Stephen Miller Rages at CNN Host as Musk’s Latest DOGE Fiasco Implodes

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On Tuesday, top White House adviser Stephen Miller unleashed a wild, angry rant on CNN after tough questioning from CNN’s anchor about Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. This comes even as one of Musk’s silliest absurdities yet—the idea that DOGE found rampant fraud in Social Security—imploded spectacularly under basic scrutiny. There’s a through line here: The great illusion that Musk, Miller and President Trump are trying to push—that they’re rooting out immense amounts of governmental waste and fraud—is collapsing all around them. We talked to writer Jill Lawrence, who has a new piece for The Bulwark arguing that the Musk enterprise has been exposed as a sham, about the larger MAGA mythology about the “deep state,” and why it’s proving unsustainable. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.4	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:33.2	On Tuesday, top White House advisor Stephen Miller unleashed a wild angry rant on CNN after getting triggered by tough questioning from CNN's anchor about Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government
0:38.8	Efficiency. This comes even as one of Musk's silliest lies yet, the idea that he had found
0:45.5	rampant fraud and social security imploded rather spectacularly under basic scrutiny.
0:52.1	The through line here is that the great illusion that Musk, Donald Trump,
0:56.5	Miller, and others are trying to push, that they're rooting out immense amounts of waste, fraud,
1:01.5	and abuse in the government, is collapsing all around them, which shows how flimsy all the
1:07.1	maga myth-making has truly become. We're talking today about all this with writer Jill Lawrence, who has a new piece for the
1:14.0	bulwark arguing that the Musk Enterprise has revealed that the emperor really has no clothes.
1:19.8	Two emperors, actually, Musk and Trump.
1:22.9	Jill, thanks for coming on.
1:24.5	Thanks for having me, Greg.
1:26.3	So let's start with Stephen Miller. He was getting
1:28.7	questioned by CNN's Brianna Keelar about some of the technical intricacies of various protections
1:34.4	that civil servants enjoy. Then Miller just kind of rolled over the specifics, and this happened.
1:40.5	Why are you not celebrating these cuts? If you agree there is waste, if you agree there is abuse, if you agree there is corruption,
1:47.2	why are you not celebrating the cuts, the reforms that are being instituted every day that no action is taken?
1:53.5	The entire salaries of American workers that are taxed disappear forever.
1:57.8	Stephen, let's calm down.
1:58.9	This is not.
2:00.2	This is, we're not having a debate about whether there are. Well, let's calm down. This is not, this is, we're not having a debate.
	...

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