Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / John Cornyn Praises Musk - Says DOGE Is 'In Line With The Mandate' Given To Trump By Election Victory

Transcript

John Cornyn Praises Musk - Says DOGE Is 'In Line With The Mandate' Given To Trump By Election Victory · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:05
  Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
• 0:08
  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
• 0:14
  doing with his various companies, including Tesla,
• 0:16
  SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and of course, X.
• 0:21
  And before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to share a
• 0:24
  quick insight from our shows analytics.
• 0:27
  It turns out the 45% of you listening right now are
• 0:31
  subscribed to the show. And thank you for that.
• 0:34
  But that means that 55% of you are not.
• 0:36
  So I'm offering you a deal. I promise to do everything in my
• 0:40
  power to keep bringing you the latest and most interesting news
• 0:43
  about Elon Musk every single day and about his companies.
• 0:47
  If you'll do me one favor and hit the subscribe or follow
• 0:50
  button on your podcast platform right now, that's it.
• 0:55
  Pretty simple and straightforward.
• 0:56
  It takes just a second for you, but it makes a huge difference
• 1:00
  for the show. Much of it's been
• 1:01
  misinformation, and I'd like to address some of that and the
• 1:05
  importance of this effort here in the next few minutes.
• 1:09
  We had a very informative meeting with Mr. Musk and his
• 1:12
  team about the work they're doing on behalf of the American
• 1:16
  people. I first met Elon Musk maybe 15
• 1:21
  years ago when he came to my office and said he had a new
• 1:26
  company called SpaceX and he wanted to be able to compete
• 1:31
  with other companies that had all of the NASA contracts for
• 1:35
  space for space. And I guess looking back on it,
• 1:41
  that was quite a long time ago, but it see how far SpaceX has
• 1:46
  come, which now carries the vast majority of payloads into space
• 1:51
  for the United States government and for the private sector.
• 1:56
  Interestingly, and to the point of the Department of Government
• 2:00
  Efficiency, Mr. Musk had to sue the federal government in order
• 2:05
  to compete, which tells you a lot about the problems that the
• 2:09
  federal government has that is not open to competition, and
• 2:14
  thus creates a lot of the problems now that I think the
• 2:17
  Department of Government Efficiency is now looking at.
• 2:22
  But in addition to all that, Mister Musk has now moved, his
• 2:26
  moved personally and his family and his businesses to Texas.
• 2:30
  So I'm happy to have him as a constituent.
• 2:35
  And he's creating a lot of jobs in my state, everywhere from
• 2:40
  Boca Chica, South Texas, and Cameron County, which is now, I
• 2:45
  think, officially renamed Star Base.
• 2:48
  And the Tesla Gigafactory, which is right outside of Austin,
• 2:52
  which I visited a few months ago with Mr. Musk.
• 2:56
  Starlink, obviously providing Internet access to people in
• 3:02
  remote parts of the planet that would never hope to have that
• 3:06
  access. All sorts of interesting things
• 3:08
  that he's involved in. And certainly I think we can all
• 3:12
  acknowledge whether you like Mr. Musk and what he's doing or you
• 3:17
  don't like it, he's obviously a brilliant individual and
• 3:22
  certainly among the most brilliant people I, I know.
• 3:27
  So you have to ask yourself, why would a guy, maybe one of the
• 3:29
  richest, maybe the richest human being on the planet do what he
• 3:34
  is doing for the US government? I think that's an important
• 3:41
  question asked. Certainly he's not doing it for
• 3:43
  the money. He's certainly not doing it for
• 3:46
  the glory. Because all of the you can,
• 3:50
  anytime you start messing with the status quo here in
• 3:53
  Washington, DC, you can be assured you will become a
• 3:56
  target. You will be criticized, you'll
• 3:59
  be demagogued against, you'll be lied about.
• 4:03
  It's just goes with the territory and something I'm sure
• 4:06
  that he has not necessarily experienced before.
• 4:10
  And frankly, I'm glad he's willing to put up with all of
• 4:13
  that in order to do some important things.
• 4:17
  What, of course the Department of Government efficiency is
• 4:20
  focused on. Is efficiency something that we
• 4:24
  can we purport and claim to be focused on here in Washington?
• 4:29
  Waste, abuse and fraud. But we talk about it a lot, but
• 4:37
  that's basically what we end up doing is talking about it and
• 4:40
  not doing much, if anything about it.
• 4:45
  Right now, the US national debt that's like our credit card sits
• 4:51
  at over $36.4 trillion. Now.
• 4:56
  I'm sure that the American people, certainly it's true in
• 4:59
  my case, can't really get your head around how much money that
• 5:03
  really is. To me, one of the most telling
• 5:07
  indications of how big a number that is, is we're now spending
• 5:11
  more money on interest, on our national debt than we are on our
• 5:15
  defense, which is the most fundamental and important role
• 5:20
  that the federal government plays.
• 5:24
  I know sometimes when you have such a big number or a big
• 5:27
  challenge or big problem, it's easy to say, well, it's just too
• 5:32
  hard. We can't do anything about it.
• 5:36
  And in the case of politicians, some may say, and I bet there
• 5:41
  are more than a few who say, well, it's too politically risky
• 5:46
  to try to deal with the status quo because I'm sure they're
• 5:50
  going to be some sacred cows or some pet projects that
• 5:55
  individual members of Congress or maybe constituent groups or
• 6:00
  special interest groups want to preserve.
• 6:03
  And so they don't want you looking at that.
• 6:06
  They don't want you disrupting the status quo.
• 6:11
  But as we, the reality is, and as we heard from President Trump
• 6:15
  last night, as well as news reports, there are many examples
• 6:22
  of outrageous expenditures of taxpayer dollars that need to be
• 6:28
  exposed and they need to be addressed.
• 6:34
  And there's no time. We have to start somewhere.
• 6:37
  And I would submit that there's no time like the president.
• 6:43
  Well, if you spoke to someone struggling with a substance
• 6:47
  abuse problem, an addiction, you would never say to that person,
• 6:52
  well, the situation with your addiction is just so bad that
• 6:57
  it's hopeless. It's simply too hard to change.
• 7:02
  There's nothing you can do. Well, the truth is, Washington,
• 7:06
  DC is addicted to spending and has been for a long, long time.
• 7:15
  And we have no responsible choice but to address it.
• 7:20
  So I'm glad that Mister Musk and his team has stepped up.
• 7:25
  And while DOGE may not erase that national debt overnight,
• 7:31
  they are certainly highlighting the problems that that those
• 7:35
  taxpayer expenditures present. And I think this effort will be
• 7:42
  part of the answer to how we get back on track and correct our
• 7:46
  fiscal challenges here in our country.
• 7:52
  Now, of course, there are many in Washington who want nothing
• 7:56
  to change. I think we saw some of them last
• 7:59
  night sitting on their hands during the president's State of
• 8:03
  the Union speech. They like the way things are.
• 8:08
  They like the status quo. As a result, there's been a lot
• 8:14
  of wailing and gnashing of teeth and frankly, dissemination of a
• 8:19
  lot of erroneous information, again, which is just simply not
• 8:25
  reality. Now, some in the media have
• 8:28
  created, for their own reasons, misperceptions that Mister Musk
• 8:33
  and his team are going in and making personnel and financial
• 8:37
  decisions on their own or forcing these decisions on the
• 8:42
  respective agencies that they are researching.
• 8:46
  But that's simply false. Let me say that again.
• 8:52
  Some may have the perception that Mister Musk and the
• 8:57
  Department of Government Efficiency team are themselves
• 9:01
  making personnel or financial decisions on their own.
• 9:07
  That's false. The reality is that those
• 9:12
  working for the Department of Government Efficiency are doing
• 9:15
  so in compliance with the law. Each agency's DOGE employees
• 9:21
  have gone through the Presidential Personnel Office
• 9:24
  onboarding process. They have appropriate security
• 9:28
  clearances and are direct contract employees of these
• 9:34
  agencies. And they must abide by the same
• 9:37
  guidelines and rules as other employees to ensure the
• 9:41
  protection of sensitive information.
• 9:45
  The reality on the ground is that DOGE employees are
• 9:49
  reviewing systems, processes, data, personnel and making
• 9:55
  recommendations. Recommendations to the agency
• 10:00
  heads, then the agency head. In the case, most cases, a
• 10:05
  Cabinet member appointed by President Trump and confirmed by
• 10:08
  the Senate is the one with the authority to make those
• 10:13
  discretionary calls. Now, of course, this is a
• 10:17
  tremendous, it is a tremendous project, as I indicated earlier,
• 10:22
  to reform our government's giant bureaucracy.
• 10:27
  And with any undertaking of this size, it's a given that there
• 10:31
  will be some trial and error, some mistakes that are made, but
• 10:36
  hopefully those that can be readily addressed once pointed
• 10:39
  out. And the administration has made
• 10:43
  those course corrections and they can, should continue to do
• 10:47
  so and I believe will do so. But there's much to be hopeful
• 10:52
  about. One example that Doge
• 10:56
  identified, and it is just to me a symptom of the problem, is
• 11:01
  reforming software licenses and subscriptions.
• 11:05
  We were told at the meeting at the White House with Mr. Musk
• 11:09
  and the Department of Government Efficiency that some agencies
• 11:13
  are finding out that they're paying for as many as 37,000
• 11:18
  software licenses, but only about 10,000 employees are
• 11:23
  responsible for functions that require those licenses, 37,000
• 11:29
  licenses, but only 10,000 arguably would be required.
• 11:35
  Now think about what this means for a minute.
• 11:37
  And again, this is just a symptom, I think, of a larger
• 11:40
  problem. This means taxpayers are paying
• 11:44
  for a lot of licenses, software licenses that are sitting around
• 11:47
  and are not being used. Imagine if a private company
• 11:53
  let's something like this go unaddressed.
• 11:56
  So of course they wouldn't, because if they did, they
• 12:02
  eventually would go out of business.
• 12:05
  They'd go bankrupt and cease to exist.
• 12:09
  But the federal government doesn't work that way.
• 12:13
  Some of these things that Mister Musk and his team are finding
• 12:17
  should be an embarrassment. I can tell you that my
• 12:21
  constituents back in Texas are paying close attention and
• 12:26
  mainly like what they see. But the perennial problem is
• 12:31
  that the federal government just is very slow to change.
• 12:35
  And part of that has to do with the incentives that exists in
• 12:40
  the private sector that don't exist in the public sector.
• 12:45
  As I indicated, a private business couldn't do what the
• 12:50
  federal government does, or they'd go belly up.
• 12:54
  This is part of the reason that our national debt has been
• 12:57
  growing by leaps and bounds without any credible effort by
• 13:02
  the Congress or the federal government to change.
• 13:07
  And change we must. It's unsustainable.
• 13:13
  Now here in Congress, we have a certain amount of accountability
• 13:16
  because we run for election. We have to stand for re
• 13:20
  election. Our constituents get to vote for
• 13:22
  us or against us. And we naturally want to be
• 13:27
  responsive to what our constituents are telling us.
• 13:32
  There's always sensitivity, for example, and what we spend in
• 13:40
  our offices, we take great care, I bet to a person not to waste
• 13:46
  the taxpayers dime. Now, that's the sort of
• 13:49
  accountability that democracy provides.
• 13:53
  Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
• 13:57
  But when you look at the bureaucracy, a word that
• 14:01
  literally means rule by the desk, there's no such
• 14:06
  incentives. There's no accountability.
• 14:10
  Until now. So to have someone like Elon
• 14:15
  Musk and Doge come in and shake things up is just exactly what
• 14:20
  Washington needs. And again, it should be no
• 14:27
  surprise to any of us that there's some folks here in the
• 14:29
  in town who don't like what they see.
• 14:33
  There are many people who want nothing to change, and we're
• 14:39
  definitely hearing a lot of speculation in addition to the
• 14:41
  misinformation about where what this means and where it will
• 14:45
  ultimately lead. But many of these stories have
• 14:49
  turned out to be nothing more than that, stories.
• 14:56
  We know there's always been waste, fraud and abuse within
• 14:59
  the government, but it does not have to be that way.
• 15:03
  The problem is big, but it's our job as elected members of
• 15:08
  Congress working as part of the federal government, working for
• 15:12
  the American people, not to ignore it, not to to give pretty
• 15:17
  speeches talking about how bad the problem is.
• 15:20
  But actually our job is to do something about it.
• 15:26
  And that's why I appreciate what the Department of Government
• 15:29
  Efficiency and the Trump administration are doing.
• 15:32
  I truly believe this is a once in a generation opportunity to
• 15:37
  actually get our fiscal house in order.
• 15:43
  This is not easy. If it were easy, we would have
• 15:47
  done it before. This is hard, it's politically
• 15:51
  risky, but it's absolutely critical that we do so.
• 15:57
  If we look at what the voters told us on November the 5th of
• 16:01
  last year, we saw an overwhelming desire of the
• 16:06
  American people to change the direction of the country.
• 16:11
  They gave President Trump and us a mandate for change.
• 16:18
  And I think what Doge is doing, along with the Trump
• 16:24
  administration is very much in line with the mandate that we
• 16:28
  got from the voters on November the 5th.
• 16:32
  So I support the efforts that the Department of Government
• 16:36
  Efficiency are undertaking. And I look forward to continuing
• 16:40
  to work with Mr. Musk and President Trump as a member of
• 16:44
  the Senate caucus on for for DOGE, the Department of
• 16:49
  Government Efficiency so that we can get our nation's fiscal
• 16:54
  trajectory back on track. It's absolutely essential that
• 17:00
  we do so. Mr. President, I yield the
• 17:04
  floor. I would note the absence of a
• 17:07
  quorum. Hey, thank you so much for
• 17:14
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 17:16
  support. If you could take a second and
• 17:18
  hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
• 17:21
  platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly
• 17:24
  appreciate it. It helps out the show
• 17:25
  tremendously and you'll never miss an episode.
• 17:28
  And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
• 17:31
  caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
• 17:34
  support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stage Zero.
• 17:40
  And please take care of yourselves and each other.
• 17:42
  And I'll see you tomorrow.