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A Trump-Zelensky blow up, a spending bill, anger at Musk
00:37:43
A shocking meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Plus, Trump and his ally Elon Musk hit new roadblocks this week as they continue to make cuts to the federal government.
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- [00:03]
Aaron Blake
Hey, it's Aaron Blake, senior politics reporter and host of our weekly Politics Roundtables here on Post reports. It's Friday, February 28th. All right, we're going to do things a little bit differently today because I wanted to get to some breaking news first. This happened after we recorded our roundtable on Friday morning. And what happened is one of the most contentious exchanges between world leaders that we've ever seen. This played out at the White House this afternoon in front of the cameras. And it was an encounter that, as my colleagues at the Post put it, could determine a generation of war and peace in Europe. Okay, so Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Washington. He was sat in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. vance this afternoon, and he was there to urge Trump not to abandon Ukraine in its war against Russia. The meeting starts off cordially. One thing to remind you of is that Trump just last week had called Zelenskyy a, quote, dictator. And not only that, Trump also blamed Ukraine for starting, even though it was Moscow that invaded Ukraine. So anyways, the meeting starts out fine, but pretty quickly, Vance and Zelenskyy engage with a bit of a disagreement about the role of diplomacy in ending the war in Ukraine. Vance suggested that the administration is pursuing a diplomatic approach, but Zelenskyy suggested that diplomacy hasn't always worked with Russia. And he pointed to examples of Russia agreeing to things and then backing off of them. So we'll pick up the tape right there and play a big chunk of this so you can get the full flavor for what transpired. Do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
- [01:47]
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
A lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning.
- [01:49]
Jacob Bogage
Sure.
- [01:50]
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless. You don't know that. God bless. God bless. You got it. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you because you're in no position to dictate that. Remember this, you're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. We're going to feel very good. Feel influence. We're going to feel very good and very strong, will feel influenced. You're right now not in a very good position. You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position. And he happens to be right about from the very beginning of the war, you're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now with us, you start having cards right now. You don't have your place. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War three. You're gambling with World War Three. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that's backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.
- [02:59]
Aaron Blake
Have you said thank you once? So Trump eventually orders reporters out of the room and Zelensky leaves the White House. A formal press conference that was due to be held afterward was canceled. I just want to underline why this moment is so remarkable. So here's a few points. One is that it is very rare to see a foreign leader stand up to Trump like this. Most treat him with kid gloves. They know that he is a transactional president. They know that saying things that are critical of him is license for him to completely disown you. Number two is that in other parts of this Oval Office meeting, Trump said some things about Vladimir Putin that we could be talking plenty about in the days ahead. Now, Trump has always treated Putin somewhat gently and declined to criticize him too strongly. But we heard him in this meeting talk about how he didn't think that he could say bad things about Putin. He at one point said, putin has been through hell with me, referring back to the Russia investigation. So this is going to be a big talking point where again, people are confronted with whether Trump's posture towards Russia is too friendly. And then the third thing is just reflecting on what this all means. The big question here, of course, is how intentional this was from Zelensky and how much this is going to impact what comes next. It certainly seemed unlikely to endear the Ukrainian president to Trump, and Trump, as I mentioned, is a very transactional president. But perhaps amid a series of signs about Trump pulling away from Ukraine and saying things that might harm its bargaining power, Zelensky simply decided that it was time to send a message about where the White House truly stood. And from there, it will be a matter of Europe and others reacting to what just happened. So where do we go from here? It's worth noting that Zelensky had a Fox News interview that was set for Friday night that, as of the release of this podcast, is still on the schedule. We're Also seeing some Republicans trying to salvage this relationship. We're seeing Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, who has been a Ukraine, Russia hawk in the past, urging the two leaders to reconcile their differences. We have a lot of people working on this story right now and analyzing the fallout. So please go to the Washington Post for more. And we'll certainly be unpacking this even further here on Post Reports in the coming days. All right, so this happened after what was another extraordinary week in Trump's second term. So we'll turn now to the conversation that I recorded with my colleagues, congressional reporters Mariana Sotomayor and Jacob Bogage. We got at the ongoing cutting spree by Elon Musk. And we started with the budget framework that was passed by the House this week. It could give Trump funding for his priorities, but it doesn't really say how they'll be paid for. And there's going to be some big questions on that front, including whether this will include significant cuts to Medicaid, which could be very politically dicey. Trump has been calling this budget resolution his big, beautiful bill. So I started by asking Marianna just to explain a little bit more about what's in it.
- [06:17]
Mariana Sotomayor
Well, this new, big, beautiful bill, this new bbb, is essentially a promise that Trump and House Republicans and also Senate Republicans in some ways have made to voters. They were obviously on the campaign trail the last talking about how they need more money, need more reforms for border security. They have talked about a resurgence of using energy, like oil in the US So there's a whole policy plank on energy reforms. The other one is taxes. Trump, during his first administration in 2017, signed a tax bill into law that Republicans at the time passed that's set to expire at the end of this year. So what Trump and House Republicans want is, again, one big, beautiful bill, pass all of these different policies in one try. And that is where we're starting to see in this new phase now that House Republicans and the Senate have passed different budget resolutions. They have to be able to overcome a number of differences, and that's going to be hard in these narrow majorities.
- [07:30]
Aaron Blake
Yeah. So, Jacob, it sounds like this is kind of a starting point basically to this process. It's kind of a declaration of your principles and the areas that you want to focus on. But we saw plenty of drama when it comes to passing this. And, of course, we have a House Republican majority that's historically small. It stands at 218 to 215 right now. Why was this so dramatic? And can you kind of set the scene for how this played out on the House floor.
- [07:58]
Jacob Bogage
So let's back up even further. For weeks, Mariana and I have been running around the Capitol chasing after lawmakers, trying to figure out if this bill really had enough Republican support to pass. And even as the vote was beginning on the House floor, Mariana and I kind of looked at each other and went, they don't got it. They. They're short. And that's because there were four holdouts. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Vicky Spartz of Indiana, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who wanted deeper spending cuts in one way or another, and that was enough to sink this bill. So they go to the House floor. It is Tuesday night. There are three votes set up. This budget resolution is the second vote of this series. They vote on the first bill, but they hold it open for a very, very long time. And House Speaker Mike Johnson is huddling in a room right off the House floor. And Marianna and I are just watching the door of this room to see if and when these folks will come out.
- [09:17]
Mariana Sotomayor
And we end up watching for a very, very long time. The reason why is because that first vote was held open for roughly 50 minutes as leadership. And also Trump tries to get at least three of these holdouts to flip. Thomas Massie, we saw him often on the House floor because he always votes against spending bills. Leadership did not necessarily think he was one who would flip at this point in time. So they really work. Davidson, he's the first one to flip. Then they're really working to get Burchett as well as Spartz, who was visibly emotional at points on the House floor to get to a yes. It takes them all of that time, but they still need more. And that is why Johnson at a certain point tells leadership staff to go back to the floor. Let's pull the vote on the budget resolution and go straight to the last vote of the day. Members start to leave the House floor end of day, start to get into their cars, go back to their office to pack it up, only to, in very dramatic fashion, be called back about 10 minutes later. Because in that time, Johnson, with Trump's help, was able to get Burchett and Spartz to a yes, and then the budget resolution passed.
- [10:41]
Jacob Bogage
And just to give some color on that, the way we cover these votes, when there's multiple holdouts, you kind of have to have your eyes in, like, six different places at the same time, because you're watching members and who they're talking to, and you're watching Leadership and who they're talking to. And then from where we sit in the gallery, the, I call it the scoreboard, the list of members and how they voted is projected on a screen directly behind you. So you're kind of like scanning your eyes up and down. We live for policy because that's what really matters out in the real world. But these high drama political theater moments, you really are watching history unfold in front of you.
- [11:28]
Aaron Blake
Mariana Jacob mentioned some of the kind of tension points here. Some of these members who were holding out tended towards the more conservative side of the party. They wanted to see maybe bigger cuts. Can you just talk about how this vote reflects some of these ideological tensions that exist in the Republican Party and the difficulties of bringing everyone together with such a small majority?
- [11:52]
Mariana Sotomayor
Totally. So what a budget resolution is, is like think about when your family is planning a budget to spend for the year. Youths might set different thresholds for different areas of spending. And that's exactly what the resolution is. It's an instruction for the House committees as well as the Senate committees to spend a certain amount. Republicans historically have wanted to cut federal spending, and you see that in those instructions. There is absolutely no policy written in what passed earlier this week. Same thing goes with the Senate's version of the budget resolution. No policy, no mention of Medicaid. When you hear Republicans saying Medicaid is not written in this bill, that is true. However, when you start to parse and think about the money and how much money each committee usually gets, the policies that they oversee, you can start to deduce, okay, if the Energy and Commerce Committee has to cut $880 billion from their jurisdiction, that's literally impossible to do unless you really, you just go after Medicaid.
- [13:11]
Aaron Blake
Yeah, Medicaid or Medicare. And they've said Medicare is off the table. So it's probably Medicaid, right?
- [13:16]
Mariana Sotomayor
Correct. And you hear President Trump, you hear Speaker Mike Johnson say, oh, my gosh, we're not going to touch Medicaid. However, you have so many vulnerable Republicans, many of them in swing districts, many of them rural districts that have lower income constituents who rely on Medicaid. They've been panicking about this. Like, over the past week, we had a number of Republicans go to the White House to talk to President Trump about this. Republicans shuttling in and out of the Speaker's office to ask for assurances, saying, hey, we're worried about you going after Medicaid. But also look at other social safety net programs that people rely on. Republicans are smartly thinking about the Consequences, which is they already have a narrow majority. It's possible in the midterms when Trump isn't on the ballot, not as many voters are going to turn out. And if they're feeling the squeeze, they're going to vote me out. We're not going to have a Republican majority.
- [14:16]
Aaron Blake
Yeah. I wanted to drill down a little bit more on this Medicaid issue because I think it's going to be a really big part of this discussion. Now, as you mentioned, Marianna, you know, Republicans are emphasizing that the bill doesn't actually mention Medicaid, but there is a large cut that needs to take place with a certain committee. And all the signs point to Medicaid. If you look closely at how Republicans are talking about this, they're not ruling out Medicaid cuts. They're kind of talking about waste and fraud and things like that. So I think the writing is on the wall for that. But as you mentioned, this is something that is politically dicey. Anytime you're talking about cutting large federal entitlement programs, these are ones that provide direct benefits to tens of millions of Americans, the American public gets skittish. And I was really struck recently by some comments from former Trump advisor Steve Bannon on his show where he talked about how significant Medicaid is for lots of Trump supporters. And I think we have that clip here.
- [15:20]
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Medicaid, you gotta be careful, because a lot of magas on Medicaid, I'm telling.
- [15:23]
Jacob Bogage
You, if you don't think so, you are dead wrong.
- [15:27]
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Medicaid is gonna be a complicated one.
- [15:29]
Mariana Sotomayor
Just can't take a meat X to it.
- [15:31]
Jacob Bogage
Although I would love to, I do.
- [15:33]
Aaron Blake
Love the music that's playing behind that clip. But the point is important here. Like, this is a guy who wants to cut spending and maybe recognizes that this is where you have to cut spending because entitlements are such a huge portion of the federal budget. But, like, it just kind of reinforces the impossible choices here, right?
- [15:54]
Mariana Sotomayor
Totally. Is the interesting thing that I'm hearing behind the scenes, Republican leadership hasn't necessarily said this out front yet, is that as much as they've allotted 880 billion in cuts, if we're not going to touch Medicaid, maybe we reduce that number and we have to kind of move things around to make sure that the budget is balanced. So maybe we don't actually cut so much in taxes because they really want to go big and actually implement more tax cuts, but they're thinking, well, maybe we're not able to do as much as we wanted, if we want to protect certain programs. So, you know, this is a process that Republicans are going to start embarking on now is what are the policies that we can look at. We need to factor in what Elon Musk and Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, are touching. Because if those are reductions, where can we, you know, put more money for potential border security, for energy reforms, things like that? Now is where the sausage making on policy is going to come. Whatever they end up packaging together may not have the votes that are necessary to pass Trump's legislative agenda.
- [17:06]
Aaron Blake
The big, beautiful bill, it's a real thing. Like, we didn't see the moderates who might object to those Medicaid cuts really put up a stink towards the end of this vote. But I think it's probably gonna be a big deal moving forward. I actually looked at some polling on this issue. You know, even when you talk about, you know, people thinking that there is fraud and waste in Medicaid, if you ask them if they would accept Medicaid cuts to pay for things like balancing the budget or tax cuts, people oppose cutting Medicaid by around 50 points. Like we've seen over the years, a lot of efforts to cut and to reform federal entitlement programs that really backfired politically and didn't succeed. Just kind of a last point on this, you guys, is this was kind of a surprising win for House Speaker Mike Johnson. I think it's fair to say we didn't necessarily expect this to pass on Tuesday. They pulled back and then pushed forward with it. I wondered if you're taking any lessons from this about his ability to keep the party in line, which has been a big struggle for Republican House speakers in recent years. Is there kind of a larger lesson about what this could mean for legislating throughout the Trump era?
- [18:23]
Mariana Sotomayor
Can I actually mention. I'll answer this Johnson question, but there was something that you brought up when you were distilling. Sure, by all means, yeah, Medicaid. And you know how voters don't like where the social benefits are touched. That is exactly the Democratic message. You know, when we're talking about House Democrats, Democratic Party at large, trying to find themselves again post election, we have seen them just go to town and hammer and say over and over, if I have to hear Jeffrey say the word Medicaid again.
- [18:53]
Aaron Blake
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader of the House.
- [18:56]
Mariana Sotomayor
Exactly. I mean, they have totally clung onto this. And even today, that House Majority pac, which is a fundraising arm for House Democrats, released an ad that's on Cable that literally says, republicans voted to go after your Medicaid so that they can pay for tax breaks for the billionaires like Elon Musk. Like, that's almost verbatim. And Republicans privately are freaking out because they're like, how do we respond to this?
- [19:25]
Jacob Bogage
So Brendan Boyle is Democrat of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, was leading the Democratic debate on the House side. And every Republican speaker that would come up, they would finish speaking and he would go, well, X amount of people in your state are on Medicaid. And the one that stuck out to me, Kevin Hearn from Oklahoma gets up, speaks, says his piece in support of this budget bill, you know, leaves. And Brendan Boyle says, there's about a million people. I forget the exact number, but a million people in your state of Oklahoma are on Medicaid. Oklahoma has 4 million people. A quarter of the state of Oklahoma is on Medicaid.
- [20:06]
Aaron Blake
Yeah, it's similar in many southern red states.
- [20:09]
Jacob Bogage
And so when Democrats hammer this, they're not just going after, like, swing districts, like, they are putting this in ruby red districts. And at least the early signs that we're seeing, and Mariana knows better than I do, it's effective.
- [20:25]
Aaron Blake
So, guys, a question that I had heading into this week was basically, can Republicans legislate? You know, this has been a struggle for them in recent years. We saw the ouster of a House speaker. We've saw them struggle to pass much significant legislation during the Biden administration, even though Republicans had majorities then. But I also kind of wondered, like, yes, their majority is very small and they've struggled, but. But they also have the president in office now. They also have the opportunity to really push their agenda. And I wondered if that might lead to more unity, I guess. What do you see from this week? If there are any lessons about their ability to come together and actually pass things.
- [21:09]
Mariana Sotomayor
I think you hit the nail on the head. The key distinction between this House Republican majority and the last House Republican majority is a President Trump. Going into this week, we were all thinking, is this budget resolution going to pass? The fact that Trump is there and the fact that leadership can rely on Trump and just put him on the phone at any point in time is incredibly significant. You can get pulled into the cloakroom and Trump is on the phone pretty heated, telling you, you need to vote for this. This is my agenda. Also, there's been threats, even by Musk saying, if you don't support Trump's agenda, hey, remember, I'm a billionaire. I have a pack I can go and find a primary challenger and make sure that they kick you out of office. So, like, those are threats that are happening that Republicans are very aware of. So, like Trump is the difference here?
- [22:07]
Aaron Blake
Yeah. Certainly some different dynamics. And what Congress can pass is going to be a big storyline over the next couple of years. After the break, we are going to get into some other cuts that you've likely been hearing about. Those are Elon Musk's continued efforts to reduce the size of the federal government by acting without Congress and some roadblocks that they hit this week. We'll be right back.
- [22:36]
Carol Lennig
I'm Carol Lennig. I'm an investigative reporter at the Washington Post. My basic assignment is to help readers understand complex government policies and government officials claims and figure out if they're getting the true story. We work to expose what's hidden and what powerful people want to keep hidden. We dig deep to reveal what's true and readers don't have time to do that. Only we can bring to you the reality of how a Medicare program is repeatedly failing. Only we can dig in and figure out that somebody who's nominated for a really important job made up a big part of his resume. Subscriptions support this work. I'm Carol Lennig and I'm one of the people behind the Post.
- [23:39]
Aaron Blake
So, Jacob and Mariana. Congress, of course, isn't the only entity that is looking at making some big and potentially politically dicey cuts right now. We've also had weeks of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency really taking a wrecking ball to the federal government by cutting federal programs, laying off people who work for the federal government. A lot of it is geared towards what Musk calls waste and fraud in the federal government. But without offering much proof of fraud and with smaller savings than Trump and his allies have led on. I want to walk through some of the ways that is playing politically right now because this continues to be a major subplot in the first month plus of the Trump administration. We're starting to see this play out a little bit more in public. And one of the ways that's taking place is at town halls that are being held in members districts across the country. And we're going to play maybe the most widely covered town hall. It was a town hall in Georgia for Republican Congressman Richard McCormick. And my colleague Hannah Knowles was in the audience for all that played out. Here's a clip of that.
- [24:52]
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
There's a lot of people upset about this because they think all these people have access to my personal information. Guess what? The IRS has Tons of information on your personal information. It's gonna go really slowly.
- [25:08]
Aaron Blake
If you don't want me finished, you.
- [25:09]
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Gotta let me finish.
- [25:12]
Aaron Blake
I guess. What's your reaction to these kinds of scenes and what they could mean for lawmakers?
- [25:17]
Mariana Sotomayor
So, two things. One, Democrats kind of have a strategy, you know, when we're talking about, like, oh, my God, Democrats lost in the woods. What are they gonna do? How are they gonna respond? Obviously, they have no levers of power, but the dccc, which is the House Democratic campaign arm, has been involved in letting constituents in Republican districts know when town halls are coming up. And, hey, Republicans are talking about doing this, this, and this and this to all your benefits. Right?
- [25:46]
Aaron Blake
So I think there's a lot of talk about whether these town halls are, quote, astroturfed, basically, where people are being brought in to make these scenes, to kind of get coverage of them.
- [25:55]
Mariana Sotomayor
Correct. And it is worth pointing out that at McCormick's town hall, a significant portion of those who are protesting a little bit unruly, as our colleague Hannah pointed out, were Democratic voters. However, I caught up with McCormick once he was back on Capitol Hill earlier this week, and he was probably one of the first Republicans given that town hall to say, you know what? Maybe we should be a little bit more compassionate. He kept saying the word compassionate. We should be listening to our constituents. Some House Republicans, their takeaway from some of these town halls was, oh, my God, I'm going to go to teletown halls. You can reach more people. No one's going to be screaming at you. You can control who is asking the question. McCormick's point of view is, no, like, I'm going to keep doing town halls. I'm going to keep being in my district because people want to hear from me, and I, frankly, want to hear from them. I totally understand. A majority of people who did show up were Democratic voters, but they still are my constituents. And he was one of the Republicans who went to the White House to talk to Trump about maybe. Let's think a little bit more about how quickly Doge is moving. We've heard from both Elon Musk and Mike Johnson, the Speaker, this week, saying, yeah, I realize that us moving fast could lead to some mistakes.
- [27:21]
Aaron Blake
Yeah. And that seems to be the tenor of a lot of the, you know, whether you want to call them criticisms or, you know, kind of gentle suggestions that are coming from these Republican members of Congress. And we've talked a lot on this show about how Republicans have been reluctant to say anything that would inflame the administration or go against Trump. Are we starting to see something breaking through when it comes to what Republicans are willing to criticize here, or is it still just kind of too gentle to really make a difference?
- [27:54]
Jacob Bogage
I definitely think this is having an impact. Our colleague Liz Goodwin recently reported that there are Republicans who have publicly embraced these cuts, namely Lindsey Graham, the Senate budget chair of South Carolina, major Trump ally, who privately have said, maybe these aren't a good idea. Maybe they're not even legal. We need more information about that, and you're starting to see it with other Republicans. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, when NIH.
- [28:26]
Aaron Blake
Was getting cut, National Institutes of Health.
- [28:28]
Jacob Bogage
Yeah. Or at least threatened to be cut, said, oh, I'm very much in favor of this, and NIH is so important to my state of Alabama. Can we keep our jobs? Okay. A thing that you don't know about me and that you don't need to know, but for the purposes of this anecdote, I'm like a mail geek, like a post office geek.
- [28:48]
Aaron Blake
Oh, not stamps, but mail, not stamps.
- [28:52]
Jacob Bogage
Do not get me. I don't want no stamps. But there are thousands of post offices across this country that are deeply unprofitable, and you can't close them because nobody in their home district wants to explain to their constituents that we closed our post office and got rid of a bunch of jobs and whatever. And there's like a lot of police political boxing out that happens. And I think you're starting to see that a little bit when it comes to Doge. Don't gore my ox. I need to protect my constituents. I need to protect the jobs in my district, the businesses in my district. Oh, you want to cut XYZ Agency? Yeah, go for it. It doesn't touch my district. But as soon as you come after. I think of the IRS as a great example. Right. IRS has huge campuses in Austin, Tex, Ogden, Utah, Kansas City, Missouri. Imagine if you are a member of Congress, who represents those districts and the president unilaterally wants to get rid of 5,000 jobs in your district and close a major corporate campus. That would be a local economic development disaster. And those effects are going to be real and they're going to be immediate in those local economies, and they are going to reverberate in elections. I just have a really close eye on that.
- [30:14]
Aaron Blake
We've been talking about the kind of building congressional criticism of Doge, but we also saw some tensions this last week, I would say, between what Musk is doing and what members of Trump's cabinet want. We saw last weekend There were some mixed messages from different departments. When Musk sent an email asking federal employees to list five things that they had done in the past week, he said that there would be resignations for people who didn't respond to this. But then we saw some of Trump's appointees, like FBI Director Cash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, told their agencies that they didn't have to respond to this or that they shouldn't respond to it. I think it's worth noting that we're learning now that they're kind of rekindling this effort, and federal employees might be asked to respond to a letter from their agencies along the same lines. But it was interesting to me that we saw political appointees of Trump basically distanced themselves from what Musk was doing. Can you guys just tell me what happened here and how much we should read into it?
- [31:21]
Jacob Bogage
Elon Musk and Doge send out this email, like you mentioned, Aaron, that said, give us five things that you did this week.
- [31:29]
Aaron Blake
This is Saturday of last week. Yeah.
- [31:31]
Jacob Bogage
Yes. And C.C. your manager and tell us about your accomplishments. And it was read basically as a prove your worth to the federal government email. Now, imagine if you got, like, a splashy new promotion and you told you were going to be reporting to, like, the CEO of a company or whatever, and then some random person who has a job that you're not really clear what the job is said, actually, sorry about that promotion. I am in charge. At the end of the day, that's kind of what the gist of this email was to a lot of these Cabinet secretaries or a lot of these administration officials. And that's where you started to get this pushback. There's also some legal underpinnings about whether this is allowed, and it gets a little wonky. But there was a court case that was preliminarily decided late Thursday night that basically said the Office of Personnel Management, this agency that Musk is controlling, doesn't really have the authority to go on firing people at agencies that are separate. OPM can't go to the Department of Defense and say, a bunch of you were fired. These are separate entities. And again, I think it gets back to this concept of don't gore my ox. If I am a Cabinet secretary, I have my own constituency. That's my employees. That is my power center. Don't come after my power center. Don't cut the size of my agency or don't cut my agency more than you cut another agency. Everybody kind of wants to protect their turf and that includes from Elon Musk in some cases.
- [33:14]
Aaron Blake
I think this really kind of gets at what we've been talking about throughout the show, which is that when you move fast and you are willing to break things, sometimes you break things that people regard as being pretty politically significant. And I just wonder if there's kind of a realization setting in among Cabinet secretaries, among Republican members of Congress that like this could get into some very dicey political territory moving forward. Is that a fair read on the situation?
- [33:46]
Mariana Sotomayor
Yeah. And I think a lot of the questions that Republicans have is how is this affecting how we can legislate? Like there are legitimate questions about how they can fund the government next month without knowing how much to fund the government for, because Elon and Doge have been cutting here and there and firing people here and there and actively not letting Congress know how much they've saved. So if you're an appropriator, your job is to like allot money, but you don't know how much money you have. You can't really do your job. So that's like a more concrete and more in real time example of how these unilateral decisions by Doge are affecting the legislative branch and obviously, as already discussed, different agencies, the power of the secretaries, the power of Congress. That's, I think, a theme that we're all going to be exploring and frankly finding out at the same time as many of these decision makers.
- [34:59]
Jacob Bogage
I'll just add that this follows a theme from the first Trump administration that a lot of us here at the Post covered very closely, which is in government, it's very easy to take things apart and break things and it is very difficult to reassemble them. And so when you fire 7,000 people at the IRS and people tell you don't do that because it's going to hurt customer service in the middle of tax filing season, it's hard to reestablish trust and to physically rebuild systems. When you threaten to fire people at Social Security, potentially up to half the workforce. Have you cut Social Security benefits by law? No. Have you potentially effectively cut them because people can't get through to get their questions answered? Or if there is an IT problem and payments don't go out on time time, which are very real risks that I've been reporting on. Yeah, that's also the case. So when we're looking at some of these things that are being deconstructed, the underlying programs may not be touched, but they are effectively being tinkered with because the systems around them are changing.
- [36:32]
Aaron Blake
Yeah. I think it's clear that they're starting to think about the downstream effects of a lot of these actions, and we're going to continue to monitor how they respond to that. That's it for today's episode, though. Thank you so much for joining me, Jacob and Mariana, thanks for having us.
- [36:47]
Jacob Bogage
Great to be with you.
- [36:50]
Aaron Blake
Mariana Sotomayor is a congressional reporter for the Post, and Jacob Bogage is a congressional economics correspondent for the Post. If you're tuning in via the Campaign Moment show feedback, please go follow Post reports and the Seven for even more politics coverage throughout the week. Today's episode was produced by Laura Benchoff and mixed by Ted Muldoon. It was edited by Lucy Perkins and Rachel Van Dongen. Our team also includes Maggie Penman, Rena Flores, Alana Gordon, Ariel Plotnick, Bishop Sand, Renny Svirnovsky, Sabi Robinson, Emma Talkoff, Shawn Carter, Peter Bresnan, Sam Baer, Allison Michaels, Renita Jablonski, Alahia Ezadi, and Martine Powers. I'm Aaron Blake. Have a great weekend.