Muskquerade: Elon Musk's Havoc Is Not What Voters Bargained For

The Briefing with Jen Psaki

NBC News

News, Politics

4.5 • 664 Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As Elon Musk elbows his way into every corner of the government, Jen Psaki is joined by Senator Cory Booker to discuss the importance of fighting back against Musk's hostile government takeover and his concerns about a potential "constitutional crisis" if Musk defies court orders to temporarily limit DOGE's power. Next, Jen shares her wide-ranging interview with Governor Wes Moore, covering the challenges of governing amid Trump's efforts to dismantle federal agencies, and why the a diverse governing body matters in the face of GOP's war DEI. Then, Jen sounds the alarm on the band of tech bros who have been granted access to sensitive government data as a part of Elon Musk's DOGE team. Jen is joined by Former Twitter Executive Rumman Chowdhury to offer her takeaways from Musk's acquisition of Twitter that could serve as helpful advice on how to deal with his current takeover of Washington, DC. Later, Jen is joined by attorney Chris Mattei to discuss a lawsuit defending FBI agents from retribution. Finally, Jen shares details about her new project, 'The Blueprint with Jen Psaki', a podcast that launches this week, which explores the question of what’s next for Democrats and how they can win again.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, Donald Trump might be giving Elon Musk free reign to wreck the federal government,
0:05.0	but the good news is that backlash is getting stronger and louder every day.
0:10.0	I'm going to talk to Senator Cory Booker about what Democrats and the courts are doing to fight back.
0:15.0	Plus, my exclusive interview with Maryland Governor Westmore,
0:18.0	whose state is dealing with this assault in real time.
0:21.8	And later, I'll talk to the former Twitter executive who's giving out free advice to federal
0:26.0	workers about how to handle a Musk takeover.
0:47.0	Okay. I kind of think that, I mean, to some degree, what we are seeing from Donald Trump right now is sort of what we expected.
0:54.7	The strange obsessions and the constant bluster and the wild pronouncements, None of that is anything really that new.
0:59.7	There was also the talk about taking over Greenland and Canada on the Panama Canal. There was the short-lived trade war with nothing to show for it. There was the decision just yesterday to
1:05.1	strip security clearances from people he doesn't like. There was the third person announcement
1:09.6	that he's appointing himself,
1:11.1	chairman of the Kennedy Center. And I could go on and on and on, but I'm not going to.
1:15.4	The point is, if you have been following Donald Trump for the last decade, and many of you I know
1:19.5	have been, this is all very much what you might expect from a Trump to a point O. And I guess
1:25.7	this continuation of the Trump show is, on some level, what a
1:29.6	slight majority of the American people may have voted for. I don't know. But what you may not have
1:34.7	bargained for, what they may not have bargained for, and I certainly didn't, is what I'm going to
1:38.4	call Musk 1.0. I actually think it's safe to say people were not prepared for the way Trump has
1:43.9	basically ceded his power. I mean, there's safe to say people were not prepared for the way Trump has basically ceded his power.
1:46.3	I mean, there's a reason. Time Magazine's latest cover shows Musk sitting in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.
1:52.5	And I'm just going to leave that up there for a second because why not?
	...

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