Why Elon Musk Can’t Run DOGE [sic] Anymore
Yesterday, Judge Tanya Chutkan had a Presidents Day hearing on a lawsuit challenging DOGE’s actions. While she reportedly seemed inclined not to grant an emergency restraining order, she did order the government to provide her with two pieces of information: how many people had and were going to be fired, and what Elon Musk’s status is.
In a response and declaration, the government blew off the first question, but on the second, denied that Musk has the power of DOGE. He’s just a senior Trump advisor, one solidly within the White House Office, and so firewalled from the work of DOGE, yet still protected from any kind of nasty disclosure requirements.
But as the attached declaration of Joshua Fisher explains, Elon Musk “has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself”—including personnel decisions at individual agencies. Decl. ¶ 5. He is an employee of the White House Office (not USDS or the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization); and he only has the ability to advise the President, or communicate the President’s directives, like other senior White House officials. Id. ¶¶ 3, 5. Moreover, Defendants are not aware of any source of legal authority granting USDS or the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization the power to order personnel actions at any of the agencies listed above. Neither of the President’s Executive Orders regarding “DOGE” contemplate—much less furnish—such authority. See “Establishing and Implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency,” Exec. Order No. 14,158 (Jan. 20, 205); “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,” Exec. Order 14,210 (Feb. 11, 2025).
The statement is quite obviously an attempt to retcon the structure of DOGE [sic], one that Ryan Goodman has already found several pieces of evidence to debunk.
But it is a testament that the suit in question — by a bunch of Democratic Attorneys General, led by New Mexico [docket] — might meet significant success without the retconning of Elon’s role.
Partly for more general benefit, let me talk about the various kinds of lawsuits filed so far against Trump’s attacks.
Kinds of plaintiffs:
- Imminent, individual personal injury: The cases that have had the most success, so far, are examples of individuals who describe a specific imminent injury. The most obvious such example is a number of Trans women prisoners who’ve argued, successfully so far, that they face a very high likelihood of assault and/or rape if they are moved to male prisons.
- Unions or other representatives of federal workers: These lawsuits address the imminent injury of privacy violations or firing and other mistreatment. The most successful (and eye-popping) so far has been the American Foreign Service Association lawsuit challenging the USAID shutdown [docket], in which a Doe employee yesterday provided another horrifying declaration describing another instance of a pregnant woman being deprived of promised medevac, and another from a woman in South Africa running up debt taxpayers will have to pay and about to lose access to electricity on the compound. But there are limits to the recourse that unions can seek on both these theories. For example, while Trump appointed judge Carl Nichols imposed a temporary restraining order on actions targeted at employees oversees, he has not done so for the USAID personnel stuck without the ability to fix anything in DC, because being put on paid leave is not the same kind of injury as being stuck overseas with no access to security warnings.
- States (all with Democratic Attorneys General): The states are arguing a variety of things, both contractual breaches and injuries to their citizens. Contractual challenges may have little ability to halt ongoing destruction.
- Private entities, like corporations or associations: These entities are often arguing contractual breaches, or privacy damages. The latter are likely to have more success than the former because of the way the Privacy Act works.
Kinds of challenges:
- Many of these challenges claim a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, basically arguing that the government changed the rules without going through the process they are required to use to change the rules.
- Many lawsuits also claim violations of the Privacy Act, which requires that the government follow certain rules if they’re accessing your data in new ways. Thus far, the government has argued that employees have more limited protections than private citizens.
- Underlying many of these suits are claims about the Impoundment Act and Separation of Powers because the government is not spending money the way Congress said it had to, but argued through an APA challenge. These challenges are particularly important because a key project of Project 2025 is to effectively strip Congress of the power of the purse.
- Some lawsuits have tried to get at cybersecurity violations or even hacking (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) claims, but thus far with little success. In any case, those would pivot on how DOGE [sic] got access to various computer systems, and in most cases, a senior Agency official ultimately relented to give them access.
- This lawsuit, and another similar one brought by 26 anonymous USAID employees, argue that Elon Musk’s role in all this violates the Appointments Clause. This basically argues that Elon is acting as a superior officer, which requires Senate confirmation.
The injury suffered by each set of plaintiffs and legal theory largely limits the ability of judges to weigh in. So, for example, if a suit is arguing only Privacy Act violations, a judge can do no more than limit the dissemination outside of authorized channels of the data of the plaintiffs, something that has been ineffective once agencies started giving DOGE formal authorization to access computer servers. If a suit worries about firings, but the government instead puts tons of people on paid leave (as happened with USAID), then the plaintiffs are not yet suffering an irrevocable injury.
Here’s how the Appointments Clause theory, arguing that Elon is exercising powers that need to be created by Congress and confirmed by them, looks in the complaint.
64. Although he occupies a role President Trump—not Congress—created and even though the Senate has never voted to confirm him, Mr. Mr. Musk has and continues to assert the powers of an “Officer[] of the United States” under the Appointments Clause. Indeed, in many cases, he has exceeded the lawful authority of even a principal officer, or of the President himself.
65. As explained below, Mr. Musk: (1) has unprecedented and seemingly limitless access across the federal government and reports solely to President Trump, (2) has asserted significant and sweeping authority across a broad swath of federal agencies, and (3) has engaged in a constellation of powers and activities that have been historically associated with an officer of the United States, including powers over spending and disbursements, contracts, government property, regulations, and agency viability.
66. In sum, Mr. Musk purports to exercise and in fact asserts the significant authority of a principal officer on behalf of the United States. Yet, he does not occupy an office created by Congress and has not been nominated by the President or confirmed by the Senate. As a result, all of Mr. Musk’s actions are ultra vires and contrary to law.
You can see why the White House has decided that Elon is boxed away inside the White House with no direct control over the dismantling of government bureaucracy. The retconning of his role is all the more obvious when you understand that the right wing judges on SCOTUS feel very strongly about the Appointments Clause. And Trump is on the record relying on it, most spectacularly in convincing Aileen Cannon that Jack Smith had to be confirmed by the Senate before he could indict Trump.
In practice, Trump is saying Elon can dismantle entire agencies without Senate confirmation, but Jack Smith couldn’t prosecute him as a private citizen without it.
Or he was. Now he’s arguing that all this is happening without Elon’s personal direction.
There is plenty in the complaint already that debunks this, not least the narrative of how Elon started disappearing USAID even before, by his own description, Trump approved.
93. With a budget of over $40 billion, USAID accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance. USAID has missions in over 100 countries. As of January 2025, USAID had a workforce of over 10,000, with approximately two-thirds serving overseas.
94. On Saturday, February 1, 2025, a group of about eight DOGE personnel entered the USAID building and demanded access to every door and floor, despite only a few of them having the requisite security clearance.34 The areas to which they sought access included a sensitive compartmented information facility—commonly known as a SCIF—an ultra-secure room where officials and government contractors take extraordinary precautions to review highly classified information. DOGE personnel, aided by phone calls from Mr. Musk, had pressured USAID officials for days to access the secure facility and its contents.35
95. When USAID personnel attempted to block access to some areas, DOGE personnel, including Mr. Musk, threatened to call federal marshals. Under threat, the agency personnel acquiesced, and DOGE personnel were eventually given access to the secure spaces.
96. Later that day, top officials from USAID and the bulk of the staff in USAID’s Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs were put on leave. Some of them were not notified but had their access to agency terminals suspended. USAID’s security official was also put on leave.36 97. Within hours, USAID’s website vanished. It remains inoperative.37
98. On Sunday, February 2, 2025, Mr. Musk tweeted, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”
38 Later, he tweeted, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper.”39
99. Mr. Musk provided no support for his claim that USAID is a criminal organization. 100. On Monday, February 3, 2025, Mr. Musk stated that he was in the process of closing the agency, with President Trump’s blessing. Mr. Musk stated: “I went over it with him [President Trump] in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down. And I actually checked with him a few times [and] said ‘are you sure?’ The answer was yes. And so we’re shutting it down.”40
Now, before DOJ gave this answer and blew off Judge Chutkan’s order to provide details of the ongoing firing spree, she seemed inclined not to grant a restraining order to stop all this.
It’s unclear whether this defiance will change that. Or, at the very least, whether it will lead to more questions about whether White House wrote any of this down.
What is clear is that the White House recognizes a real risk if Elon is held accountable for all the things Elon has done.
Given what the WH has admitted here, every USG office should bar the door and force the commissars to get the Marshals Office to serve the warrants or direct written orders from Convict-1. The days of ‘acquiescence under threat’ need to be over. Similarly resigning like the SSA head did only allows Convict-1 to place another toady in power. Make Convict-1 fire you in writing by name. It helps with the lawsuits later.
Will the courtier press report that Fisher admitted Musk has no authority to do any of this? I see as much attention as the courtier press paid to Convict-1’s 0-60 record on 2020 election fraud claims because even in 2024 most of them described 2020 as ‘disputed’, not that Biden won so STFU.
Musk for his part has threatened to open his checkbook against any GOP that challenges COnvict-1 on any topic. Ernst already caved to save her Senate seat, and I do not expect a single GOP to step out of line unless they are serving their last term.
Semi-OT (given how Musk and Convict-1 are close Putin pals) I have to wonder if the Rubio – Russia talks in Saudi Arabia will mirror the Ribbentrop-Molotov talks in 1939 that led to the division of Poland. I have no doubt the EU liberal democracies think so which is why Macron called his summit yesterday.
Spot-on correct!
“every USG office should bar the door and force the commissars to get the Marshals Office to serve the warrants or direct written orders from Convict-1 ”
Should have started there.
The fact that “threat[ening] to call federal marshals” (when done, presumably, by Elon’s DOGE boys) proved enough to Open Sesame has made me wonder since this first emerged.
What, exactly, IS the threat posed by “federal marshals” to employees acting lawfully within their agencies? Does anyone here know why the spectre of marshals made them yield?
I’ll admit that when someone mentions marshals, I think first of Raylan Givens in Justified. My crime research has expanded my perspective; I know they track down escapees all over the country and beyond. But nothing explains this apparent fear displayed by federal employees facing Musk’s entitled brats.
How is getting my SS information not a harm to me? My privacy has been invaded. If I don’t receive my SS deposit tomorrow, there will be an additional harm. I guess I don’t understand how accessing payment systems is not also a severe breach and harmful.
I know it’s just a peeve but it still bothers me that this the only federal government agency with “Department” in the name that is not a Constitutionally defined department specified by Congress.
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You are correct. Doge is a misspelling of the word “dog” in a meme. Musk likes it. Derivitive is the Dogecoin , a memecoin that Musk did not invent but the price of which he enjoys manipulating. Meme coins are not regulated so he gets away with it. You can purchase things from the Tesla catalog with Dogecoins (and from Mar Cuban’s Maverics) The name of the office is just a construction of words to make it “doge.”. The names of the Tesla models are another joke: S, 3, X, Y.
“Doge” also has 4th Reich connotations:
Doge of Venice (wikipedia)
It’s always the coverup.
Where are the appointment letters, conflict of interest statement, and financial disclosures from the new special assistant.
The white house has basically shut down the Office of intragovernmental affairs and office of administration.
Again does that require an EO?
Musk and Trump doing press conference today.
With Musk and his youth corp rummaging around in the Social Security system he’s also gaining access to everyone’s EMR, Electronic Medical Record.
Yeah….we can’t let him steal all that info and rip us all off…
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I get that mass firings/layoffs/suspensions use standard form letters, but I have a feeling that is going to come back and bite Musk in the tail. For the probationary folks, these letters contain two specific components. First, they remind the person that as a probationary employee, you are still in the hiring process and thus “the probationer has ‘the burden to demonstrate why it is in the public interest for the Government to finalize an appointment to the civil service for this particular individual’.”
So far, that’s pretty ordinary. The problem for DOGE comes in what the letter says next: “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”
The problem is that many, many of these folks who were released had employment evaluations that lauded their performance.
I don’t know the ins-and-outs of employment law, but a pattern of lying about an employee’s performance to justify mass firings says to me (obviously) that this is NOT about performance, but about something else. Beyond losing their jobs, these folks have had their reputation unjustly damaged, with glowing performance reports being cast aside by DOGE.
I’d love to see a lawyer in one of the suits discussed here (or a different suit yet to be filed) be able to demand discovery of all memos and guidance given to the DOGE teams doing the agency firings. That could get *really* interesting. Musk et al. may believe as a matter of faith that the government is filled with unqualified workers, but if they are asked to justify that to a court, they are going to be in real trouble.
They are relying on the premise that despite the enormous collective impact of these firings, no individual fired employee’s economic interest is sufficient to motivate them to pursue expensive and time-consuming litigation against the US government. But that’s the sort of dilemma that class-action lawsuits were created to address.
GIven the form letter, cut-and-paste the name, way in which the firings were implemented, I would say that DOGE has definitely hurt any potential argument that these folks don’t constitute a class of aggrieved plaintiffs. “Your honor, there’s no class of people here. These individuals all just happened to individually have poor performances, and just happened to get individual identically worded dismissal letters, that all just happened to individually get delivered at the same time. What a coincidence!”
Yeah, like that’s going to fly.
The plaintiffs need to go after Musk PERSONALLY. He has deep pockets – it is time for a large class of litigants to threaten to empty them.
Musk is NOT an Officer of the United States, and therefore should not enjoy ANY immunity for civil lawsuits against his actions that have hurt plaintiff’s pocketbooks, reputations or future employment.
A lot of the form letters didn’t even have the form filled in. They still had the [field description] in them.
When one fires for cause, especially when citing poor performance it is fair game for the targets to demand exactly what standards of conduct were violated and whether those standards were accepted prior to commencing the probationary period.
Where are the standards and exactly how were these workers deficient (examples are required here)? When were these standards implemented, before or after hiring? Ex post facto laws are prohibited by the Constitution (Article 1, Sections 9 and 10) at the federal and state level.
All of these data points would appear to this non-lawyer as strong grounds for challenges.
As I mentioned before, my wife just got illegally fired this weekend, as a probationary with 1.5 years of federal service. She had glowing reviews and even won five awards for her performance at the relatively short time as a federal employee. The managers all the way up got the message that if there is someone who should be kept, it is her, because she’s one of the best. It didn’t help.
Last Wednesday, OPM issued written advisory that only poor performers should be terminated. Shortly after that, OPM used verbal communication which contradicted the written guidance, instructing heads of HR to terminate all probationary employees regardless of their performance, and the heads of HR complied.
When the lower-level managers asked if they need to send any information about the performance of their probationary employees, they were told outright “don’t even bother”. My wife have evidence that the higher ups were told by SMEs in HR in clear language that this would be violation of the law, but they chose to ignore it because they care about saving their own ass.
I am glad that this is before Judge Chutkan. She will not put up with any of the disingenuous bullshit being peddled by the Trump administration. Good luck to Joshua Fisher when she asks him to explain how he can have actually believed the statements he has filed in her court.
Also, isn’t this an admission that DOGE’s actions are ultra vires?
“Defendants are not aware of any source of legal authority granting USDS or the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization the power to order personnel actions at any of the agencies listed above. Neither of the President’s Executive Orders regarding “DOGE” contemplate—much less furnish—such authority. “
re: “USDS or the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization”
I was wondering if this is the first time this formulation has been used. [?]
I haven’t heard/seen it before.
from the feb. 11 Krause (Treasury) declaration:
“My role at Treasury as Senior Advisor for Technology and Modernization was created to help
effectuate the mission of the President’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Under the President’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order establishing the U.S. DOGE Service
(USDS/DOGE) as a temporary organization within the Executive Office of the President that
3. seeks to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity, the President directed each
Agency Head to establish a DOGE team of at least four employees, which may include
Special Government Employees, within 30 days. In this role, I am responsible, among other
duties, for reducing and eliminating improper and fraudulent payments; waste, fraud, and
abuse; and improving the accuracy of financial reporting. To that end, I am focused on
improving the controls, processes, and systems that facilitate payments and enable
consolidated financial reporting. I serve as the DOGE team lead for the Treasury Department
(Treasury DOGE Team)”
The legal issue is can a DOGE Team formed at Treasury, for instance, work with DOGE in the white house, or work directly for Elon Musk as special advisory for the president.
Thanks, Charlie. I also found this from The Congressional Research Service
[The whole thing flew right by me at the time]:
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Executive Order: Early Implementation https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12493
Updated February 6, 2025
Somewhere along the line, I read that because it was a simple renaming of an agency, it somehow was supposed to lend legitimacy to the new agency, to Musk, and to his whelps.
Making its way like wildfire around the right wing fever swamps is this legalistic-sounding rationale for DOGE (sic) (which I’m shortening out of respect for space here): “Obama created United States Digital Service (USDS) in 2014. It was meant as a bureaucratic patch job to fix the Obamacare website meltdown.
“Fast forward to 2025. Trump rebrands it DOGE (United States DOGE Service). Keeps the acronym, keeps the funding, but gives it a whole new mission: Find the Receipts
“Legally untouchable because it was already fully funded and operational. Trump invokes 5 USC 3161, which allows him to create temporary hiring authorities. DOGE teams get embedded inside every single federal agency. “Each team consists of a lawyer, HR rep, a zoomer nerd, and an investigator. “They report to DOGE, not the agency they’re embedded in.
But wait, there’s more! …..Obama literally built the perfect Administrative (read: Deep State) IT backdoor…”
Not a lawyer so I don’t know if a word of it is sound, or if it’ll show up as argument in Judge Chutkan’s courtroom. It sure has the rubes dancing with delight, especially the last “Suck it Libs, Obama did this to ya!” part.
@dimmsdale re: “Find the Receipts”
“Finally, My Tax Dollars Are Being Used to Uncover Publicly Available Government Information”
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/finally-my-tax-dollars-are-being-used-to-uncover-publicly-available-government-information
Typical McSweeny’s snark, but also includes the links to show that this informaiton was already available from multiple sources, including right-wing watchdogs.
New, from WIRED:
USDS Engineering Director Resigns: ‘This Is Not the Mission I Came to Serve’ https://www.wired.com/story/doge-engineering-director-resign/
Makena Kelly Feb 19, 2025 6:51 PM
1] GREAT Thread re: USDS from Emily Tav:
[BIO: Policy + design + tech. Angry optimist. // Teaching + researching at Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy. Co-Curator of an oral history of the US Digital Service origin story // ex: @usds // @whitehouse @ashoka]
https://bsky.app/profile/emilytav.bsky.social/post/3liiomlaib22a
February 18, 2025 at 9:02 PM
2] THREAD from CapitolHunters:
https://bsky.app/profile/capitolhunters.bsky.social/post/3lil7lpbhv22w
February 19, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Renaming a tiny White House sub-basement IT group by adding DOGE [sic] to its name was pure theater. It was intended as a way around getting Congress to establish and fund it, to authorize it to do X but not Y. It was a way to attach the name to an organization not under OMB, to avoid disclosure requirements under FOIA. It was a way to claim DOGE was a governmental entity without really making it one.
Oh, it was far more than theater. It was a very smart bureaucratic ploy.
Yeah. Despite the overwhelming public evidence of a sucking brain drain, some very clever people have been (and remain) involved in all this. And remember, this time they had the foresight to lay a plan in Project 2025. While much of its text consists of empty reiterations of the same old close-the-border and trad-the-sexes propaganda, the parts aimed at undoing the federal bureaucracy are considerably more detailed.
We ignored it then at our peril now.
It reminds me somewhat of a local Pro Life “”party””, who took over an old barely-there-but-still-registered provincial party in order to both give tax receipts and engage in politics. Generally as a “charitable org” (interest group) or political party, they’re only supposed to be able to do one or the other. They don’t have a platform, they don’t advertise themselves as a party but a “political association”, and they don’t ever run more than a single candidate. But, because they took over a party that was already registered, they were able to bypass the application process and go straight to issuing tax credits for donations and putting up shitty billboards. It’s the best of both worlds for them.
IMO the problem for Musk, both with DOGE and just in general, is that he’s incapable of shutting the fuck up about what he’s doing. The takeover strat works best when no one is paying attention, but Elmo just wuuuuvs the spotlight.
I believe in the rule of law, but guess arguing the rule of law is an art form “game” of sorts.
The people directly impacted don’t think of it as a game.
The “game” takes time to play and if the perps do not play by the loose at best set of rules and continue the use of their “woodchopper” then I fear at some pint – even if they loose the game long term – there will be very little chance of reversing the damage.
One can hope – hope in one hand poop in the other comes to mind – that another one-two cycles of elections provides an exit ramp, but the landscape then will not be the same.
I hope – there is that word again – at some point there is a way to either increase the pace of the legal game or otherwise slow down if not stop the game as it is being played by the perps now.
Injunctions are legal tools designed to deal with issues that are time sensitive.
Regarding damage, it’s a real issue, but Europe and Japan rebuilt after WWII. Damage can be fixed although in much slower time frames than it takes to cause the harm.
The opposition to Doge is gaining momentum, but how this turns out in history is unknown.
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I think there is a good chance that what this response really means is that Elon is acting as the administration’s Wizard of Oz. His primary role is spewing exaggerated claims of government malfeasance based on the Doge Boys’ fishing expeditions by his posts on Xitter and at press conferences while projecting the image of a focused master of technology in order to give the whole enterprise a veneer of expertise.
Russ Vought would seem to be the real driving mastermind of the project.
Think of what Doge has done thus far. None of it takes great expertise. I would summarize it as follows:
1) Send out the Fork in the Road letter to intimidate government employees.
2) Install teams of about five Doge Boys into targeted departments as temporary employees.
3) Have them ascertain the point of payment control in their department. This should be easy to do because audit manuals require clear documentation. Have them scan payment logs using a basic filter to find grist for the propaganda mill. Have Doge Boy order disbursement control officer to block certain kinds of payments.
4) Have them get access to employee data base. Again, with permission of department head, this is easy. Scan for DEI markers. The only expertise this requires is basic DBM skills.
5) Give them access to department web content management systems. Once they have it, they do a quick pass to find magic DEI words and block those pages. This is very straightforward.
6) Fire all probationary employees. This takes no expertise at all.
The bulk of this enterprise has been the Project 2025 hit list. Russ Vought’s team could have put it into a 2 page memo. The tech skills and probes have largely been basic data base and web content tasks that require little sophisticated direction.
As I said, what Elon has been is the hot air avatar of the enterprise, its Wizard of Oz.
Your succinct summary matches my impression of what’s been occurring. Whether or not there’ve been any instructions conveyed to the whelps to keep an eye out for things that could be of value to Mr. Musk in his dealings as a government contractor remains a matter of suspicious speculation.
I thought of the same metaphor while watching that “press conference” last week featuring POTUS, mini-POTUS, and Trump the Desk Gnome.
But I had Trump as the Great “Don’t pay attention to that man behind the curtain!” OZ, the giant head that spews maga-flow as long as it’s being pumped full of gas; Musk as mercurial self-styled wizard, aka “fraud”; and the kid as The Kid.
Musk does talk faster. And your list supplies real substance. Thank you.
I can’t even access Fox News site without consenting to their ads. (And I never do and I never will.) Can someone show me where I consented to have my personal data shared with an unelected Nazi billionaire? Anyone? Bueller?
There seem to be quite a few contracts that Musk/Trump are just severing. Those are all going to end up as lawsuits where, almost certainly, the taxpayers are going to have to pay even more to settle the suit than the contract was worth.
But, even more than that, Mr. Musk is playing a dangerous game here. IANAL, but it seems like when things start to go south Trump will underbus him and Mr. Musk could end up being personally liable for a host of civil lawsuits.
Describe how Trump might underbus a guy with nearly unlimited resources to acquire attorneys.
Simply firing him on TV would help.
(It’s been pointed out that some of the biggest wastes of money in the government are Donnie’s travels. At $13 million per trip to Mar-al-Ego, it’s enough to pay for the unnecessary tax cuts for his bootlickers.
Uh-huh, kayfabe as the CEO president should be familiar. But we’re talking about the guy who made the same bored face Musk’s 4-year-old made at the same time in the Oval Office this past week, someone who’d have to be propped up to do it along with teleprompted.
I think it more likely something really, REALLY ugly will have to happen and then 25th Amendment puts the couchfucker in the position of chief underbusser.