DOGE head Musk: It's just common sense, basic controls needed at US Treasury

The Star

Basic controls and common sense approach are needed at the US Treasury and other federal agencies that had been found misappropriating taxpayers' funds, said Elon Musk who heads the Department of Government Efficiency which exposes misconducts and wrongdoings in agencies to reduce the US government operating costs.  Musk also denied any detractors' claims that he was dismantling government agencies and orchestrating a hostile takeover of government.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00It takes a lot to get there that actually are not paid,

00:02which currently they are paid.

00:05And then there are a whole bunch of social security payments

00:07where there's no identified website.

00:09So all of our actions are maximally transparent.

00:12In fact, I don't think that's a very good point.

00:14We do find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few

00:17people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly

00:21a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars,

00:23but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions

00:25of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,

00:29which is what happened to USAID.

00:32We're just curious as to where it came from.

00:33But there seems to be mysteriously, they get wealthy.

00:37Why?

00:38Where does it come from?

00:39I think the reality is that they're getting wealthier

00:41at the taxpayer expense.

00:42That's the honest truth of it.

00:44If you look at, say, treasury, for example,

00:47basic controls that should be in place,

00:50that are in place in any company,

00:52such as making sure that any given payment

00:54has a payment categorization code,

00:56that there is a comment field that describes the payment,

00:59and that if a payment is on the do not pay list,

01:03that you don't actually pay it.

01:05None of those things are true currently.

01:06We're really just talking about adding common sense

01:09controls that should be present that haven't been present.

01:14Everything is geared towards complaint minimization.

01:18So then you understand the motivations.

01:21So if people receive money, they don't complain, obviously.

01:25But if people don't receive money, they do complain.

01:28And the fraudsters complain the loudest and the fastest.

01:32So then when you understand that, then it makes sense.

01:36Oh, that's why everything just,

01:39they approve all the payments at treasury.

01:41Because if you approve all the payments,

01:43you don't get complaints.

01:45And they're also gonna address the deficit.

01:46So we've got a $2 trillion deficit,

01:49and if we don't do something about this deficit,

01:52country's going bankrupt.

01:55It's really astounding that the interest payments alone

02:00on the national debt exceed the Defense Department budget,

02:04which is shocking,

02:05because we spent a lot of money on defense.

02:08But if that just keeps going,

02:10we're essentially gonna bankrupt the country.

02:12If there's not a good feedback loop from the people

02:15to the government,

02:17and if you have rule of the bureaucrat,

02:20if the bureaucracy is in charge,

02:22then what meaning does democracy actually have?

02:26If the people cannot vote,

02:28and have their will be decided

02:29by their elected representatives

02:32in the form of the President and the Senate and the House,

02:36then we don't live in a democracy,

02:37we live in a bureaucracy.

02:39So it's incredibly important

02:41that we close that feedback loop,

02:42we fix that feedback loop,

02:44and that the public,

02:45the public's elected representatives,

02:47the President, the House and the Senate,

02:49decide what happens,

02:51as opposed to a large, unelected bureaucracy.

02:54You're detractors, Mr. Musk,

02:58including a lot of Democrats.

03:00I have detractors?

03:01You do, sir.

03:02I don't believe it.

03:03Say that you're orchestrating

03:05a hostile takeover of government,

03:07and doing it in a non-transparent way.

03:09What's your response to that criticism?

03:12Well, first of all,

03:14you couldn't ask for a stronger mandate from the public.

03:18The public voted,

03:21we have a majority of the public voting for President Trump.

03:25We won the House, we won the Senate.

03:30The people voted for major government reform.

03:34There should be no doubt about that.

03:36That was on the campaign,

03:38the President spoke about that at every rally.

03:40The people voted for major government reform,

03:43and that's what people are gonna get.

03:44They're gonna get what they voted for.

03:46A lot of times, people that don't get what they voted for,

03:50but in this presidency,

03:51they are gonna get what they voted for,

03:53and that's what democracy's all about.

03:55Mr. Musk, the White House says that you will identify

03:57and excuse yourself from any conflicts of interest

04:00that you may have.

04:01Does that mean that you are, in effect, policing yourself?

04:04What are the checks and balances that are in place

04:06to ensure that there is accountability and transparency?

04:10Well, we actually are trying to be

04:11as transparent as possible.

04:13In fact, our actions,

04:14we post our actions to the Doge handle on X

04:19and to the Doge website.

04:21So all of our actions are maximally transparent.

04:23In fact, I don't think there's been,

04:25I don't know of a case where an organization's

04:28been more transparent than the Doge organization.

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