IN THE DOGE HOUSE

Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “first buddy,” has been tasked with downsizing the federal government. The assignment comes with mind-boggling conflicts of interest for the world’s richest man.

• Like a lot of kooky ideas, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) started off as a kind of inside joke, with a wink to billionaire conspiracy theorist Elon Musk’s favored dog-themed cryptocurrency. Then suddenly, on Tuesday night, it became all too real. President-elect Donald Trump announced Musk will lead DOGE on a mission to cut wasteful government spending, alongside MAGA tech bro and bouffant-hairstyle-enthusiast Vivek Ramaswamy. “It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump announced, in a note that couldn’t help sounding ominous, in part, because it left wide open enormous questions about what the hell this organization will actually be.

• Could it turn into some kind of new government agency (which, incidentally, can’t be created outside an act of Congress)? Or will it be a private organization? I asked someone close to Ramaswamy, and they replied with a one-word answer that left me even more confused: “Both!” If it’s fully private, some observers suspect that this bizarre new operation will be, as Quartz put it, “basically just a consulting gig.” On the other hand, if Trump actually takes Musk’s phone calls and treats his ideas seriously, then DOGE could have a real influence — even if it is just the world’s weirdest new think tank. (Side note: It’s hilarious that an agency aimed at making things more efficient will be run by two people. Very efficient.)

Any real power Elon Musk acquires will immediately collide with his sprawling business interests. His main companies — Tesla, SpaceX and X (née, Twitter) — compete for billions of dollars in federal contracts.

• Last year alone, Musk’s companies won $3 billion in 100 contracts with 17 federal agencies, according to the New York Times. He has a long history of battling regulators, badgering slow bureaucrats to hurry up and approve his plans, and getting tangled up in federal investigations and lawsuits. With DOGE, Trump may be handing his richest backer the ability to delete or dramatically cut back any government agency that gets in his way, or to reward the one that hands him the most business. Musk may already be flexing that power. This week, news broke that Trump plans to kill the Biden administration’s $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, a move Musk backs because it could devastate his competition.

• Musk positioned himself to reap massive rewards after reportedly splashing out $200 million to help elect Trump. “Elon Musk is also the democracy nightmare scenario,” New York Times journalist Ezra Klein told Pod Save America. “What if you have one of these guys who is truly rich — and he’s the richest man in the world — decide that what they want to buy is all of politics? We’re about to see that theory tested.”

• The call to improve government efficiency is, of course, an age-old political platitude — one that former Vice President Al Gore tried to implement back in the 1990s. But Ramaswamy’s ideas are downright bananas. During his own doomed presidential campaign, the tech bro said he would want to abolish or reorganize  — get ready for this — the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Department of Agriculture. Ramaswamy predicted that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority would have his back, too.

Elon Musk is foaming with excitement, promising “a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars … the entertainment value will be epic.” No thanks! Entertaining is how I like my sports and movies, not my government.

WHALE, BEAR CUB, WORM… AND YOU

Donald Trump chose famed anti-vaxxer and brain worm survivor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. You read that right: Trump’s putting Doktor Brain Worm in charge of our nation’s health. No, I’m sorry, we are not all imagining these things in a collective hypnosis.

Trump’s controversial pick is further evidence that the key qualification for a seat in his  cabinet is loyalty — never mind experience, competence, normalcy, a clean record or a firm grounding in reality. RFK Jr.’s quid-pro-quo deal was literally caught on tape.

Trump’s cabinet was already taking on the exotic strangeness of a Star Wars cantina, even before RFK Jr. brought his incredible weirdness to the party. To review his greatest hits: A worm ate part of his brain and died there; he chainsawed off a whale’s head and strapped it to the top of his car; he prompted a police investigation by dumping a dead bear cub carcass in Central Park; and he reportedly had a sexting relationship with an engaged journalist four decades younger than him, while married to actress Cheryl Hines. He believes Covid was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. He compared Covid lockdowns to Nazi Germany.

I feel healthier already! But let’s get into what he could actually do. He campaigned with Trump on the promise to “Make America Healthy Again,” a broad range of policies aimed at overhauling current health protocols. That could include taking fluoride out of drinking water, reversing what scientists call one of the greatest public health achievements in the past century. Last year, he said that “no vaccine that is safe and effective,” so expect him to try to influence vaccine policy. He’s expected to go to war with the Food and Drug Administration, promoting things like “raw milk” which can be dangerous.

One thing this appointment is NOT good for: My mental health.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

Donald Trump chose Todd Blanche, his own defense attorney,  to be the deputy attorney general. These picks are getting truly comical, but at least the dude is an actual lawyer, I guess.

You know things are going south in MAGAworld when even the ludicrously arch-conservative right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board agrees with us here at the What A Day newsletter — about how terrible of an attorney general Matt Gaetz would be. But it happened. Today, we here at What A Day stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our comrades-in-arms!

Republicans won the House with a slim majority, completing a trifecta that could create a clear path for GOP legislation for at least two years. The major win comes after incredibly dysfunctional House Republican rule, showing that “members of both parties overestimated how much voters would judge them by their job performance,” the New York Times writes. Well, competence, shmomptence….

Elon Musk, of all people, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations this week. It’s frightening how much access his bromance with Trump is earning him.

Beloved hippie ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit accusing parent company Unilever of silencing its support for Palestinians during Israel’s war in Gaza. Unilever rejected the ice cream brand’s claims, saying that it “will defend our case very strongly.” I don’t trust many companies to make ethical decisions, but Ben & Jerry are my family.

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