← Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
How Trump Is Selling Out America to Elon Musk
00:56:14
A league of unextraordinary gentlemen has taken over the White House. This week, Stacey breaks down how Donald Trump has allowed Elon Musk and his squad of young DOGE staffers to have unprecedented access to the federal government. Wired editor Leah Feiger joins Stacey to explain how she and her team of reporters uncovered how DOGE infiltrated the Treasury department, the potential security and privacy implications, and how AI fits into the equation. Then, Stacey sits down with University of Pennsylvania law professor and Strict Scrutiny co-host Kate Shaw to tackle the question on everyone’s mind: how is any of this legal? Also, be sure to listen for a special message from Stacey on how to manage our response to crisis—so we can stay informed, cut through disinformation, and fight back. We want to hear your questions. Send us an email at assemblyrequired@crooked.com or leave us a voicemail at 213-293-9509. You and your question might be featured on the show. Learn & Do More: T...
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- [00:00]
Stacey Abrams
Celebrate Black History Month with the Rap and Hip Hop Pre Game Station presented by Target and Celebrate Black Creators with the Target Black History Month collection. Because the more we come together, the more we create together. Launch Rap and Hip Hop Pre Game now brought to you by Target Assembly.
- [00:17]
Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by bookshop.org as the daughter of a librarian, I grew up loving books. So between libraries and local bookstores, I'm always in my happy place. But I don't always have time to browse in person. That's why I turn to bookshop.org when you purchase from bookshop.org you're supporting more than 2000 local independent bookstores across the country, ensuring they'll continue to foster culture, curiosity and a love of reading for generations to come. And we have some big news. Bookshop.org has launched an ebook app. You can now support local independent bookstores even when you read digitally. This week I'm downloading their new app and giving it a try. My to Read list will expand With James by Percival Everett and the Secret Lives of A Global History of Mathematics and Its Unsung Trailblazers by Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell. Check out the new ebook app and support local independent bookstores today. Use Code stacy to get 10% off your next order@bookshop.org that's code stacy s t a c e y bookshop.org welcome to assembly Required. I'm your host, Stacey Abrams. This week we'll be talking about kleptocracy, corruption, and the potential impacts of letting Elon Musk and his Doge squad run wild through our government. But today I want to start the show with something different to take a minute to highlight an issue that's on my mind. We spent a lot of time in the last few weeks talking about the chaos theory and the flood of information that we are being hit with. And I want to take a second and talk about how we should process what we're hearing. Amanda Ripley is the author of a book called the who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why? And she mapped out how we typically respond to a crisis. As she puts it, there are three phases denial, deliberation, and the decisive moment. Now, a lot of us have spent the interim between the election in November and today in various forms of denial. Some of us have turned off the news, others have sublimated their impulse to jump in, saying, I can't do it again. I'm just too tired. And even more people are placating themselves that it can't possibly be as bad as it seems. Only this time, I need us to understand that it's not only that bad, it's worse. You see, we have in this country a system of checks and balances, something we learned about from Schoolhouse Rock and from civics classes. If you went to a school that taught civics. But we were told that we have this system that allows us to withstand assaults on our democracy, to withstand things that are out of bounds and out of order. We know that those checks and balances, however, have been systematically weakened by those who are intent on seizing total control. And so we now live in a time where the executive branch destroys, the Congress acquiesces, and the judiciary struggles to preserve the rule of law without the ability to actually demand enforcement. And that's why this flood the zone explanation that we have started to use has confronted what I think is this cognitive protection that I want to spend one more minute talking about. That's something that we call normalcy bias. It's how our brains have trained themselves to survive in a world with constant threat and constant danger without going crazy. You see, we often downplay the imminent nature of disaster. We ignore the pills our doctor prescribes, or we crazily switch lanes on the freeway without looking because we've never been in a car crash. And yet today, we face the specter of a nation where our protections are being stripped away, where our compassion has been replaced by a wanton cruelty, and where norms just don't exist anymore. And still many of our fellow countrymen and women continue to comfort themselves by saying that what happened everywhere else can't happen here. Normalcy bias, going back to Amanda, that's denial. But we can't stay there. We are now in the phase of deliberation where we have to understand the implications and prepare for action, because we are quickly arriving at phase three, the time for decisive action. I'm here with you, ready to give us the information necessary for deliberation, to bring on the guests that can help us plot to deliver the wave of action that will be necessary to do what must be done. But we cannot save ourselves, our country, and our world if we don't understand what's happening and how to confront the lies, the law breaking, and, yes, the daily attacks on what we think is true. But we can win if we know what we face. However, as I like to remind you, there will be a great deal of assembly required. Over the last few weeks, we've been covering the Trump administration's relentless onslaught of executive orders and damaging policies and how Republicans supported Trump and his newly confirmed cabinet officials in their systematic dismantling of the federal government, taking us further away from from a representative system with checks and balances and towards a kleptocratic autocracy where those in charge are free to steal from the American people and the president, or shadow president, makes decisions without question. While I'm sure Trump imagines himself as the CEO of the United States, he's actually involved in the most salient example of what is known as state capture. That's where the government is controlled by private interest. Even Time magazine sees it, which is why they featured a cover of Elon Musk, the world's putative richest man, who donated over $280 million to Trump's campaign. While the COVID features Musk sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, we know that ripping apart our government is not his only pursuit. He is also meddling in foreign elections, foreign policy, and the foundational elements of the American economy, which prop up much of his vaunted wealth. A wealth, I might add, that largely exists in the form of federal contracts with everything from USAID to NASA to the Defense Department. In December, Trump appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the task force that they refer to as the Department of Government Efficiency. And again, I'm using air quotes because this is not a department, but we call it DOGE for short. This is an unelected, unemployed consortium of Musk acolytes tasked with slashing government spending. In late January, however, Ramaswamy was booted from his perch after running afoul of Republicans who did not take kindly to his boosterism about H1B visas in lieu of domestic hires. As much as one might be inclined to mock the meme inspired committee of one, Republicans have instead abandoned the American people and their data to Elon Musk, giving him and his minions direct access to critical Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly every payment made to and by the US Government, including Social Security, Medicare benefits, veterans benefits, federal salaries, tax refunds, you name it. But today we're going to look deep into Doge. We're going to take a deep dive into their actions and the implications of what they're doing to uncover what Republicans are allowing Musk to do in broad daylight without oversight. Namely, we're going to look at the government levers he now controls with impunity, how he might use artificial intelligence to achieve his self serving aims at the risk of our national security, and what it means for the rest of us whose identities and financial privacy are now available to the highest bidder. Joining us today to pull back the curtain and understand what's happening will be two guests. First we're going to be joined by Leah Figar, who is the senior politics editor at Wired magazine and part of the team that broke the story on Doge's access to the Treasury Department. Then we will talk to Chris Cricket's very own Kate Shaw, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and co host of Strict Scrutiny, to talk about the question on everybody's mind, how is any of this legal? So let's get into it. Leah Figar, welcome to Assembly Required. And I'm going to start by saying your reporting has been extraordinary.
- [09:48]
Leah Figar
Thank you so much for having me. Really, really appreciate that.
- [09:51]
Stacey Abrams
Well, we appreciate you. I mean last week your team at Wired broke the story that Marco Elez, a 25 year old engineer with ties to Elon Musk, had direct read and write access to treasury systems that handle nearly all U.S. government payments. So I like to start with a big question. What's the worst that can happen?
- [10:12]
Leah Figar
Oh gosh, that is a big question. You know, to take this back just a little bit slightly to what feels like eons ago, but was in fact about 10 days ago, Elon Musk's Department of Efficiency went in and wreaked havoc on the federal government. We were the first to report that they that Elon Musk's lackeys that he'd worked with prior went into the Office of Personnel Management, opm, went into GSA and tts, the General Services Administration and Technology Transformation Services and have continued to go through just a ton of government agencies. The reason that I bring these ones up is there's a lot of agencies out there and there's a lot of data. These two in particular give very, very specific access. It's access to personnel files, it's access to analytics tools that underpin so much of government technology services. And obviously since then they've gone into other agencies. We've seen what's happened with usaid, we've seen what's happen with Noah. And our Reporting broke the six young men between the ages of 19 and 24 that went into a number of agencies all associated with Dodge. And then we figured out that they were in Treasury. So this engineer that you mentioned, 25 year old Marco Ella, he'd previously worked for two Elon Musk companies. We were able to prove that he has direct access or had direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government, they control a lot of money and we don't know exactly what they're doing with this information. We don't know exactly what they've pulled out. But in terms of what they have access to, typically these admin privileges, particularly at treasury systems, could give someone the power to log into servers through secure access, navigate entire file systems, change user permissions, delete or modify critical files, bypass security measures, and possibly cause irreversible damages to the very systems they have access to. We don't know, but the possibilities are endless and they're terrifying.
- [12:23]
Stacey Abrams
Leah, I really appreciate you making that point that we are talking about these big, often invisible federal institutions, but I want to make it feel relatable for people. My parents are 76 years old. They rely heavily on Social Security. My dad recently needed to be able to pull down his payment records and and in years past they could call the Social Security Administration or they could use their old password but they are now both required to use something called login.gov or ID me. So my parents use login.gov by having access to that information they are able to go in and look at all of their past work records, all of their account transcripts to look at how much money they are receiving from Social Security. And what you're telling me is that this guy, this 25 year old, or maybe the 19 year old who's working with him, has the ability to go in and change my parents information, their 50 plus years of work history, the amount of money that they rely on every month to make it through to the next month. That this is now subject to someone who is or may not be an employee of the federal government but now has access to all of their personal information.
- [13:41]
Leah Figar
So they have access to this personal information. It's tough to say what they're doing with it. Are they looking at your parents? I'm not sure and it's difficult because I don't know if we're going to know for quite some time what they're after here. It's hard to say what they want data for sure. It appears to be of interest. They're going into agencies that have tons and tons of data that control really complicated and important portent systems that quite literally keep our country running. They have a special interest in AI. In a meeting held by Thomas Shedd, the new TTS director, the agency I mentioned that's in the gsa, he specifically told his staff that they were pushing an AI first strategy, saying that a number of government tasks, particularly around finance.
- [14:26]
Stacey Abrams
Could be automated Part of the AI piece goes back to a conversation I had on AI a few weeks ago. Part of the way AI works is that it has to have access to reams and reams of data. And that data trains the AI models. There is an arms race for data, There is an arms race for what we know. And there are absolute problems with how that information is gathered, sourced and utilized, that there is discrimination built into the models. And so we are talking about millions of people's information being appropriated by a private citizen for unknown reasons, to train an AI model that does not belong to the federal government. Is that accurate?
- [15:15]
Leah Figar
Possibly. That could be. Could be possibly utilized.
- [15:18]
Stacey Abrams
Speculate with me. Speculate with me what this could mean.
- [15:21]
Leah Figar
I can't. In some ways, speculating, I swear it's. I've. You go down a rabbit hole and you're like, oh, God, are they going to crash our financial systems? Is something that I don't even want to truly, truly entertain. But what I will say is, is the way that a lot of these people have spoken about AI and utilization of the data required by these AI models is something that everyone should be concerned about. And if they're not concerned, at least aware of, at least know that that's like a possible utilization of your information. And something that I want to add to that as well is that we reported that when TTs in particular and GSA were getting overtaken by Elon Musk lackeys, they were having these meetings with engineers and staffers at tts. We reported on, in particular, having these meetings where they would just all of a sudden call in engineers and say, you have to prove your coding. Show us what you can do. Show us how this is going. They would add these random people to these meetings that did not have government email addresses that were just being added to these very, you know, should have been quite secure meetings, probably meetings that shouldn't have been happening in the first place. Everyone was being very sketchy about who these people were. It finally came out that it was a lot of the young men that we had identified who have little to no government experience, but are now playing critical roles in Musk's Dodge. Right? And they were tasked with holding these meetings to figure out what people knew and how they could get it. And now we have confirmed that many of them do have government emails, but there is this, like, gap in time where they did not. And they were getting added to these systems without that. Marco Ella, as we have to mention, he reportedly no longer is working for Dodge anymore. Following Wall Street Journal reporting that he had resigned after the Wall Street Journal went to the White House with a relationship between him and a racist social media account. And then meanwhile, you had the 18 attorneys general from a number of states that sued the Trump administration, despite reporting and assurances from Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, but sued to say, look, these treasury systems clearly have been infiltrated and this is inappropriate. So now there's a temporary stay for this next week that Elon Musk said team, that the Dodge team should not have access to these systems. And not only that, that they have to destroy anything that they've taken out of these systems. It's going to take a bit of time to figure out what they took. Did they take anything? Are they destroying it? Did it happen on a government computer? Did it happen on a government email address? Did it happen on a personal random computer? We have no idea. There is so much still that we need to figure out.
- [18:09]
Stacey Abrams
And part of that is that the Treasury Department said earlier that the task force only had access to treasury systems on a read only basis. And then your piece disproved that assertion. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reported that those who got full access have already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system. So it's not only what did they take, it's what did they leave behind. Can you talk a little bit about the security implications of what they could have done that no one knows they.
- [18:38]
Leah Figar
Did, if even like a couple of these payment systems end up not being able to pay on time. I don't want to speculate on the US Going into default, but this is really serious. This is just trillions of dollars that could have been accidentally impacted by a keystroke. And it doesn't assure me, I'll be honest, that Besant continues to say, no, no, they had read only access and they don't have admin privileges. Read only access. You can pull a lot of information from that. We're talking about these really complicated technological endeavors and trying to obviously make them like, okay, read only versus read and access versus admin privileges. What does that all look like? It all means that they have access. Access of any kind is big.
- [19:27]
Stacey Abrams
I'm going to ask you to explain two more pieces to us. We know that Palantir and SpaceX alums are both being brought in to work here. Can you talk a little bit about what Palantir does?
- [19:41]
Leah Figar
Absolutely. So Palantir is a software company, big data analytics. I don't want to misstate his exact role in the company now, but Peter Thiel, I believe is still board of directors chair. And Peter Thiel happens to be someone that is considered quite a close ally of Elon Musk. Palantir has its hands in a lot of different industries in security, in cybersecurity, data analytics. So Elon Musk being in a position where he's installing his people, including former Palantir workers, it only serves to bring Palantir and Palantir interests closer to the US government. And as a fun little aside, I want to make sure that I'm getting this absolutely right. Palantir has actually just announced an alliance with Grok, I believe. Very fun.
- [20:41]
Stacey Abrams
Can you tell people what Grok is and who owns it?
- [20:44]
Leah Figar
Oh, I'd love to, Stacey. Grok is the AI chatbot that is run by Elon Musk. You have seen it on X. It is so fun. It is so fun. It has been subject of many controversies, from hallucinated answers when you ask random questions about politics to directing people to far right resources. It is very interesting to see a new Palantir Grok connection for sure.
- [21:15]
Stacey Abrams
Musk's team now connected to Palantir, one of the largest and most significant cyber security and data analytics companies in the world. You've got Grok, a chatbot that is part of the AI arms race. You've got Starlink, which is one of the ways that information gets shared across the world. And in fact, there's now, as of yesterday's super bowl, the announcement of T Mobile aligning itself with Starlink. And we know that Apple has put Starlink into iPhones. If you update to the new iOS 18.3 system, I think it is, we have a team that has begun to integrate artificial intelligence into government systems without oversight, without competitive bidding, without any parameters on what these systems can affect. What we've been told is that he intends to use these unauthorized tools to analyze enormous amounts of American data and recommend spending cuts, but that they're also developing this custom generative AI chatbot, not unlike Grok, to support these efforts. At the General Services Administration, what are the implications of integrating untested AI into government systems without protocols or regulation? And is there potential commercial use that we might want to think about?
- [22:42]
Leah Figar
There are endless possibilities here. We reported last week that an internal threat assessment from the Treasury Department called Dodges staff's access to the federal payment system the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced. I wanted to read that quote in its entirety because we're obviously applying that very specifically to these treasury systems. And that was that Very specific threat analysis. It's hard to understate the excitement of Silicon Valley to come into D.C. right now, they are in over a dozen government agencies with the full blessing of Elon Musk. And our sources from within these agencies are saying that Musk's lackeys are acting like this is a takeover of a tech company. To quote Brian Barrett, our executive editor, in a recent article he published, Donald Trump may be the president, but Elon Musk has installed himself as the CEO. The possibilities in terms of all of these things together, of private meeting public, are endless because at the end of the day, the interests are different. The government's interests here, or historically have been to serve people private is to make money. So we're about to see something that on its face, we've never seen before. Obviously, we've had politicians and government officials throughout U.S. history, throughout global history that have come to the U.S. government in an effort to make money, in an effort to enrich themselves. But we have never seen people come so boldly from an industry that has championed that to come in and take control of these systems.
- [24:21]
Stacey Abrams
Leah, one of my favorite parts of the show is asking smart people like you to help us figure out what do we do next. And since you've just described an existential crisis the likes of which we have.
- [24:32]
Leah Figar
Never faced, I love to be the bearer of the best news.
- [24:35]
Stacey Abrams
Stacey, you are.
- [24:36]
Leah Figar
You are.
- [24:37]
Stacey Abrams
So here's what I'm asking you to do next. What are you reading? What sources do you recommend? People are going to want to know how to process this. And at the top of the show, I had a little bit of a conversation about how important it is that we not take these things to be normal. This is not normal. But part of getting past the normalcy bias is being able to have enough information to inform you and not terrify you. So what are you reading? What resources would you recommend that our audience use to stay informed and to stay grounded on stories like this?
- [25:10]
Leah Figar
Absolutely. Well, obviously a personal plug for wired.com where everything you need to know about Elon Musk's government takeover can be found. Please check us out other shout outs. 404 Media. They're absolutely fantastic and have just been doing some of the most granular reporting on all of this. That's very, very easy for larger publications to skip or try not to explain to their readers. I can't recommend 404 enough. And this is a weird recommendation. And I'm we like weird.
- [25:45]
Stacey Abrams
Come on, bring it on.
- [25:46]
Leah Figar
Take it with us like grain of Salt Blue sky is a good place right now. The algorithms are good. It is fun to be in a place where you are not getting hit with Elon Musk's personal diatribes every 20 seconds. There's a lot of independent journalists that are gaining a lot of traction on Blue sky that are easy to get directed to. I can't talk enough about them, but 404 Rolling Stone has been having some great stuff as well. And then another shout out for favorite Teen Vogue.
- [26:18]
Stacey Abrams
There's.
- [26:19]
Leah Figar
There's a lot of really, really dedicated journalists on this and I'm for which I'm grateful because this, who this whole thing is, it's chaos, right? It's. But that's the point of it. It's. It's throwing just so much news to see what'll stick. And I think that that has to be our goal as journalists, to help divide and conquer and say, this is important. You need to focus on this. This is going to show you what's coming next. I feel very privileged to be in this position right now to do so.
- [26:45]
Stacey Abrams
Well, we are honored to have you doing this work. Thank you, Leah, so much for spending time with us on assembly required.
- [26:51]
Leah Figar
Thank you so much, Stacy. It was such a lovely chat.
- [26:53]
Stacey Abrams
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- [28:34]
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- [28:53]
And now I want to welcome Kate Shaw, co host of Strict Scrutiny and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.
- [29:01]
Kate Shaw
Stacey, thanks so much for having me.
- [29:02]
Stacey Abrams
Thank you for being here. So we just had Leah Figar, the senior politics editor at Wired, on to talk about the story that broke last week about the 25 year old Doge employee who had access to the Treasury Department's federal payment system. And while Doge was created by Trump on his first day in office as essentially a task force, it should not have the kind of unfettered power that we are seeing. So let's start with the big picture. Is Doge legal?
- [29:33]
Kate Shaw
I wish we knew a little bit more about what exact authorities it is exercising in order to be able to answer that question. I mean, the President has some authority to create and rename and re empower entities within the executive office of the president, the U.S. data Service, which it seems as though Doge is essentially the successor of, you know, I think was lawfully created. And so I think on one level, the president does have some authority. We want presidents to be able to exercise to, you know, put together teams inside the executive branch to make recommendations and study things and, you know, within limits, I think all of that is fine. But our emerging sense of the vast, virtually unlimited powers that Doge is exercising strongly suggests that whether the entity itself is lawful, it's engaging in conduct that seems quite clearly to be unlawful.
- [30:23]
Stacey Abrams
So one of the reasons this question matters so much is that part of our system of checks and balances is that we can hold the federal government accountable for actions taken by employees, including federal employees in the executive branch. Given what you've just said about Doge's legality, do the people who've been brought on by Musk count as government employees, do you think?
- [30:47]
Kate Shaw
It seems as though several of the individuals working with Doge, including Musk himself, are constituted as special government employees, or sges, which is this limited status that allows individuals who have, you know, gigs, positions outside of government to serve for a limited duration and with limited powers inside the executive branch. So I've known, you know, I'm a law professor. I've known law professors who've done SGE stints before, advising federal agencies in ways that leverage their expertise and let the federal government kind of use them as force multipliers. They don't have to bring on more staff, but they can really use experts who want to help government work better. So the status itself is, you know, pretty routine. But the idea that an SGE or a couple of sges or even staff members, I'm not sure it's totally clear, could go in and actually exercise directive authority over senior officials inside cabinet departments and actually oust them in order to get access to the most sensitive information and databases that our government maintains is just almost impossible to square with existing understandings of, you know, the allocation of authority inside the government. And one thing that's so hard about this, Stacy, is like, is this stuff lawful? Like I think clearly no. But no courts have ever like really said that because no one's ever tried it. So it's, it's almost hard to really even analyze this in our existing legal frameworks because it seems to violate so many different laws and constitutional principles at the same time.
- [32:11]
Stacey Abrams
Kate, I'm glad you framed it that way because I want to lead into a longer question about what the courts can and cannot do by giving some real examples of what's happening. Listeners may have heard about BOI and FinCEN, which are two new initialisms that will come to control the lives of many because like millions of small business owners like myself, I've recently had to provide private information to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and that's a bureau within the Treasury Department that collects and analyzes information about financial transactions. So I've got a small business, I've got an llc, I had to send in a copy of my passport and provide personal private information. I have to be careful about that. And so one of the specific promises for those of us who now have to provide this information is that the only level of legal protection that we have is going to be embedded in the creation of this financial crimes piece. So I'm going to read what the facts promise. The FAQs on the website promise beneficial ownership information or BOI is stored in a secure non public database using rigorous information security methods and controls typically used in the federal government to protect non classified yet sensitive information systems. At the highest security level. Musk and company now have access to the Treasury Department, including FinCEN. Do small business owners like myself have any causes of action against Musk and the Trump administration if they violate the privacy protections that are promised by FinCEN?
- [33:50]
Kate Shaw
So let me give a general answer because again, like many of the sort of legal questions that we are kind of being faced with right now, it's all pretty uncharted. But I think that both specific statutory protections and the Privacy act, this overarching statute that protects information that the federal government has about all of us against unauthorized disclosure, many of those provisions of law do have private rights of action. So I would expect. So we've already seen three weeks in, you know, over three dozen lawsuits filed challenging various of the both personnel moves and policy moves that the administration has made. And it seems as though conditions are ripe for private individuals whose private information might be compromised and who might be injured by that to start filing additional lawsuits. So I think we need to know a little bit more about whether these individuals, without legal authorization, are actually accessing this data. But it does seem as though there could well be causes of action that individuals might be able to bring under a number of statutes.
- [34:48]
Stacey Abrams
Part of what you just referenced are the violations of federal privacy laws. And we know that this has been, as you pointed out, the subject of a number of lawsuits. And in response to one of these lawsuits, attorneys for the Justice Department agreed to temporarily restrict Doge staffers from accessing information in the Treasury Department's payment system. But then Vice President J.D. vance has been arguing that the judges putting stops to some of these actions, quote, aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. So what happens if Musk and company simply refuse to comply with the federal court's order?
- [35:28]
Kate Shaw
Yeah, so that was a chilling moment. I mean, Vance has said very similar things for quite some time. When he was, I remember when he was running for the Ohio Senate seat, he gave an interview in which he basically was saying he was advising like a then potential candidate Trump and then President Trump before Trump was even running again, that, you know, you should fire every single mid level bureaucrat. And when the courts stop, you stand before the nation and say, John Roberts has let, has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. And I wasn't sure if that rhetoric was kind of limited to the campaign trail or if he would kind of revive it now that he's the actual vice president. And it's so disheartening. Right. He's obviously a credentialed lawyer. The question, it's sort of a circular claim that courts can't second guess legitimate exercises of Presidential power? Well, somebody has to decide if they're legitimate exercises of presidential power, and some of these clearly aren't. So I don't want to put too much stock in these kind of Twitter X or truth social statements. I mean, at least so far, it does appear that the representations made in court are that the administration intends to comply and pursue appeals if it loses, as opposed to just defy outright. But it does feel like they're inching ever closer to outright defiance. And you're right that courts are limited in their ability to effectuate their judgments without the cooperation of the political branches and the executive branch in particular. Right. Like, we all comply with them because that's what we have always done. But many of the kind of, you know, the insights that Trump brought to his first turn in the presidency, and again now, is that, you know, there's not a lot of hard enforcement of many of the longstanding norms of governance, and this is one of them. So the courts don't have, you know, a body of individuals to actually enforce judgments. You know, without the US Marshals, who are executive branch officials who enforce things like contempt orders, it's difficult, although I want to say, you know, not impossible for the courts to actually back up their pronouncements. So I think they do have tools. But I do think you're right to kind of communicate to listeners and viewers that courts have long relied on the cooperation of other branches of government to effectuate their judgments. And calling that into question is deeply dangerous. If you care about courts serving any kind of role in a democracy, if.
- [37:31]
Stacey Abrams
The judiciary says stop, and the executive branch says, no, thank you, what can Congress say?
- [37:39]
Kate Shaw
I mean, Congress can hold hearings. It can impeach, you know, subordinate executive branch officials. The president, it can actually, you know, pass laws yanking funding. Of course, passing laws requires the president. Right. It's maybe like a fatal flaw in our scheme. But much of what Congress does to check the other branches requires at least the participation of the president. Or, you know, laws need to be either signed by the president once they're passed by Congress or if he vetoes them, passed over his veto with two thirds in each house. Not impossible, but a very difficult supermajority to acquire. And so if checking the president is what you're trying to do, he's not going to cooperate in it. So you have to think about other tools. I do think that the Democrats in Congress could be making a lot of noise. They could be holding shadow hearings, which is something that they've done before that I think actually can be effective. They can continue to beat the drum. They can refuse to cooperate in confirmation or potentially even passing budget bills. So I do think there are important ways that Congress can create a great deal of friction to cause the executive branch, hopefully, to reconsider some of these positions. But obviously, it's harder if you're in the minority.
- [38:45]
Stacey Abrams
I mean, I will say, as minority leader, one of our tools. One of the first things I did was start holding shadow hearings. I pointed out I'm a legislator. These are hearings. So technically, these are legislative hearings. They may not have the force and effect of law, but part of what we wanted to do was to highlight the bad behavior or the refusal by the majority to act on issues. And so we held a series of hearings. And, in fact, one of my most fun moments was when the majority leader actually came to one of our hearings thinking it was a legitimate hearing, or at least thinking it was an official hearing and had to be told by a reporter that there was a reason he didn't see any of his other colleagues in the room.
- [39:27]
Kate Shaw
I know you're asking me the questions, but can I ask where, apart from, like, the Capitol, did you hold shadow hearings?
- [39:32]
Stacey Abrams
We would do them. We did it in labor halls. So there are a few union halls throughout Georgia. We would have them there. We were so effective at securing rooms that they then put a new rule in place of who could secure a room and for what purpose. I was the cause of a lot of changed rules at the Capitol.
- [39:49]
Kate Shaw
Badge of pride.
- [39:50]
Stacey Abrams
Well, look, hey, look, you can only surprise them once, but make it a good one. So separately from the courts actually opining and saying stop, and the possibility of the executive branch saying, no, thank you. We also have had a coalition of labor organizations file a lawsuit and another case that was brought by Democracy Forward, and it sought to block DOGE from infiltrating the Labor Department and from accessing sensitive medical and financial data on millions of American workers. And late Friday, a federal judge rejected this claim, saying they did not have the standing to. At least for now. What I want to get to is, can you discuss what it means when separate federal district courts reach conflicting decisions and what we need to be on the lookout for there?
- [40:38]
Kate Shaw
Sure. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I think we should be on the lookout for some of the stuff going up all the way to the Supreme Court. So one of the big reasons the Supreme Court gets involved in answering legal questions is lower federal courts have disagreed about the right answer. And so the court kind of resolves the question so that there's a Uniform answer for the whole country here. I actually think that, you know, the dismissal on standing grounds of the initial complaint with respect to DOGE access to labor, I really think does not necessarily mean that it doesn't foreclose the possibility of another bite at the apple. It just seemed kind of speculative, I think, like, what exactly the injury was. But I think as more information kind of develops about what exactly is happening when DOGE does get access to these agency systems, it's possible that that case or another case could reach a different result with respect to labor and to the other federal agencies that will no doubt also be in the DOGE crosshairs. But, you know, at some point, I think that some of these questions that lower courts are so far kind of uniformly answering, like, you know, so that was a case that didn't get resolved on kind of the substance. But these at least preliminary rulings are pretty uniformly coming down against Doge and the administration and in favor of, again, at least a degree of preliminary relief. So just invalidating in order to freeze the status quo for further proceedings to happen. So we've seen those kinds of orders in a number of cases. It doesn't necessarily tell us what ultimately the answer will be. But again, the initial sense that a lot of these moves are giving a lot of court watchers and legal observers, myself included, is that there are huge legal problems with many of these, both executive orders and other kinds of actions that the president and other executive branch officials are taking. So I think the administration will lose. Question is, you know, will they keep losing? And then what happens when the cases go up? I mean, the Supreme Court, actually. One important thing I think to remember is the Supreme Court can't answer probably all these questions. The court doesn't take every case. So some of these cases, actually, the lower courts may give the final word. And that might cause the administration, so long as it, you know, abides by the rulings of courts, which, as we were just talking about, I guess, is a question. But as long as it does, those might be the final word and Supreme Court may not ever get involved.
- [42:46]
Stacey Abrams
And I wanna emphasize that point because too often we think of this in these dramatic arcs that it goes through the court and the court speaks and we're done. And we forget that sometimes the point of suing is not to win. It's to illuminate, it's to ask the question. It's to force the bad actor to actually explain what they're doing. So that even if we are concerned, as strict scrutiny has taught us to be about what will happen at the Supreme Court. Given the erosion of judicial norms, it still matters that we're filing these suits. So when people think, oh, it doesn't matter because it's going to get to the Supreme Court and they're going to do X, it matters in part because it's how we know what X is and how we know all of the preceding letters before we get to X.
- [43:31]
Kate Shaw
Totally. You know, I think that broad claims about, like, the kind of usurpation of Congress's power of the purse, like, that's real, that's happening, but that's a little hard to kind of get your arms around what that means tangibly. But when you have plaintiffs who talk about what it means for funding to dry up or for their personal information to be compromised. And, you know, obviously the list of stories that have emerged already is long, but some of those stories are, you know, kind of get developed in the course of litigation, and so the public learns about them that way. And as you just kind of alluded to, we also learn what the government is doing and how it defends what it is doing in our names. And that is really important because there is something about, you know, courts are far from perfect and not a panacea. And the Supreme Court, God knows, like, is a deeply flawed institution. But there's the judicial process does require reason giving and explanation even before we get to a ruling, even in a lower court. Right. The government stands up and says what it's doing and why. And I do think that has some inherent value. I mean, I think focusing on Congress is in some ways more important than the courts, but they're both super important. But I don't want to discount the value of litigation just because some of it may not ultimately yield a victory, say, in the Supreme Court.
- [44:35]
Stacey Abrams
And let's talk about what Congress can do. I mean, we just had five former treasury secretaries write an op ed for the New York Times where they said that never during any of their tenures did they have to worry about being asked to stop congressionally appropriated funds from being paid out in full. And now Congress is very worried. Chuck Schumer said will Doge cut funding to programs Trump doesn't like, even if Congress approved them? So we talked about what happens when outside actors sue. What's the legality of decisions about spending and funding being made outside of the parameters of Congress, who technically control the government purse? What, what standing do they have?
- [45:14]
Kate Shaw
I mean, it's probably going to come up in the context of either private parties or states as plaintiffs bringing these suits. But I think the question is a hugely important one. Like, you know, it. To my mind, it is clearly unlawful. And, you know, again, to get legalistic, a usurpation of Congress's spending clause power for the executive branch to basically take a prerogative after Congress decides what to fund and essentially exercise, like a line item veto. We don't want to spend that money. We do want to spend that money. And, you know, of course, they'll do it in sort of highly politicized way, as I imagine, and I just don't think the executive branch has the power to do that. I mean, there was a sort of crisis over Richard Nixon's assertion of the power to impound, that is not to spend funds appropriated by Congress. And Congress passed a law that actually doesn't totally remove all authority of the President to sometimes spend less than full appropriated funds, but creates a process for doing that, none of which has been followed here. Some of the lawyers around Trump clearly think that this and have argued that this law, the Empowerment Control act, violates the Constitution and intrudes on the president's Article 2 authority. I think that is a bad and weak argument. And so I think, I think the statute's constitutional. I think their conduct violates both the statute and basic separation of powers principles in the Constitution. I mean, look, they have majorities in both houses of Congress. If they want to change the way the government creates policies and funds programs, there is a way to do that, and it's not actually even going to be that hard for them to achieve a lot of it. I think it is so telling that despite having the control that they have, they have, you know, adverted to these, like, very, very dubious, legally dubious methods to try to slash funding instead of just doing, you know, using the ordinary lawmaking process. I don't think they think people will want it. And, you know, even again, with control of both houses of Congress, this is one where I don't totally know what the Supreme Court will, will find. I would hope that it would agree with the analysis I just gave, but. But I think it's hard to know, but either way, I think the lower courts are important, you know, kind of way stations on the way.
- [47:11]
Stacey Abrams
So let's get back to the central character that is fomenting much of this mayhem with the, I would say, permission structure given by Congress, as you've just very artfully laid out. The New York Times wrote that there is no precedent for a government official to have Mr. Musk's scale of conflicts of interest, that includes that he has both domestic holdings and foreign business relationships in countries like China. He has government contracts with USAID, he has, through SpaceX, contracts with NASA, he has contracts with the DOD. And we know that he has repeatedly failed to meet federal reporting requirements, that the USAID was actually investigating his relationship, its relationship with Starlink, and then he shut the agency down. How do you process these conflicts of interest in light of what's not only unfolding at treasury, but to your point, what's happening with both congressional inaction and executive permission?
- [48:11]
Kate Shaw
I feel, I mean, some ways, like the, you know, the fish rots from the head. Like, I think that when Donald Trump said he wasn't going to release his tax returns and wasn't going to divest from all of his various business holdings the first time he was the President, it all of a sudden undermined these long standing norms and practices that I think have led, you know, inexorably to Trump. I meant Musk. I said Trump at the start to sort of separate them. These days, Trump basically doing the same a second time, not separating kind of his personal financial holdings from the office of the presidency. The two, I think, very much inform one another. And I think that's clearly something that Musk has, you know, sort of seen and learned from and is and is doing. I mean, it's sges are subject to conflict of interest laws. There are criminal provisions of various conflict of interest laws. Who enforces the federal conflict of interest laws, the Department of Justice, even the civil parts of the conflict of interest laws, like basically the only real enforcement mechanism that the Office of Government Ethics has, apart from referrals to doj, is a referral to the President, which once upon a time was a meaningful kind of sanction. And so executive branch officials, I think, both because they were genuinely public interested, but because they thought a referral to the President was something that they needed to worry about, complied with the conflict of interest laws and the other ethics laws. And it's very hard to see a meaningful enforcement scheme in place right now. And so it's not, I suppose, surprising that that's what we're seeing from Musk and I'm sure many others inside the new administration.
- [49:33]
Stacey Abrams
So what happens if Musk has committed federal crimes but Cash Patel's FBI refuses to arrest him?
- [49:39]
Kate Shaw
If a tree falls in the forest, I mean, you know, future administrations, depending on statutes of limitations, you know, that's a possibility. But of course, the president, just to throw this into the mix too, also has the point harden power. So it's tough. I mean, it is a tough moment for, like, legal accountability and real faith in it. And so I think that answers have to lie elsewhere. They lie with the people, right? Not these sort of legalistic mechanisms for enforcing either civil or criminal laws, but people mobilizing to make change. And that's. That's hard to do, obviously. Again, this is something that I don't need to tell you. You tell all of us, but I think that there are limits as to what law is going to do here.
- [50:19]
Stacey Abrams
That is a perfect segue to my last question. We always love to give people actionable steps to take on assembly required. And this one can sometimes seem outside of our direct sphere of influence. But as you just pointed out, this isn't just about the law. It's about the people. So first, are there organizations that are filing lawsuits that we can support?
- [50:40]
Kate Shaw
Yes. So Democracy Forward, which you already mentioned, and State Democracy Defenders are two organizations that have filed a bunch of the initial lawsuits. There's also the Institute for Constitution Institutional Advocacy and Protection, or icap. So those are three that I am familiar with that I know have been doing great litigation already. The aclu, always a great place to support. Then if you're a lawyer or a law student and feel kind of impotent rage and want to do something with it, actually reaching out and seeing if there's sort of volunteer work that you can do with one of these organizations I think would be a very kind of meaningful step. But those are three that definitely spring to mind.
- [51:12]
Stacey Abrams
Kate Shaw, of strict scrutiny and of incredible wisdom in the law. Thank you so much for being here with us on assembly required.
- [51:21]
Kate Shaw
Thank you for having me, Stacey. I appreciate it.
- [51:24]
Stacey Abrams
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- [52:47]
Today Celebrate Black History Month with the Rap and Hip Hop Pre Game station presented by Target and Celebrate Black Creators with the Target Black History Month collection. Because the more we come together, the more we create together. Launch Rap and Hip Hop Pre Game now brought to you by Target.
- [53:08]
At the top of today's episode, I cautioned us against normalcy bias because as Leah and Kate have explained, this isn't normal. This is a violation of our rights as citizens, a violation of the laws. And every elected official who stands idly by is a co conspirator. Which is why we must be engaged, because they haven't won yet. Luckily, we've got incredible journalists like Leah keeping us updated on what's happening not only in Washington D.C. but around the country, including in Silicon Valley, and how it affects us right where we live, where our parents and our grandparents live, where our veterans who risked their lives are now risking having their identity stolen. We also have some of the brightest legal minds like Kate, challenging this at every level and explaining it to us where we live. And we can use this knowledge that both of these sources have provided to armor up in the fight against misinformation and the theft of our way of life. In past episodes, I've given you actions to take, groups to join, organizations to support. And today my asks are simple. I need you to stay informed. I need you to use your voice. So first, to stay informed about everything that is going on with Musk, Trump and the Doge, the billionaire bandits and the useless leaders who refuse to stop them from taking these terrible actions. Make sure to follow the reporting from Leah and her incredible team at Wired, as well as the other news sites that she shouted out like Blue Sky, 404 Media, Teen Vogue and Rolling Stone. If you want to continue to learn about the legality of all of this and follow along with Musk's many legal battles, I encourage you to listen to strict scrutiny co hosted by our amazing guest Kate Shaw. Second, a critical way to use your voice is to uplift stories like the one we covered so they don't get drowned out in the intentional chaos. The flood, the Zone model. If this resonated with you, tell someone. A relative, a friend, a colleague. Even if you didn't understand all of it. Tell them what you know and encourage them to come on and learn more. Post it to your socials, but don't let stories like this and information like this fade. We've got to confront their own overwhelming misinformation with real, actionable information. Lastly, if you want to tell us what you've learned, what you've solved, or what you want to know, send us an email@assemblyrequiredricked.com or leave us a voicemail and you and your questions and comments might be featured on the pod. Our number is 213-293-9509. That wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams, and I will meet you here next week. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is a Crooked Media production. Our lead show producer is Ilona Minkowski and our associate producer is Paulina Velasco. Kiril Palaviv is our video producer. This episode was recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Our theme song is by Vasilius Fotopoulos. Thank you to Matt De Groat, Kyle Seglin, Tyler Boozer and Samantha Slosson for production support. Our executive producers are Katie Long, Madeline Herringer and me, Stacey Abrams. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
- [57:03]
Celebrate Black History Month with the Rap and Hip Hop Pregame Station presented by Target and Celebrate Black Creators with the Target Black History Month collection. Because the more we come together, the more we create together. Launch Rap and Hip Hop Pregame now brought to you by Target.