Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
The through line here is that the great illusion that Musk, Donald Trump, Miller and others are trying to push—that they’re rooting out immense amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse in the government—is collapsing all around them, which shows how flimsy all the MAGA mythmaking has truly become. We’re talking today about all this with writer Jill Lawrence, who has a new piece for The Bulwark arguing that the Musk enterprise has revealed that the emperor really has no clothes. Two emperors, actually—Musk and Trump. Jill, thanks for coming on.
Sargent: Let’s start with Stephen Miller. He was getting questioned by CNN’s Brianna Keilar about some of the technical intricacies of various protections that civil servants enjoy. Then Miller just kind of rolled over the specifics, and this happened.
Brianna Keilar (audio voiceover): Stephen, let’s calm down. This is not ... We’re not having a debate about whether there are places ...
Sargent: Jill, note how Keilar asked Miller to calm down, and then Miller just defaults to the same talking points about how Trump and Musk are finding all these great savings. If he just says it loud enough, it’ll be true. Your reaction to this?
It’s just completely crazy. And what’s backfiring is there are so many of these individual tales—including [of] people who don’t have electricity or medical care in foreign countries because they worked for USAID, and suddenly everything was cut off. There’s just no organization to it and no proof anywhere, no evidence that money is being saved or that these are functions that we shouldn’t have to support our government.
Trish Regan admitted that “this is not the huge find people had hoped for,” and DOGE got out over its skis. Jill, if even MAGA journalists can’t swallow what DOGE is peddling, that’s pretty bad. What does that tell you?
Sargent: It’s unbelievable. I want to go to your piece for a second. You referred to this a little earlier that people and programs are actually being put at risk. That’s the real story here. You wrote in your piece that all of this is having extreme consequences: undermining aviation safety, nuclear weapons safety, putting classified data and Americans working abroad for USAID in danger. Is that not the real story here? I think we’re getting a crash course in why we want a federal government. We’re not getting a crash course in the “waste, fraud, and abuse” that’s corrupted the government to its core, are we?
Sargent: And Tanya Chutkan is the judge who’s overseeing the case in which there’s a lawsuit alleging that Elon Musk is functioning in a fundamentally unconstitutional role. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sargent: Right. It’s kind of funny. This is a bit of an aside for listeners here, but they’re now trying to argue that Musk doesn’t actually run DOGE because they understand that Musk is vulnerable on this point. He’s filling a role, according to this lawsuit, that’s fundamentally unconstitutional. He’s functioning like someone who should have been through a process of a confirmation, and he wasn’t.
Sargent: I think there’s a bigger problem here. It’s that MAGA mythology about the “deep state” is the thing that’s not sustainable. The deep state is not deeply corrupted and shot through with fraud. It’s not run by parasites. Its beneficiaries aren’t parasites, as Musk said the other day—it’s the American people. The government is run by professional civil servants and it’s the reason we have a highly functioning society. So the bigger mythology is the thing that they can’t sustain. What do you think of that?
Sargent: It’s ludicrous. Musk is known to personally hate having SpaceX subjected to government regulation and oversight. And he’s the guy who’s going to fix the government from that perspective. The whole thing is just topsy turvy. It’s really the through the looking glass, MAGA-style.
Sargent: Good point. Well, there was another line from Miller’s meltdown I want to highlight. He said to Keilar, “I realize that even a brief interruption in federal employment is a great crisis for you and for CNN.” Now, this idea that there’s this monolithic enemy that Trump is taking on, one that is comprised of both the media and the deep state, is such a ridiculous and embarrassing fiction. It’s amazing that someone like Miller, who’s not dumb, would try to go on national TV and say it with a straight face. But Jill, is the game here that Miller knows MAGA believes this myth? Or that MAGA will get excited if Miller stages a showdown with a fake news anchor regardless of the details? What’s going on here?
Sargent: I think we shouldn’t even pretend that any of what Musk and Trump and Miller are up to is about government reform at all. Let’s not even dignify the idea by playing along with it in any sense. It’s about destroying the state in its current form. What do you think they envision replacing it? What’s the long-term game plan here?
And even with edicts like there are only two genders when any scientist and a lot of other people know that’s not the case, that there’s all kinds of ambiguity in biology—they’re just telling us black is white and white is black and we’re supposed to believe it and just conform. And you see this happening. You see, for instance, missing children centers getting rid of their LGBTQ references so they can keep their federal funding because that expression, that speech is frowned upon. Or West Point canceling affinity clubs like women engineers because they don’t want to lose federal funding or get on a blacklist because DEI. I think that’s what they’re aiming for, just repressive society where everyone has to obey them.
Lawrence: That’s right in terms of the feds and the situation in Washington. More and more you’re hearing about economic consequences outside of the East or outside of Washington. You hear about park rangers and summer employees being canceled or fired in places like Zion National Park in Utah—and this is a big deal. It’s very hard to understand how Republicans themselves are going to sustain this if they don’t serve their constituents instead of Donald Trump? It’s going to come down to that, don’t you think?
Lawrence: It’s always great to talk to you. Thanks, Greg. I enjoyed it.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.
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