Transcript of GOP congresswoman pressed on Musk’s USAID takeover

A congresswoman, you have the power.

You have the power to-We budget for agencies. Budget.

You have the power to spend, to take away money. You have the power to structure agencies. You have the power to create, destroy agencies. You can actually do all of those things from Congress.

Yes. If I could answer that question, what I would say is we do. We do do the budget. We allocate funding for specific agencies for specific purposes. It is when we see these federal bureaucrats spending this money and making decisions on grants and loans and making decisions decisions that are not within what we anticipate or was intended for. That is why I thought it was appropriate for President Trump to pause some of these grants that were going out because they were going out for some ridiculous things. But let's Congress, by the way, Elon Musk's role is an advisory role. Correct. Let's be clear about that. He is not going to be... We're going to be making that final determination as members of Congress.

I should also just say, Elon doesn't think that that's the case because he's been saying pretty point blank, this is going away. We've gotten rid of this. We've gotten rid of that. And the money has stopped flowing.

Respectfully, Congresswoman, it was his aides who sent notices today to USAID saying, Don't come to work. And I hear your point about cutting Spending, spending, and everything. Look, I'm not going to die on a hill that says that these agencies don't have some privileged spending that we need to rein in. But the fact is, do you know sitting here today that Elon Musk and his aides do not have access to my Social Security number? You don't know that. That is troublesome because as a member of Congress, you should know that. But what we do know is he went in a treasury, he locked people out, he fired individuals, and now Elon Musk and his aides, and this is not a partisan attack by any stretch. This is, look, I deserve to know where my information is and why someone who is unelected, we don't even know what his job title is.

That's an important question. Why is it, Scott, that Elon Musk claims that it is a crime to tweet the names of the six individuals who, I have to assume, are government employees, maybe they're not, who are going around and carrying out his orders and telling people, for example, to not come in to work at an entire federal agency who are going into the treasury asking for access to a sensitive payment system. How is it a crime to know who those people are?

I don't know if it's a crime or not. I think it's certainly untoward to try to out-Why? Because you're trying to seek an angry mob on people who are showing up to try to act on behalf of the President of the United States.

First of all, this is his platform. If his own platform is an angry mob, that's one thing. But he also does this all the time. These are people who are doing things that affect Americans. They're working in the government. I don't see why it needs to be a secret.

They're doing things that affect the bureaucracy, which is why you see all the rage today.

You don't think that this stuff affects Americans, Scott?

Yeah, probably in a positive way. I'm glad to see Democrats are coming around to the idea that the unelected people who might be involved involved in the running of our country are important because you seem to have no interest in that for the last four years under the last administration. Here's the bottom line. The American people... You know what that means? Is that you had a president who was not functional and you know it.

We're talking about Biden. Okay.

I'm sorry. Actually, by that same token, if you're concerned about the people around Joe Biden running the government, why aren't you concerned about the people around Donald Trump running the government?

Because I don't have any concern that this president is functional. He's a functional president, and Musk is an agent of the president.

But seriously, why are you not concerned that Elon Musk is, according to a lot of reports, someone that no one around the president wants to even cross because he's so powerful, and he has leverage over this president because he spent $250 million to get him elected.

Look, the president was elected. He runs the government. Elon Musk is an agent of the executive branch at the direction of the President. As the President said today, he's not doing anything that he doesn't have permission to do. And I will just remind you all, one of the things he was elected to do is to shake up Washington, stop doing business as usual, and reign in an out-of-control bureaucracy that, as the Congresswoman correctly pointed out, is spending money in ways that was never intended.

Three of your colleagues in the Senate, Senator Bill Cassidy, Jerry Moran, and Tom Tillis, they've raised some red flags over what's happening at USAID. Cassidy wants to know why clinics in Africa are not getting the drugs that USAID provides. Jerry Moran is wondering why there's American food rotting in ports of entry. Tom Tillis says, If you just shut I found every program in there, I think it's a mistake, and it will have policy and political consequences. But that's exactly what Elon Musk did. He shut USAID down.

First of all, going back to the transparency, you have not had a more transparent president than President Donald Trump. Every executive order, every conversation he has with a world leader, there is a printout. It is on social media, and we are learning what's going on in real time.

When did he say that he's shutting down USAID and tell us why he's doing it?

Well, first of all, USAID, and I sat the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I've tried to expose this as a member on those committee hearings. We cannot get any accountability from this agency. We can't get any metrics from this agency. This is a real bureaucratic mess, the USAID. The money is being spent and shoveled to countries all over the world, countries that hate us for programs that... You have countries where people are starving and they're focusing on DEI and transgender programming. It's ridiculous. Eventually, it becomes... But this is the fact. I'm glad that they're But the facts are- This is actually where money is going to.

What I'm saying, first of all, I'm not denying- Don't you think a policy is warranted? I don't know what specifically you're talking about, but I do know that there's a lot of money that does not go to any of those things. One of the programs Cassidy is talking about is PEPFAR. That is a Republican program. Yeah, that is a Republican program. That's great.

That's what you found one good program.

No, I mean, damage-stricken Sudanians. I don't know.

Look, here's the real point here. Congresswoman, you are elected to legislate. If you want to change where the money goes at PEPFAR, you have the power to do that. Why not do that in a transparent way so that the American people can see?

That is what we are doing right now. That is exactly what we're doing. We're trying to put a pause on this funding going out the door so we can see exactly what it's being used for because our intention when we appropriated this money is not being spent that way. What I will say is you have these bureaucrats sitting at these agencies. They come before Congress. We have hearings. We try to to the bottom of where this money is going. $50 million for condoms in Gaza, for example.

A congresswoman. No, but these are real things. No, no, no.

You guys are rolling your eyes as if these are not actual line items.

We know that there was not $50 million spent for condoms in Gaza. There was $0 spent on condoms in the Middle East. That is a complete bullshit and a lie. At the White House, I'm not even going to blame you for it. I'm not going to blame- It wasn't Gaza in the Middle East. I'm going to blame the White House. I'm going to blame the President. Where did it go? Congresswoman. I'm going to blame the President who upped the dollar amount to $100 million. It is false.

It was $50 million as far as I knew.

It is false. The answer is zero. There's none. So you cannot use that as an example.