This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

The rift between Elon Musk and Republicans is about to get worse.

The New York Times reports that in an extraordinary Oval Office meeting,

President Trump's senior agency heads fought bitterly with Musk in all kinds of revealing ways. It's only the latest sign that Musk's project is fundamentally unsustainable.

Musk wants to radically remake or even destroy the state, but the agency heads will be held accountable

for what happens as a result, and they don't want to

take the blame for the disasters that Musk is unleashing. New Republic staff writer Kate Aronoff

has a good new piece about some of the hidden impacts of all the cuts by Musk's so-called

Department of Government Efficiency. So today we're talking to her about all this and where it's going.

Good to have you on, Kate.

Thanks for having me.

So the New York Times report is really something. We learned that Musk sharply rebuked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for failing to fire enough people.

Rubio lashed out at Musk insisting that he'd induced 1,500 people to take early buyouts, which is supposed to be a positive, I guess.

There was a lot more like that, which will get into a bit.

But notably, Trump then said that the agency heads would be in charge of firings, and Musk's doge will only advise.

Kate, I don't know how reigned in Musk really is by this, put that aside.

It's clear Trump knows he can't ask his agency eds to let Musk have his way with their agencies.

What do you think? I think it's been clear how little coherence there is to anything that's

happening within the Trump administration,

in that to even describe it as an administration, I think, is a little bit, gives it too much credit,

right? Because what we've seen is that there are various agency heads, which may or may not

...