U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett is ripping Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency ... she says he needs a lesson in how the federal government is supposed to run.
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00:00Our Republican colleagues are kind of okay with ceding their constitutional authorities
00:07over to a guy that given maybe a few years ago, they would have been trying to deport.
00:12I mean, we understand that Elon was not born here.
00:16And so it's interesting that they now are like, oh yeah, well, because Trump said it,
00:21then it's all good.
00:22No, it's not all good.
00:23We have processes, we have rules, we have a constitution, we have laws, and they have
00:27decided that they want to eviscerate all of that in front of our eyes.
00:31And everybody wants to yell at the Democrats, but let me be clear, it's not the Democrats
00:34doing this.
00:35It's the Republicans.
00:36The main thing, I think, that prompted this was the dissolution of the USAID department.
00:44And perhaps I'm guessing the talk about the Department of Education.
00:48The CIA, the FBI, there are a lot of people.
00:52I would love for you to respond to what JD Vance just posted, and this is what he said.
01:00Elon Musk is supposed to be advising the president.
01:04That is the role that he is supposed to play.
01:07No one ever thought that he would have this authority that no one has ever been given.
01:12What people don't understand is that when you sign up to work for the federal government,
01:15such as myself, unfortunately, I had to give up practicing law.
01:20I am not allowed to do that anymore.
01:22This guy is still literally taking government contracts.
01:26And also the guy that has the power of the purse, there's not even a such thing.
01:31I mean, the power of the purse lies with Congress.
01:34And that's all we're trying to get people fired up about is understanding basic civics.
01:39This is illegal.
01:41I remember when I was a young man, when Richard Nixon was president, he had a kitchen cabinet.
01:47There was a dude named Bibi Rebozo who used to advise him all the time.
01:52And you look at first ladies who had enormous influence and sometimes could direct their
01:59husbands such as Nancy Reagan, you know, to do certain things.
02:04So I guess the argument might be Elon Musk is really part of the kitchen cabinet.
02:10Ultimately, Donald Trump can say yay or nay, but it's not that different from all those
02:17other people, just in terms of Musk.
02:19No, it's absolutely different.
02:21I don't care who he has advised him.
02:23I mean, I kind of do, but I mean, like he does have a lot of unintelligent people within
02:27his cabinet and advisors like that, fine, whatever.
02:31That is someone that is serving at the pleasure of the president.
02:35That is perfectly fine.
02:36The issue is that he's been empowered.
02:39You've never seen a first lady somehow get ahold of treasury and be the one that can
02:45turn on or off the spigot for money, can decide whether or not that military officer is going
02:51to get that check.
02:52Now, whether or not he says or she says, if it's, say, a first lady, hey, I think you
02:57should go into war.
02:58I mean, she can say it, but ultimately the president is the one that's going to still
03:01have to come to Congress and try to do it.
03:03There's still processes, and that is how you preserve a democracy.
03:07So yes, Elon Musk, go advise him.
03:10Do whatever y'all want to, but stay up out of the U.S. Treasury.
03:15Stop locking out the people that actually work for Treasury.
03:18Stop pushing out the people that decide on whether or not the money goes out, the people
03:23that have cleared a security clearance so that when your social security number is being
03:31made available to them, we can have some confidence that you actually were secured in some way.
03:37We know that you're not going to hopefully sell that information out to the highest bidder.
03:43We have no assurances whatsoever of anything, and they are blocking us out.
03:47And even today, we tried to bring in Elon Musk with a subpoena, and the Republicans
03:52shut us down.
03:53Now, the Congress has oversight over everything, especially when we start talking about the
03:58Oversight Committee.
04:00And we were having a hearing on right-sizing the government, and they don't want to bring
04:04in their newest savior, Elon Musk, to talk to us and tell the American people what exactly
04:10is going on.
04:12They don't want to do it.