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dot com and secure your seats today this is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

President Donald Trump has empowered Elon Musk to undertake a gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development that is pretty clearly illegal.

And this week, on numerous fronts, this has suddenly become a much bigger scandal.

First, we learned that Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is taking over the agency and locking its workers out of internal

systems. Then Musk himself confirmed that Trump had agreed with him that the agency must be

shut down. On Monday, Democratic lawmakers denounced the illegality of these moves. They showed up at

USAID offices to investigate and were barred from entering. The Democrats are right. Trump and

Musk don't have the authority to do these things, and Democrats absolutely must find new ways to

fight against these extraordinary abuses of power.

We're really glad to be talking today about all this with one of the House Democrats who went to USAID to protest, Congressman Don Beyer.

Thanks so much for coming on, Congressman.

Yeah, thanks, Craig. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.

So Congressman Elon Musk has confirmed that Trump agrees with him that USAID should be shut down.

Agency staffers were instructed not to come to work. Hundreds have been locked out of the agency's computer systems.

On Monday, some of you went to the agency to investigate. Can you bring us up to date on the

situation as of now Monday afternoon? As of now, there's not a lot of change from the administration

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