Meet the Democrat Helping Elon Musk Gut the Federal Government

Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz is the first Democrat to join the caucus for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

“I will join the congressional DOGE caucus, because I believe that streamlining government processes and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue,” Moskowitz wrote in a statement. He also noted that the Department of Homeland Security was “too big” and that the Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency should become independent. Many Republicans—including the authors of Project 2025—are in favor of privatizing key agencies like FEMA.

Moskowitz has often gone out of his way to side with Republicans on key issues. He has argued that the debt is too large, backing devastating cuts to the federal government. More recently, he has supported Israel’s war on Gaza and is also one of the largest recipients of AIPAC funding in the House; Moskowitz was one of a handful of Democrats to recently give Donald Trump extraordinary powers to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits. These are all decisions that make Moskowitz’s enthusiasm for DOGE much less surprising. And, as Slate’s Alex Sammon noted on Twitter, Moskowitz also served as Ron DeSantis’s Covid czar before joining the House of Representatives.

Loyal DOGE appointees Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have their sights set on cutting massive swaths of the federal government, including but not limited to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, international grants, and funding for “progressive groups.”

Donald Trump’s handlers are mum on whether or not the president-elect plans to pardon himself at the onset of his second term.

Speaking with CNN Tuesday, top Trump adviser Jason Miller dodged the point-blank question, skirting any clear answer as to whether or not Trump plans to relieve himself of his federal charges once he’s in office.

“Is he considering—would he consider pardoning himself? Would President-elect Trump consider pardoning himself?” prompted CNN’s Kasie Hunt.

“That would never be something that I would weigh in on,” Miller said. “That would be something for the legal team to discuss. And again, President Trump did nothing wrong.”

“Has it been discussed behind the scenes?” Hunt interjected.

“That’s not something that I would have been a part of. And again, that’s not something for myself to go and comment on because President Trump didn’t do anything wrong,” Miller reiterated, before highlighting some of Trump’s recent selections to lead the nation’s criminal justice systems, including his former attorney Pam Bondi—whom he’s tapped to replace Matt Gaetz as his attorney general nominee—and Kash Patel, whom Trump has selected to front the FBI.

Miller also downplayed the sexual assault allegations against Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, ex–Fox host Pete Hegseth, whose own mother accused of “using women for his own power.”

But that’s not the only criminal record that’s floating around Trumpworld’s conscience. In the same interview, Miller made note that Trump intends to take a fine-tooth comb to the cases of the January 6 rioters.

“I want to be careful here and make sure I’m being very direct with you. President Trump has said a number of times on the campaign trail that he’s going to look at each of these cases individually, full stop,” Miller said. “That’s what he said. There’s never been a declaration of some—something bigger, broader. And again, that’s for something for the Department of Justice to go deal with when President Trump takes office again, not for someone who’s a spokesperson from the campaign or transition team.”

“Because, again, the whole point here is, we have to get politics out of the justice system. Justice should apply to everybody equally,” he added.

Donald Trump’s election has Republicans chomping at the bit at some of their favorite targets: government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

In an interview with Fox Business Tuesday morning, Representative Richard McCormick complained that “75 percent of the budget is nondiscretionary” and outlined GOP plans to tackle it.

“We’re gonna have to have some hard decisions. We’re gotta bring the Democrats in and talk about Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare,” McCormick said. “There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved and we know how to do it. We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on.”

McCormick’s words are not surprising. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump floated the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare, saying in March that there is “a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting, and in terms of also—the theft and the bad management of entitlements.”

Cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security was also floated earlier this year by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who promised to cut the programs in favor of boosting the country’s military spending. And the infamous conservative manifesto Project 2025, which Trump and the GOP tried to distance themselves from until Trump’s election victory, also includes drastic cuts to the popular programs.

While McCormick pledges to talk to the Democrats about such cuts, the GOP is unlikely to get much traction with the opposing party, especially since Republicans will have a razor-thin majority in the House where a single vote or two could tank their legislative agenda.

Even if the GOP manages to win over a couple of Democrats, any plans to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid will get pushback from powerful organizations such as the AARP. Older voters who rely on the programs also make up the base of the Republican Party, and politicians from both parties should be wary of provoking them.

If you turn on Fox News, you won’t see or hear much about Pete Hegseth, the longtime Fox anchor turned Trump nominee to lead the Department of Defense.

While Hegseth has been publicly excoriated this month for allegations of rape, sexual harassment, and misconduct and repeated drunkenness on the job, his former employer is trying its best to look the other way.

CNN analyst Brian Stelter reported that the conservative media hegemon that employed Hegseth for more than 10 years has yet to discuss the multiple allegations that its former employee is embroiled in, according to SnapStream and TVEyes database searches.

“What’s a media outlet supposed to do when its longtime host is picked to run the Pentagon, and then a series of eyebrow-raising news stories trigger doubts about his appointment?” Stelter inquired on X. “If you’re Fox News, evidently, you just pretend the stories don’t exist.”

Stelter went on to note that there were multiple moments on Fox News programming in which Hegseth’s allegations were raised but then quickly objected to or moved on from.

“On Monday’s edition of Special Report, Chad Pergram said Hegseth’s confirmation ‘could be a problem’ because ‘he faces problems about his personal conduct.’ What problems? Pergram didn’t say. Neither has anyone else on Fox,” Stelter said.

This lack of coverage is a blatant attempt at damage control from one of the most biased media conglomerates we have. Hegseth’s team has described the allegations as “outlandish.” Their impact on his nomination remains to be seen.

Many of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees are so underqualified for their positions that authoritarianism scholars have called them “anti-qualified.” But what they lack in relevant experience is substituted by something that Trump values far more: fealty.

With dozens of nominees lined up to lead different agencies, extreme loyalty stands as the one common denominator between whose careers live and die under the MAGA leader’s second term.

Among them stand five billionaires, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom Trump has tapped to lead something he calls the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump’s choice for treasury secretary, hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, was also one of his major campaign donors.

Thirteen individuals who have a future in the next Trump White House made cameos at Trump’s criminal trials earlier this year, including Sebastian Gorka for counterterrorism chief, Kash Patel for FBI director, Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, Dan Scavino as senior adviser, and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

Another dozen have been hosts on Fox News or were regular contributors to Trump’s favorite network. They include ex–Fox anchor (and accused rapist) Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel, Keith Kellogg to serve as Ukraine-Russia envoy, Representative Michael Waltz as national security adviser, and Sean Duffy for transportation secretary.

And, of course, several nominees are directly tied to Project 2025, which Trump briefly tried to distance himself from during his campaign after the details of the Christian nationalist agenda proved incredibly unpopular with the American public. They include Russell T. Vought for White House budget director, Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary, Michigan GOP chairman Pete Hoekstra to serve as U.S. ambassador to Canada, former ICE official Tom Homan to serve as border czar, and Brendan Carr—who has warned TV networks that they would face consequences for political bias—to lead the Federal Communications Commission.

Trump’s transition team had previously promised that loyalty would be the singular criterion. In October, transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick said that no quality would be more important for incoming staffers than total allegiance to the chief Republican.

While explaining how Trump’s last administration buckled under the weight of staff turnover due to disagreements in “vision,” Lutnick said that the new agenda is to eradicate any internal hostility to the Republican’s plans.

“They’re all going to be on the same side, and they’re all going to understand the policies, and we’re going to give people the role based on their capacity—and their fidelity and loyalty to the policy, as well as to the man,” the Wall Street billionaire said at the time.