all of us know.
• 1:34
  Every single person in this United States Senate is all in
• 1:38
  when it comes to attacking waste, fraud and abuse.
• 1:42
  Every single one of us knows that we should kick the tires on
• 1:46
  the every program that we have in federal government and look
• 1:51
  to see how we can make it be more efficient.
• 1:54
  And there may be even some programs where we say, you know
• 1:56
  what its purpose is, service. Time to move on.
• 2:00
  So those of us who are being critical of DOGE are just
• 2:03
  looking at what DOGE is doing, but not at all quarreling with
• 2:09
  the notion that every one of us, Republican and Democrat and
• 2:12
  independent, has a responsibility to be the best
• 2:15
  stewards of taxpayer money that we can be.
• 2:19
  But here's my problem with DOGE, they're not looking in the right
• 2:23
  places. You know, there is so much RIP
• 2:28
  off that is going on. Let's just a couple of examples.
• 2:32
  In our healthcare system, United Healthcare is rigging the system
• 2:38
  on Medicare Advantage programs. Our seniors, we want them to
• 2:42
  have the healthcare that they need, but they set up these
• 2:45
  billing systems where they paid nurses and forced doctors
• 2:50
  essentially to over over analyze and over prescribe and over
• 3:02
  state what medical conditions were.
• 3:06
  And this was not to help the senior on a Medicare Advantage
• 3:11
  program. This was to pad their bottom
• 3:14
  line and make billions of dollars.
• 3:17
  And of course, I'm referring to the study, that series of
• 3:20
  articles that was in the Washington, or pardon me, the
• 3:23
  Wall Street Journal that documented the RIP offs and what
• 3:27
  I think were corrupt practices by United Healthcare.
• 3:31
  Where's Doge? All that money is just wasted.
• 3:34
  It's gone into the pockets of executives at United Healthcare.
• 3:37
  It's gone into a shareholder payouts and dividends, but it
• 3:42
  hasn't gone into improving healthcare for seniors or
• 3:45
  another one. The pharmacy benefit managers.
• 3:47
  They are ripping us off so bad. And we had a bipartisan bill
• 3:52
  with enormous Republican support and Democratic support to curb
• 3:57
  the RIP offs in the PBM industry.
• 4:01
  That was in our final budget deal last year.
• 4:04
  It got derailed. Why Elon Musk, he was against it
• 4:11
  and he gave the word that this has got to go down and the thing
• 4:16
  blew up and we don't have the PBM reform that both sides of
• 4:20
  the aisle knew was necessary, something it was going to save
• 4:23
  hundreds of billions of dollars for American taxpayers and allow
• 4:26
  us to reinvest in healthcare and make things better.
• 4:30
  So my first question with Doge is why don't you look where the
• 4:35
  money is, where the RIP offs are, instead of just sending out
• 4:39
  emails overnight telling people they're fired, whose performance
• 4:44
  has been absolutely exemplary. So that's the core question I
• 4:50
  have about DOGE. Why are you leaving these
• 4:54
  practices that we know are really corrupt in a RIP off,
• 5:00
  untouched, unexamined, and allowing them to continue when
• 5:04
  it is hammering taxpayers and citizens?
• 5:08
  We have work to do on saving money and we have places where
• 5:14
  it's absolutely essential we act.
• 5:16
  Doge is blind to all of those all of those situations.
• 5:22
  And that's disgraceful, especially when you've got Elon
• 5:26
  Musk is the person who sabotaged our effort for PBM reform.
• 5:33
  The second thing is there's a basic question.
• 5:35
  If you're going to go about examining a program, you can ask
• 5:39
  hard questions. You can look under the hood, how
• 5:44
  is it working? How is it not working?
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  Where do we have too many personnel?
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  Where can we actually improve the practices in the performance
• 5:54
  by some reforms? Doge is not doing that.
• 5:57
  It literally is not doing that. It has not even taken a day, an
• 6:03
  hour to come up with a plan of how to examine the various
• 6:09
  programs that they're engaging with.
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  What they're doing is firing people.
• 6:17
  People are waking up in the morning.
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  They're getting an e-mail that says due to your poor
• 6:24
  performance, you're gone. Now, this is a situation that
• 6:29
  obviously is incredibly cruel. You're working at the Department
• 6:32
  of Agriculture. You're working at the NIH.
• 6:35
  You're working on a USAID program and life is going on and
• 6:41
  suddenly you get this e-mail out of the blue that it clearly is a
• 6:46
  mass e-mail but has a very specific impact on you, your
• 6:50
  life, your livelihood, and your hopes and dreams.
• 6:54
  I mean, that is just a savage, savage way to treat people who
• 7:00
  have been working in our various governmental agencies and it has
• 7:04
  enormous impact on our communities.
• 7:06
  You know, some some of the examples.
• 7:08
  By the way, DOGE is picking on veterans.
• 7:12
  Literally thousands of veterans have been fired. the VA has
• 7:19
  announced the dismissal of more than 1000 employees.
• 7:22
  That includes researchers working on cancer treatments,
• 7:25
  opioid addictions, prosthetics and burn pit exposure.
• 7:29
  So the issue here was not, how do we help them do that job
• 7:32
  better? Where are the ways that we can
• 7:34
  economize it? The procedure is you're gone.
• 7:37
  That's it. President Trump and Elon Musk
• 7:41
  fired around 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security
• 7:46
  Administration. These are folks who safeguard
• 7:49
  nuclear weapons now. It was so embarrassing that even
• 7:54
  Musk had to acknowledge it was a mistake and those people are now
• 7:58
  back on their job. But what it does, I think very
• 8:02
  clearly, is show how there's nothing about a plan to execute
• 8:09
  a thoughtful way to save taxpayer money.
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  It's just shoot 1st and aim later. 4000 employees at the US
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  Department of Agriculture. You know, by the way, that's
• 8:23
  incredibly important. These are all things that affect
• 8:25
  red States and blue states. This has no political
• 8:30
  orientation on one side or the other because the impacts of
• 8:34
  these are going to be felt by the farmers in Indiana, just as
• 8:39
  they're going to be felt by like by the farmers in Vermont.
• 8:46
  Another example, it's really pretty cruel, and I just don't
• 8:51
  understand this. We have farmers across the
• 8:55
  country, but I've spoken to farmers in Vermont who entered
• 9:00
  in the contracts with the federal government under the
• 9:02
  provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.
• 9:05
  And what the deal was is the farmer agreed, like, say, to
• 9:10
  install solar panels or create a buffer zone between cattle
• 9:15
  grazing in a stream bed or to change the tillage practices to
• 9:22
  try to improve the soil. And I get it that President
• 9:27
  Trump and Mr. Musk are against the Inflation Reduction Act, and
• 9:33
  they have a right to do everything they possibly can to
• 9:36
  try to reverse that policy. So this is not about their right
• 9:39
  to use executive authority. But here's what I don't
• 9:43
  understand. How do you stiff farmers who
• 9:48
  went out and borrowed money because they had a contract,
• 9:52
  They agreed to do certain things around their farm and then they
• 9:57
  get an e-mail saying, just kidding, we're not going to we
• 10:01
  the federal government, and they're not going to honor our
• 10:02
  contract. And I'm thinking of one farm in
• 10:06
  my own town of Norwich, Vermont, where folks did borrow the
• 10:10
  money. And it was, they did the work,
• 10:12
  and it was in anticipation of the federal government keeping
• 10:15
  its part of the bargain and coming through with the cash
• 10:19
  that it had agreed to. And they're told, no, we're not
• 10:23
  doing it anymore. You know, I know, Mr. President,
• 10:28
  that you're like me when it comes to keeping your word.
• 10:32
  You give your word, you keep your word.
• 10:34
  The folks you represent, the folks I represent, that's what
• 10:37
  they do. That's what they expect.
• 10:39
  But we have Doe saying, well, that doesn't apply to us because
• 10:42
  we want to quote, save money. That's that's just flat out
• 10:47
  disgraceful and unacceptable. FEMA, you know, FEMA is
• 10:54
  absolutely essential to help folks respond to a catastrophic
• 10:59
  event. We need for reform in FEMA.
• 11:02
  And I'm work, I want to work with colleagues in order to do
• 11:05
  that. But when that disaster comes,
• 11:08
  you know, with fire in Hawaii or California, floods in Vermont or
• 11:12
  North Carolina, hurricanes down South or drought, the response
• 11:19
  from FEMA is essential because the local community doesn't have
• 11:23
  the infrastructure in place to provide that immediate,
• 11:26
  immediate emergency assistance that folks need for saving lives
• 11:30
  and, and, and, and keeping themselves together during that
• 11:34
  immediate storm event. And we're hearing those in the
• 11:38
  president want to just abolish FEMA.
• 11:41
  You know, we have to be there for one another when it's our
• 11:44
  community that is affected by a catastrophic event, where our
• 11:49
  citizens, the folks we represent, to whom we have a
• 11:52
  real duty, it's no fault of their own.
• 11:55
  They're on the receiving end of Mother Nature.
• 11:58
  And it's always been the tradition in the Senate that we
• 12:01
  help one another on that. That's not a partisan deal.
• 12:05
  Doge is hammering us on that, you know, and the people who get
• 12:10
  hurt, it's the everyday people that we represent that are
• 12:17
  working hard, are struggling each month to pay their bills.
• 12:21
  They're anxious about the safety of their kids.
• 12:24
  They're anxious about inflation. They're anxious about meeting
• 12:29
  the challenges of daily life. And they want to make a
• 12:33
  contribution to strengthen in their community as well as their
• 12:36
  family. And they're getting hammered.
• 12:40
  And I mentioned too, among them are the 6000 veterans who've
• 12:45
  been fired by DOGE across the, the, the federal workforce.
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  I mean, that it, that it just astonishes me.
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  How do we say to a veteran who showed up to serve us and
• 12:56
  protect our country and to whom we claim we have great respect
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  and allegiance? By sending them an e-mail that
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  says you're fired with no explanation, no sit down, no
• 13:09
  face to face, just contempt for the value of what they
• 13:12
  contribute and how hard they're working.
• 13:14
  I do not understand that. I just don't, you know, even in
• 13:18
  a tough business environment where some of our employers have
• 13:22
  to make tough decisions because they just know that the business
• 13:25
  can't handle their business, can't handle the workforce that
• 13:30
  they have. And they may have to make, you
• 13:32
  know, against their desires some reductions in force.
• 13:37
  Our employers will sit down with folks face to face.
• 13:40
  Here's what we can do. Let's work out a plan.
• 13:42
  We know you got to you need healthcare and those just
• 13:46
  dispenses with that when it has no plan.
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  So the cruelty, the cruelty of this is so abhorrent to me.
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  You know, we as a society really, despite whatever our
• 14:00
  differences are, have to have some mutual respect.
• 14:03
  And it's so essential to people that they have meaningful work.
• 14:08
  And if we're going to make adjustments, we have to have a
• 14:10
  plan to include them. And where Doe says we are, we
• 14:14
  don't have to do that. And this isn't just about Elon
• 14:19
  Musk being a multi billionaire. No matter what happens, it's not
• 14:23
  going to really affect him. It's about Elon Musk treating
• 14:29
  people with what I think is the utmost cruelty.
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  You are gone. You are gone.
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  Such disrespect for people who work hard in the in the VA, work
• 14:40
  hard in the NIH, work hard in the Department of Agriculture,
• 14:44
  work hard in the Department of Treasury.
• 14:47
  So that element of this we should all be shocked at, you
• 14:58
  know, and give a few examples of people in Vermont.
• 15:03
  But I know I'm like every single member of the US Senate, we can
• 15:07
  give examples of people in the states we represent.
• 15:16
  Our Small Business Administration office has been a
• 15:19
  real help to Vermonters. Very, very effective.
• 15:24
  One employee there got a performance review.
• 15:28
  This is shortly after after the performance review.
• 15:32
  In a very short period of time you have established yourself as
• 15:35
  an invaluable asset. That was the performance review.
• 15:40
  The next day, February 7th, she was fired because the e-mail
• 15:47
  said quote you have your performance has not been
• 15:52
  adequate to justify further employment at the agency.
• 15:58
  So arbitrary, so unfair. So Elon Musk, like we have a
• 16:08
  scientist at the Department of Agriculture, Caitlin Morgan,
• 16:15
  sustainable agriculture and food systems at the Ag Research
• 16:21
  Services. Flood, pardon me, AG Research
• 16:24
  Services Food Systems Center. She was fired despite glowing
• 16:30
  performance reviews. What we have with DOGE is an
• 16:40
  assertion that they are seeking out to cut waste, fraud and
• 16:44
  abuse. Who's to argue?
• 16:48
  There's not a person here that wants to vote in favor of waste,
• 16:51
  fraud and abuse. But the reality is they do have
• 16:57
  a plan. It's not to look at each agency
• 17:01
  and then make adjustments so that the agency at the end of
• 17:07
  the operation will be fit for purpose and better able to do
• 17:11
  its job. They have a very simple plan.
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  Kill the headcount, reduce the headcount, fire people.
• 17:18
  That's it. That's the plan.
• 17:21
  All right, So we're going to be left with a decimated FEMA, a
• 17:25
  decimated Department of Agriculture, a decimated
• 17:28
  National Institute of Health, and then who's going to put it
• 17:31
  back together again? And this brings me back to the
• 17:35
  cruelty of a guy like Musk. He doesn't have to worry about
• 17:38
  that. That's not his concern.
• 17:40
  Tesla's doing fine. SpaceX is doing fine.
• 17:47
  You know, things are things are things are great for him, but
• 17:51
  they won't be great not just for the people whose jobs have been
• 17:55
  savagely terminated. It'll be bad for the Cancer
• 18:02
  Research that scientists are doing.
• 18:05
  It'll be bad for our Vermont farmers who now find themselves
• 18:09
  deeply in debt because the federal government stiffed up.
• 18:13
  It'll be bad for our FEMA response to the next community
• 18:18
  in our country that gets hit hard by a natural disaster.
• 18:24
  So we've got to wake up here and be honest about what's going on
• 18:33
  with doge. We do agree.
• 18:37
  We do agree, I believe Republicans and Democrats, that
• 18:41
  we've got to kick the tires on programs in government.
• 18:43
  And it's everything from food programs to commodity programs
• 18:48
  to the Defense Department. And we have, we may have some
• 18:51
  fierce debates about what the priorities are and what we think
• 18:55
  is important and what we don't think is important.
• 18:58
  But that's got to be an on the level debate.
• 19:02
  What Musk has done is just said, hey, leave it to me.
• 19:08
  Let me send out a bunch of emails.
• 19:10
  Let me fire a lot of people in a lot of agencies.
• 19:13
  Let's move fast and break things and it'll come back together.
• 19:17
  It doesn't work that way. You know, you destroy the
• 19:22
  foundation of your house, just like if you destroy the
• 19:24
  foundation of a governmental program like FEMA or like the
• 19:28
  National Institute of Health. It just doesn't come back
• 19:31
  overnight because the organizations that we're trying
• 19:35
  to build, institutions that are so essential to the well-being
• 19:38
  of our country, those often take generations to create.
• 19:44
  It takes the commitment, the service, the dedication and hard
• 19:48
  work of Americans of all kinds in all states.
• 19:53
  This guy Musk is just destroying it all in cavalier about it and
• 19:57
  in contemptuous to the rest of America about what he's doing.
• 20:02
  We can pay the price. So it's wrong, what they're
• 20:08
  doing and how they're doing it, in my view, Mr. President, is
• 20:13
  that. We do in fact have an
• 20:16
  opportunity here because both sides are quite willing to come
• 20:20
  to the table and ask these questions.
• 20:22
  How can we do it better? But you know, if we came to the
• 20:26
  table and we asked how could we do it better, we would be
• 20:31
  looking at the long term function.
• 20:34
  How do we have FEMA work better? How do we have our NIH work
• 20:37
  better? How do we assess grants better?
• 20:40
  How do we have our Small Business Administration be more
• 20:43
  effective in helping our young entrepreneurs?
• 20:45
  We'd be asking those questions. And the other thing we would be
• 20:49
  doing, I believe this because I have such respect for all of my
• 20:53
  colleagues here. We care about how it affected
• 20:56
  people, and we might have to make some tough decisions
• 21:00
  because this program could be cut.
• 21:03
  This one might have to be expanded.
• 21:05
  But we wouldn't just send off an e-mail telling people to get
• 21:08
  lost. We wouldn't just be sending off
• 21:12
  an e-mail to a farmer who just went to the bank and got a loan
• 21:17
  based on the credit of the of the United States of America
• 21:21
  promising to contribute a grant. We'd be considerate of that.
• 21:26
  DOGE isn't. In my view, we should all be
• 21:30
  outraged at the cruelty with which DOGE is operating.
• 21:35
  It's cruel to the institutions that are important for each of
• 21:38
  our states, and it's cruel to the people who've been doing
• 21:42
  this work in good faith for so long.
• 21:45
  So, Mr. President, we've got to speak up and acknowledge that
• 21:52
  DOGE is destructive. We can embrace the effort to
• 22:00
  address waste, fraud and in in, in in abuse.
• 22:05
  We can embrace the opportunity to streamline and save money,
• 22:10
  make things work better. But we can never abandoned our
• 22:13
  commitment to the people of this country who work so hard.
• 22:17
  We can never abandoned in a cavalier way the veterans to
• 22:22
  whom we have an immense debt of obligation.
• 22:25
  So, Mr. President, Doge is pretty dumb and pretty cruel and
• 22:31
  pretty destructive the way it's operating under Elon Musk.
• 22:35
  I yield back. Hey, thank you so much for
• 22:47
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 22:49
  support. If you could take a second and
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• 23:15
  And I'll see you tomorrow.