It is rare that a news interview can be called astounding, but the recent Brent Baier interview of Elon Musk and his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) leadership team is just that. In approximately 30 minutes, excluding commercials, federal government corruption and inefficiency are exposed at levels unimaginable.
It was not my original intent to watch the interview. So many of the news interviews have preconceived outcomes that they are boring and not particularly interesting. This was different, and I am not going to summarize all the various points as there were so many that it felt like I was being pounded with a sledge hammer point after point. What is clear is that Musk and his leadership team of billionaires and multimillionaires are operating with patriotic motives. (All of what they have found so far is listed on the DOGE website – full transparency is intended.)
I became emotional as I watched this. I began to think of what the founders of this country had gone through to create America and the millions of lives lost in defending her. I began to reflect on my own government career in the DoD and how these revelations stripped away my sense of accomplishment. (Shakespeare once wrote “kill all the lawyers”. Did he mean politicians?)
My next thought was about the condemnation and violence being visited on Musk and his Tesla company. Frankly, it is no wonder that Tesla is under attack by the radical anti-American left. The amount of corruption is everywhere in government. Some will say that we have Inspector Generals and Special Committees to look into waste, fraud and abuse. (Well, frankly, nothing happens because they are internal to the government and amount to the fox guarding the chicken coup.)
I was particularly struck by the open and obvious theft and fraud. Nothing was actually hidden, and the arrogance of the thieves and fraudsters was clearly seen. Imagine, millions of social security checks being handed out to people over 115 years of age many of whom aren’t even citizens. Imagine babies getting a bad credit rating because of bogus loans in their name. (Mort Saul once said “”I’ve arranged with my executor to be buried in Chicago. Because when I die, I want to still remain active politically.” Who knew that the graveyard could be so entertaining.)
When it came to just plain old waste, there was plenty of it. Computer systems that were out of date or didn’t talk to each other. A federal government payment process that involved a single bank account to pay out trillions of dollars without any checks and balances to determine whether a payment was valid or not. (My personal favorite was the paper retiree records stored in a salt mine in Pennsylvania rather than digitized. Makes you wonder if there is any gold in Fort Knox.)
By the end of the interview, I was left stunned. It was far too easy to see how a politician could quickly become a multi-millionaire on a federal government salary. The corruption is everywhere and the intentional lack of checks and balances is obvious. Essentially, a government representative or bureaucrat can either go with the corrupt tide or get drowned by it. (The lesson of the Biden administration is that waste, fraud and abuse pays and quite well, thank you.)
Final point. Any patriotic American should thank God that Trump has had the courage to fight against corruption and for America. And thank God for Elon Musk and the DOGE leadership. America just might be saved for future generations.
