Political analyst Mark Halperin said Thursday that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Chair Elon Musk has already accomplished more government reform than former Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
Musk’s DOGE has cut numerous diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at federal agencies, scrapped leases for underutilized federal buildings and moved to streamline overlapping agencies and initiatives, according to Fox Business. Halperin, on “The Morning Meeting,” credited Musk’s effectiveness to his “aggressive” approach and the backing of President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.
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“You cannot execute the mandate that President Trump has and that many Americans want: to change government, to reduce the head count, to get rid of wasteful spending, to reduce the debt and deficit — you cannot do that without being an outsider who is fearless about taking on the status quo and the deep state and the entrenched bureaucracy,” Halperin said. “It’s not going to happen otherwise. And Musk has already done more than Reagan did or Bush did. I mean, he’s already made history in trying to root this out. And he’s doing it in part because he’s aggressive and fearless and has the support of the president and the vice president. And he’s super smart about systems.”
“The other side of that is he’s a little bit nuts. He’s a little bit on the spectrum … He’s not treating people with respect who work hard in some instances,” he continued. “And he may be insufficiently concerned about civil liberties, national security, continuation of programs that are essential, not optional. And I don’t know which it is. I honestly don’t know which it is. I hope that it’s the first, but there’s some indications there’s at least some of the second.”
Trump and Musk also plan to fold the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) functions into the State Department. The foreign aid agency is responsible for financing large grants for Palestinian programs, Afghan aid initiatives with risks of reaching the Taliban and indirectly funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Halperin previously argued on Jan. 23 that Trump was already implementing “fundamental” government reforms as he signed hundreds of executive actions.
“He’s done more — Trump’s prone to hyperbole, but when he says he’s done more in three and a half days than some people do in four years there’s, maybe, if these things hold, there may be some truth to that. Because he’s making Reagan look like a member of the deep state. He is changing things in a fundamental way and he’s benefited from four years off to think about it.”
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