Elon Musk’s DOGE “Savings” Aren’t New. Here’s Where They Come From.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency claims to have found new unemployment benefit fraud, but the information is just recycled findings from the Joe Biden era.

Last week, Musk revealed the results of DOGE’s investigation into unemployment benefits, the latest federal safety net program to fall victim to the billionaire’s unbacked claims and flat-out lies. He revealed thousands of seemingly shocking fraudulent claims, like toddlers and thousands of people over 100 years old receiving unemployment checks.

DOGE reportedly found that 28,000 people under the age of 5 collected $254 million in benefits, nearly 10,000 people with listed birthdates more than 15 years from now received $69 million, and 24,500 people over 115 claimed $59 million benefits.

“Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!” Musk wrote on X last week, using the information to rally the right against the federal safety net. “There was no sanity check for impossibly young or impossibly old people for unemployment insurance.”

But it turns out federal investigators discovered the same information years ago under Biden, and the claims weren’t fraudulent in the way Musk has made them out to be, according to a new report from The Guardian.

After Trump launched Covid-19 unemployment benefits in 2020 during his first term, the program became a target for identity theft and fraudulent claims. Within weeks, the Department of Labor warned states of an uptick in “imposter claims being filed with stolen or synthetic identities.”

To record the imposter claims but protect those whose identities were being stolen, states recorded “pseudo claims,” in which they’d change a person’s date of birth to prevent their information from leaking. That led to thousands of records of claims from toddlers and centenarians.

“Many of the claims identified … were not payments to individuals over 100 years of age, but rather ‘pseudo records’ of previously identified fraudulent claims,” a 2023 memo from the Labor Department reads.

Biden additionally allocated $2 billion to improve fraud detection in state unemployment programs, which resulted in 2,000 conditions and more than $1 billion in recovered funds. Despite this, MAGA has rallied around DOGE’s supposedly scandalous findings and is using them to justify the GOP’s assault on federal funding.

“Another incredible discovery,” Labor Secretary Loria Cahez-DeRemer wrote on X, following DOGE’s investigation reveal.

It turns out this “incredible discovery” was just another false claim from the billionaire used to justify his egregious attack on low-income people across the country.

Donald Trump is going after New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump’s federal housing director, William Pulte, issued a criminal referral for James to the Department of Justice, alleging she committed mortgage fraud. The Federal Housing Finance Agency director claims James “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire government backed assistance and loans and more favorable loan terms.”

James won a $464 million civil fraud suit against Trump, his companies, and business associates last year over his business practices, a case the president is still appealing. He has carried a vendetta against James ever since, most recently attacking his enemy in a Truth Social post Monday.

“Letitia James, a totally corrupt politician, should resign from her position as New York State Attorney General, IMMEDIATELY. Everyone is trying to MAKE NEW YORK GREAT AGAIN, and it can never be done with this wacky crook in office,” Trump posted, sharing a New York Post article reporting on the allegations against James.

James’s office responded by calling Trump a bully.

“Attorney General James is focused every single day on protecting New Yorkers, especially as this Administration weaponizes the federal government against the rule of law and the Constitution,” a spokesperson said in an email to Axios Tuesday night. “She will not be intimidated by bullies—no matter who they are.”

Trump has embarked on a campaign of retribution against his enemies, taking multiple punitive measures against the state of Maine for refusing to abide by his executive order against transgender athletes. He has stripped the security clearances of two of his prominent critics, former administration employees Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor. It seems that he is willing to weaponize the state against anyone who crosses him.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Tuesday that the Department of Justice was suing the state of Maine for failing to comply with the president’s executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.

The lawsuit follows the Trump administration’s announcement that it would suspend all federal education funding from Maine, over the Maine Principals Association’s decision to allow transgender women to compete with other women. The all-out war started after a fiery exchange at the White House in February, where Maine Governor Janet Mills was singled out by Donald Trump but refused to legitimize gender discrimination, saying she would continue to comply with state and federal law.

“See you in court,” Mills told the president at the time. Mills has stated that the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports is protected under Maine’s Human Rights Act, which protects against discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

During Bondi’s announcement, the attorney general tried to downplay that Trump’s inane executive order supposedly protecting women and children actually applied to only a few people in the state.

“I don’t care if it’s one, I don’t care if it’s two, I don’t care if it’s 100!” Bondi said, referring to how many transgender girls are high school athletes in Maine. It’s two, actually, according to the Maine Principals Association.

Ultimately, the supposedly widespread threat that Trump and Bondi seek to address doesn’t actually exist. NCAA President Charlie Baker told a Senate panel there were fewer than 10 transgender athletes in the entire athletic association. Further, Republicans’ repeated attempts to smear transgender women as threatening lacks a basis in reality, and simply serves as a means to win culture-war points with a transphobic voter base.

But Bondi wasn’t so concerned about the specifics of her argument on executing Trump’s agenda. In an appearance on Fox News Tuesday, Bondi falsely claimed that Riley Gaines, a swimmer for the University of Kentucky and anti-trans activist who appeared onstage with the attorney general for her announcement, had made it to the Olympics.

In fact, Gaines received fifth place in the 200-yard NCAA freestyle championship, and tied with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who became the first out transwoman champion in the NCAA women’s division.

Bondi warned that Minnesota and California were the “top two” states that would be targeted for their protections for transgender individuals.

Since Trump’s row with Mills, his administration has unleashed a barrage of actions targeting the state. Earlier this month, lawmakers called for the head of the Social Security Administration to resign after it was revealed that he’d attempted to shut Maine out of the insurance program altogether.

Last month, Trump froze millions of dollars in federal funding from the Department of Agriculture to the University of Maine system, which supports several universities. The Department of Education launched an investigation into the state’s Department of Education for alleged Title IX violations, the Department of Health and Human Services targeted the state’s Education Department, and the USDA launched an investigation into the University of Maine.

Donald Trump was apparently mad at Elon Musk for planning to attend a secret briefing on China at the Pentagon last month.

After news of that briefing was reported in The New York Times, Trump angrily canceled it, saying, “What the f**k is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go,” an unnamed top official told Axios.

The official said that “POTUS still very much loves Elon, but there are some red lines.”

“Elon has a lot of business in China and he has good relations there, and this briefing just wasn’t the right thing,” said the official.

In March, Trump vehemently denied the Times report, calling the publication “Fake News” and saying the story was “completely untrue” in a ranting Truth Social post. At the same time, Musk was also upset, calling the story “pure propaganda” on his X account, and said, “I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT. They will be found.”

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suspended two DOD officials, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, as part of an investigation into who leaked the news of Musk’s briefing, as well as other leaks regarding Panama Canal military plans, Red Sea operations, and intelligence collection in Ukraine.

But the fact that Trump blew up over Musk’s access suggests that there are limits to the tech oligarch and fascism enthusiast’s influence in the White House. There have been reports that Musk will be bowing out of the Trump administration, but Musk has called them “fake news” and his Department of Government Efficiency continues to gut the federal government. Is this the beginning of Trump souring on his wealthy benefactor?

Far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stumbled Tuesday night when faced with tough questions about her allegiance to Donald Trump at a chaotic town hall that led to three arrests. 

Several individuals were removed for disrupting Greene’s town hall at a community center in Acworth, Georgia. 

While Greene railed against undocumented immigrants, one protester started shouting about the Ku Klux Klan, which historically targeted Black Georgians in Greene’s district. 

The protester, as she was escorted out by security, shouted, “You butch body bigot! You butch body bigot!” 

“The protest is outside! Bye, have fun out there,” Greene sneered. 

The protester’s chide echoed that of Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett, who went so far as to trademark her burn against Greene, “bleach blonde bad-built butch body.”

Another protester with a “Jail 4 Insider Traders” banner was also removed by security. Greene disclosed Monday that she had bought between $21,000 and $315,000 in stocks last week in 17 companies including Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, and Palantir, buying into the stock market dip just hours before Trump announced he was partially pausing some of his tariffs. The stock market shot back up as a result.

In total, three people were arrested, including two who engaged in a physical altercation and were tasered by Acworth police, according to NBC News. 

At a closed-door meeting last month, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Representative Richard Hudson, advised his colleagues not to hold town hall meetings at all, after several Republicans came face-to-face with their angry constituents. 

Greene had her own solution: to mock the concerns of constituents. 

She made no attempt to conceal her disdain as she read a question about how she planned to “protect” her constituents in Georgia’s 14th district from the effects of Trump’s tariff polices, the gutting of Social Security and Medicaid, the Department of Government Efficiency’s massive government spending cuts, and a president who ignores the rule of law. 

“He is not well physically or mentally, and he’s making nonsensical orders based on his whim of the day. How are you going to rein him in to protect us?” Greene read.

“Oh, poor Christina. Poor, poor Christina. Well, I’m sure, Christina, you think you’re pretty smart, but the reality is you are being completely brainwashed by whatever source of news you listen to,” she sneered.  

Greene insisted that no one (besides criminals, fraudsters, and undocumented immigrants) had lost their Social Security or benefits and proudly declared that she intended to “stand by” her president. 

In fact, the Trump administration and DOGE are making fast plans to shrink the Social Security Administration, phasing out essential phone services and cutting staff, placing an incredible strain on field offices around the country. Around 2,800 SSA employees have already taken buyouts, according to agency data. And House Republicans all readily approved a budget that would see massive cuts to Medicaid in order to fund an extension on Trump’s 2017 tax plan, lightening the load for the very rich at the expense of the poor. 

Greene continued to openly laugh as she fielded questions submitted by her concerned constituents. 

“Why are you such a coward in the face of an obvious fascist takeover?” Greene read aloud. 

“Ooooh, scary! That’s scary. You know, I’ve yet to see a fascist gathering. That doesn’t exist in the Republican Party. As a matter of fact, President Trump is the most transparent president in history. The man literally talks to the press every single day,” Greene said. 

It’s true that Trump often speaks to the press, but when he does he tends to discuss his fascist plans to exile U.S. citizens to foreign prisons.