Elon Musk, the unelected, unconfirmed, unofficial, but extremely powerful Prime Minister of the United States,

is carrying out his plan to purge thousands of employees from the federal government,

even as his putative supervisor, President Donald Trump,

identifies new assignments for federal officials, including occupying and rebuilding the Gaza Strip.

Next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

The important thing in moments like these is to pay attention to what those in power do,

not what they say.

America is not actually going to occupy the Gaza Strip and turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East anytime soon,

nor is it going to go to war with Denmark over Greenland.

This week, however, the Trump administration launched an attempt to neuter both the Federal Election Commission and the National Archives,

the nonpartisan repository of, among other things, official White House records, and began dismantling

America's counterintelligence capabilities, and it's tearing through federal bureaucracies at a

remarkable clip. We'll separate the signal from the noise tonight with Anne Applebaum, my colleague

and a staff writer at the Atlantic. Eugene Daniels is the chief playbook and White House correspondent at Politico.

Asma Khalid is a White House correspondent at NPR

and a political contributor for ABC News.

And Michael Shearer is a recent addition

to the Atlantic's team of White House correspondents.

Welcome, Michael.

Thank you, Jeff.

You're welcome.

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