Friday, the New York Times published a tasty palace intrigue story about a recent White House meeting that turned ugly when some Cabinet members complained about Donald Trump giving billionaire Elon Musk carte blanche to fire thousands of federal employees at random. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy complained that he has "multiple plane crashes to deal with now," but Musk was trying to fire air traffic controllers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio lashed out at Musk over mass layoffs, sarcastically asking whether Musk "wanted him to rehire all those people just so he could make a show of firing them again." Musk, typically, responded by gaslighting the two men, denying his assault on the federal workforce, even as he continues to brag about the same behavior on X. Trump responded weakly by publicly claiming that, going forward, the approach to staff cuts will be "the 'scalpel' rather than the 'hatchet.'" The words are hollow, however, as Trump shows no actual sign of being willing to stand up to Musk, who is operating as the shadow president.
While Duffy and Rubio quietly protest Musk and his "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), one Cabinet member seems all too happy to welcome this opportunity to force social and economic collapse: Robert Kennedy, who heads Health and Human Services (HHS). Kennedy is letting Musk have whatever he wants, law or morality be damned. On Friday, all 80,000 HHS employees were sent an email asking them to resign for a pittance of $25,000, giving them only a week to decide. DOGE has also been handed an HHS database containing sensitive financial data about nearly all American workers, which was established to streamline child support systems. Career officials objected to letting Musk have private income data of millions, but they were overridden.
