The following is a lightly edited transcript of the February 3 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
President Donald Trump has empowered Elon Musk to undertake a gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development that is pretty clearly illegal. And this week, on numerous fronts, this has suddenly become a much bigger scandal. First, we learned that Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is taking over the agency and locking its workers out of internal systems. Then Musk himself confirmed that Trump had agreed with him that the agency must be shut down.
On Monday, Democratic lawmakers denounced the illegality of these moves. They showed up at USAID offices to investigate and were barred from entering. The Democrats are right: Trump and Musk don’t have the authority to do these things. And Democrats absolutely must find new ways to fight against these extraordinary abuses of power. We’re really glad to be talking today about all this with one of the House Democrats who went to USAID to protest, Congressman Don Beyer. Thanks so much for coming on, Congressman.
Don Beyer: Thanks, Greg. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.
Sargent: Congressman, Elon Musk has confirmed that Trump agrees with him that USAID should be shut down. Agency staffers were instructed not to come to work. Hundreds have been locked out of the agency’s computer systems. On Monday, some of you went to the agency to investigate. Can you bring us up to date on the situation as of now, Monday afternoon?
Beyer: As of now, there’s not a lot of change from the administration, from Musk, or from Trump. What has changed, though, is an enormous outpouring of public protest and response to this. I think we had close to 15 members of Congress there giving powerful speeches. But even more importantly, we had more people and more press than we’ve had in anything in the first two weeks of the Trump administration saying, This is not right, this is against the law, and really calling out Elon Musk, an unelected, unvetted, unconfirmed person who came to this country illegally in the first place deciding what’s going to happen to our bona fide institutions of government.
Sargent: Can you lay out the legalities here, or, I should say, the illegalities? Many of you have said this is not legal. By all appearances, it is not. Can you walk through why?
Beyer: Well, first of all, I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t want to pretend to be one, but the key thing, Greg, is the U.S. Agency for International Development was established by an act of Congress. And you suddenly have Elon Musk showing up and trying to gut it, locking out all the employees, locking them out of their offices, locking them out of their emails, pausing the funding for things that were passed in budgets by Congress and signed by Presidents of the United States. None of that corresponds to the rule of law.
Sargent: Clearly not. Will there be lawsuits? Who has the standing to bring lawsuits? What do you expect to happen in the next few days or, I don’t know, few hours?
Beyer: Well, yes, there will absolutely be lawsuits. We’ve been—not my office but our team in Congress under Hakeem Jeffries—working on lawsuits since daybreak and hopefully [they] will be filed this Monday afternoon. I’m trying to get an injunction against it. We already have been working hard on injunctions that’ll let the money flow again. But it’s a huge mistake to do this in so many ways. Even for Donald Trump, it’s a huge mistake because the American people are going to react very negatively to this. This is not why he won the last election.
Sargent: I think not. He has talked endlessly about gutting the deep state and that sounds good, but now we’re seeing what it actually means to gut the “deep state.”
Beyer: And what you see, too, is it’s so clear that it’s a huge gift to China and to Russia. If the definition of the conflict of the twenty-first century is United States versus China, democracy and capitalism and freedom versus autocracy and centrally planned government dictatorships, we just made their system look a lot better and we opened up all those needy developing countries to Chinese influence while basically embarrassing ourselves.
Sargent: Can you make the case for why the agency is good for America and the world? Congress created this agency, as you said. Can you make the broad case for this agency?
Beyer: Even the broader case will... I don’t know if I get in the right order, but number one: All the various international illnesses, things like Ebola or avian bird flu, usually almost always start in other, often developing, countries. And if we work closely with them, then we hope they won’t get to us or they’ll get to us after we figure out vaccines and treatments and the like. Then there’s the whole issue of stability. Anytime there’s instability in other parts of the world, it affects stability everywhere. Eugene Vindman served 25 years in the U.S. Army pointed out, If we cut the less than 1 percent of our budget that goes for U.S. international development, we’re have to double or triple our military budget. Our military budget right now is $890 billion. Can you imagine taking it up to $1.6 trillion or $2.7 trillion just to offset a relatively small, small investment in international aid?
Sargent: Well, I want to return to something you said earlier. You mentioned that lawsuits are in the works. Congressman, by the time people listen to this on Tuesday, some of these lawsuits may be filed. Do we know where the lawsuits to try and block this action against USAID will come from? Is it outside groups, from Congress, maybe some combination?
Beyer: Greg, I suspect it may actually be an outside group, and that is fine. We’re rooting for them. We want to make sure that they’re representing the people who are affected and that the lawsuit is not too tinged with any partisan purpose but rather upholding the law. Elon Musk not only wasn’t elected, but he’s never been vetted, passed a security check. He’s never been confirmed by the Senate. It’s uncertain why he’s gotten parachuted in there to treat the federal government as if it were X or Twitter.
Sargent: Do we understand Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s role here? He appears to have been tapped to be USAID’s acting director. He said something to the effect on Monday that the goal wasn’t to shut it down completely. What’s your understanding of the situation there with Rubio’s role?
Beyer: What I understand through Musk is that they want to fold USAID into the State Department. Now, that may be an OK policy goal, but USAID was started by an act of Congress and it can only be ended by an act of Congress. There are different times where we have folded different agencies or split them out, but that has to happen in a straightforward constitutional way. Acts of legislation, debates, things signed, sent to the president, not done by fiat, which is much more in the dictator-type past.
There’s probably nothing illegal about Rubio being the acting USAID director, although he already has a big job. But to the extent that it foreshadows simply folding it in without authorization or permission, that doesn’t work.
Sargent: Is there a room to also legally challenge Elon Musk’s role? As you pointed out, he’s not a government official. He’s not confirmed by the Senate. He’s not anything. Trump on Monday addressed Musk’s role in a vague way, but it’s a little unclear exactly where this authority derives from. Is there an opportunity to go legally at Elon Musk’s role?
Beyer: Greg, I very much believe there is. Not only his shutting down USAID but also the notion that Elon Musk has gotten in and fired the people responsible for the payment system at U.S. Treasury—$6 trillion a year, which includes income tax refunds, Social Security payments, the salaries of our federal workers, including our military, all of our Army, Navy, Air Force. We’ve given a corrupt businessman, the wealthiest person in the world, control over that. God knows where he will send that money or what he will use it for. So yeah, we will very much challenge it.
So many of these things are classified documents at various levels. And here’s a guy who has absolutely no security clearance, and couldn’t pass the security clearance if he was subjected to it based on all of his connections with China.
Sargent: You’re talking here about the payment systems, that they involve some sort of classified information?
Beyer: Exactly. Yes.
Sargent: And your point, I think, is that Elon Musk has not gotten security clearances. So there has to be more transparency brought to what it is he’s actually getting access to, correct?
Beyer: And his young minions, his 22- and 23-year-olds also who have never been subjected to a security clearance, [who] do not have permission to view classified documents. They’re in there on top of a $6 trillion payment system, which is clearly very classified.
Sargent: So Trump talked about Elon’s role on Monday. Trump was asked why Elon needs access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems, which, as you say, he’s also been granted. Trump seemed to suggest that Elon will be picking groups who do or do not merit getting government payments. Listen to this.
Reporter (audio voiceover): Why is it important for Elon Musk to have access to the payment systems at Treasury?
Donald Trump (audio voiceover): Well, he got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good if we agree with him, and it’s only if we agree with him. He’s a very talented guy from a standpoint of management and costs, and we put him in charge of seeing what he can do with certain groups and certain numbers. The numbers, some of the numbers are horrible, what he’s found. A hundred, think of it, $100 million on condoms to Hamas.
Sargent: Again, the context here was the Treasury payment systems. Trump seems to say that Elon picks groups who don’t merit government payments, but that seems to mean Trump and Elon are going to unilaterally decide to turn off payments to disfavor groups. That’s a striking admission, isn’t it?
Beyer: Yes, it is a striking admission. And once again, it goes against the law. When the Congress passes the budget, they’re very specific about how the USAID money will be spent. It is done by category. They don’t pick particular winners, the forgiven outside contractor. They let that be done by the career professionals. But it looks like Trump has no idea what Musk is doing. In that tape that you just played, he was very vague and referred, by the way, incorrectly, lying about $100 million worth of condoms to Hamas. Crazy stuff, which is not true at all. And this is part and parcel of all the stuff that they make up in order to justify outrageous claims.
Sargent: You get at something really key there, which is that Trump may not really know what Elon’s doing. He seemed to try to say that Elon can’t do anything without Trump’s permission, but even granting that that’s the case—which, as you say, we don’t really know if it’s true to begin with—they do not have the unilateral authority, Trump with Elon, to turn off payments to particular groups, payments that have been authorized by Congress, correct? Do they have that authority?
Beyer: You’re absolutely right. We’ve been focused on Elon today, but similarly, the president does not have the authority to do these things. Just look at Donald Trump signing 200 executive orders in rapid fire. You know he had not read probably 195 of those executive orders, probably didn’t know what was in them as people were telling him this is what this is about, this is what that is about. This is a guy who loves to do big crowd events where much of what he says is made up, inaccurate, imaginary. And now we have him in charge of our whole country. It’s a very sad thing, but at least he should be forced to follow the law.
Sargent: Right. And just to bear down on this point about Trump making a pretty stark admission here: If Trump is going to have Elon pinpoint groups who don’t merit payment and then Trump is going to unilaterally cancel those payments through Elon’s control over treasury payment systems, that’s not legal, is it?
Beyer: I don’t believe it is legal, Greg, and we will be fighting it. And often we’ll be fighting it alongside the groups whose money is being denied. Once again, there are legal ways to do this if they don’t like a specific measure of spending or specific contractor. In the budget that we’re trying to pass right now, they can clearly put that in the language.
By the way, among the levers that we have, number one is that we’ve already passed this debt ceiling and we’re using special measures to get by, but he can’t raise the debt ceiling without our help. Similarly, we don’t have a budget yet for the fiscal year we’re almost halfway through right now; in a 217–215 House, Trump can never get that budget passed without our help. Obviously, we want to fund the government, but we want to do it in a responsible way. And what he’s doing is completely irresponsible.
Sargent: So here we’ve got Trump trying to unilaterally turn off payments by the Treasury Department, we think. He tried an unconstitutional, illegal spending freeze the other day, backed off in the face of an outcry. Is there a case for the Democratic opposition to do something like this: For Democrats in the House and Senate to get together and say something like Mr. President and Republicans, you will not get one vote for any policy or any nominee at any point unless you rescind this power you’ve given to Elon Musk? Is there a role? Is there a way to do something like that?
Beyer: Greg, there absolutely is. And we spent a lot of today, and the last week, just talking about it. It’s hard for us because we believe in the institution—the institutions of government, the institution of Congress. It’s hard to go to work and say, We’re going to go gum up the works as best we can because we want it to work. On the other hand, if that’s the only tool we have in order to rein in this dictatorial power, then we must use it. And that may mean voting...for example, the senators, they voted en masse as Democrats for people like Marco Rubio and Doug Burgum. Maybe from this day on, they don’t do any of that. Put those types of things that used to be routine and make them not routine until Trump stops breaking the law.
Sargent: You brought up earlier that the Republican majority in the House is extremely slim. If all House Democrats were to vote against pretty much anything, it makes it almost certain not to pass. Is there discussion of House Democrats essentially acting as a bloc and saying, No votes for anything no matter what until this madness stops. Trump has authorized Elon Musk to do illegal things, that has to end or no votes for anything?
Beyer: Greg, we haven’t had those conversations yet. The House was out last week, people were in the district doing all kinds of important things. We come back Tuesday night and meet on Wednesday morning at nine o’clock. I am sure that that unity against Trump will be topic number one. And so far, in the two plus years that Hakeem Jeffries has been our leader, we have been extraordinarily united. And I believe that Trump makes it ever more likely.
Sargent: So where is this all going? Elon Musk seems to be undaunted forging ahead. Donald Trump said that he has pretty much carte blanche to do whatever he wants illegally. He didn’t use those words, but we can see that it’s illegal. What’s going to happen now in the next few days? Is there going to be a pause? Are the courts going to step in? How do you see this unfolding?
Beyer: I look at it in a number of different phases, Greg. Number one is the courts kicking in. And my prayer is that Trump will actually abide by judicial decisions. I think he did in the first term, much to his frustration, but I’m somewhat worried, though, because to the extent that he says I’m going to ignore what the courts have said because the Supreme Court says I can’t break the law as long as I’m president. That would be a really dangerous thing for our democracy.
Part two, I am confident that most of what he’s doing is not in the interest of the American people. He got elected because inflation was bad. So far, he’s done absolutely nothing to bring down the cost of food, the cost of health care, the cost of housing. He’s pushing things in the wrong direction. Stock market fell 700 points first thing this morning. So when he’s moving in the wrong direction, as he loses citizen support, it’s going to be easier and easier for Republicans to begin to abandon him. That’s what we really need.
And then I’m looking at the elections this year—electing a governor of Virginia, a governor of New Jersey. And we are very focused. I’m counting the days until the 2026 midterm elections and we take back the House and do our damnedest to take back the Senate.
Sargent: Do you think these are impeachable offenses he’s committing already?
Beyer: I don’t know. I would suspect that they are, although having been through two Trump impeachments so far, I personally would be reluctant to go down that road again unless we can see a way to get to the necessary votes in the Senate.
Sargent: Well, by the time people listen to this, we may have lawsuits filed. Is that right, Congressman?
Beyer: I very much hope that. If this is Tuesday morning, yes, I’m hoping that they will all have been filed by late Monday afternoon.
Sargent: And you anticipate some success?
Beyer: I do. It may take a couple of days, maybe even a week for the courts to act on it. But yes, I do anticipate success. And I don’t want to be Pollyanna about what happens if they get appealed up to the Supreme Court; that 6–3 court has made an awful lot of bad decisions in the last couple of years. But we have to hope. We have to pray.
Sargent: Of course. You think there is potentially a Supreme Court majority that would bless this kind of thing?
Beyer: Potentially, although my expectation is that they would avoid that vote and just not hear it, agree not to take this up. A way of ducking the vote.
Sargent: Which would leave us with the lower court decision in which direction?
Beyer: Well, hopefully a lower court decision in our direction. I think the lower courts should mostly be with us, because the law is so obvious.
Sargent: In other words, there’s a plausible scenario here where the lower courts halt this stuff, and the Supreme Court declines to take it.
Beyer: That’s exactly my expectation.
Sargent: Hopefully in the next couple of days, this will be on hold. Congressman Don Beyer, thanks so much for coming on with us today. We really appreciate it.
Beyer: Thank you, Greg, very much. Good luck with your audience and all your reporting.
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.