Elon Musk’s AI-bola and Marco Rubio’s Very Busy Month
Trump had a ritual humiliation session yesterday he billed as a Cabinet Meeting. One purpose of it was to perform complaisance with DOGE [sic]. Trump had Elon lie about his accomplishments and goal, and then invited Cabinet Members to speak up publicly about problems with him, which of course all declined to do.
And obviously, that can only be done with the support of everyone in this room. And I’d like to thank everyone for — for your support. Thank you very much this. This — this can only be done with — with your support.
So, this is — it’s really — DOGE is a support function for the president and for the — the agencies and departments to help achieve those savings and to effect- — effectively find 15 percent in reduction in fraud and — and waste.
And — and we bring the receipts. So, people say, like, “Well, is this real?” Just go to DOGE.gov. We l- — we — line item by line item, we specify each item. So — and w- — and I — I should say, we — also, we will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we make mistake, we’ll fix it very quickly.
So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled, very briefly, was Ebola — Ebola prevention. I think we all wanted Ebola prevention. So, we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.
But we do need to move quickly if we’re — if we’re to achieve a trillion-dollar deficit reduction in tw- — in — in financial year 2026. It requires saving $4 billion per day, every day from now through the end of September. But we can do it, and we will do it.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, do you have any questions of Elon while we’re on the subject of DOGE? Because we’ll finish off with that. And if you would have any questions, please ask — you could ask me or Elon.
Go ahead, please.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Musk. I just wanted to ask you, the — President Trump put out a Truth Social today saying that everybody in the Cabinet was — was happy with you. I just wondered if that — if you had heard otherwise, and if you had heard anything about members of the Cabinet who weren’t happy with the way things were going. And if so, what are you doing to address those — any dissatisfaction?
MR. MUSK: To the best of —
THE PRESIDENT: Hey, Elon, let the Cabinet speak just for a second. (Laughter.)
Is anybody unhappy with Elon? If you are, we’ll throw them out of here. (Laughter.) Is anybody unhappy? (Applause.)
They are — they have a lot of respect for Elon and that he’s doing this. And some disagree a little bit, but I will tell you, for the most part, I think everyone is not only happy, they’re thrilled.
The Ebola line — one Marco Rubio did not contest — got a ton of press.
But WaPo’s story — describing that Elon’s claimed restoration was a lie — got far less.
Yet current and former USAID officials said that Musk was wrong: USAID’s Ebola prevention efforts have been largely halted since Musk and his DOGE allies moved last month to gut the global-assistance agency and freeze its outgoing payments, they said. The teams and contractors that would be deployed to fight an Ebola outbreak have been dismantled, they added. While the Trump administration issued a waiver to allow USAID to respond to an Ebola outbreak in Uganda last month, partner organizations were not promptly paid for their work, and USAID’s own efforts were sharply curtailed compared to past efforts to fight Ebola outbreaks.
“There have been no efforts to ‘turn on’ anything in prevention” of Ebola and other diseases, said Nidhi Bouri, who served as a senior USAID official during the Biden administration and oversaw the agency’s response to health-care outbreaks.
Last month’s Ebola outbreak has now receded, but some former U.S. officials say that’s in part because of past investments in prevention efforts that helped position Uganda to respond — and that other countries remain far more vulnerable.
Bouri said her former USAID team of 60 people working on disease-response had been cut to about six staffers as of earlier this week. She called the recent USAID response to Uganda’s Ebola outbreak a “one-off,” far diminished from “the full suite” of activities that the agency historically would mount, such as ramping up efforts to monitor whether the disease had spread to neighboring countries.
“The full spectrum — the investments in disease surveillance, the investments in what we mobilize … moving commodities, supporting lab workers — that capacity is now a tenth of what it was,” Bouri said.
[snip]
“We have the programs and the people who were working on Ebola and other deadly-disease prevention capacity in other countries not able to do their jobs because their work is frozen, and many of the people have been put on administrative leave,” said Cameron, who worked on biosecurity efforts in the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. “And we have a response that is, at best, less efficient, because the implementers are not able to get reliably paid.” [my emphasis]
This is consistent with what people have been claiming in court declarations (in this case from a Controller stationed overseas) for weeks: even where State/USAID claims to have sustained a program, it was nevertheless gutted through non-payment and staffing cuts.
8. Every single payment that I tried unsuccessfully to process after January 27 was for an expense incurred before January 20. Most of the payments I have been trying to process were for expenses incurred in November or December of 2024. These included large payments to partners who bill us every month for the work performed in the previous month, as well as smaller administrative items like cell phone and other utility payments, travel reimbursements, and rental payments.
9. On February 3, the situation changed yet again. As of that date, every time I tried to hit the “certify” button to begin a disbursement, I received an error message stating that I did not have authority to proceed. I contacted Phoenix Security to inquire if there was a technical problem in the system and was told “on Friday January 31, we were instructed to remove the ability to certify payments.” They did not indicate who instructed them, only stating “Unfortunately I am unable to reverse this decision.”
10. On February 5, all USAID controllers received another diplomatic cableindicating that USAID personnel could no longer process payments themselves but must request approval from a Senior Bureau Officer before forwarding the payment packages for processing. However, as of February 11, nobody can agree on who is the appropriate SBO for USAID payments and the State Department hasn’t processed a single payment based on the new procedure.
11. As of February 9, when I try to log into Phoenix, I receive a new error message stating that my sign-in attempt has failed. I have even less access to Phoenix after the February 7 court order than I did before that date.
[snip]
13. I have not been able to process payments under any of the waivers included in the January 24 cable, including legitimate expenses incurred prior to January 24 under existing awards or those for employee operating expenses. Though the waivers exist on paper, in reality all USAID funds have remained frozen because of technological barriers added to the system, I don’t know by whom. Phoenix will not let us disburse anything.
The people who pay the bills have all been forced out of payment systems. And it’s not clear whether DOGE [sic] broke the system or simply disabled it (a Matt Bai report I find suspect, but which plaintiffs have now cited in court filings, says it’s the latter).
The first of these USAID cases — on Judge Amir Ali’s order to halt freezes of such funding — landed before SCOTUS last night; the government’s request to vacate Ali’s order presents a wildly misleading description of the posture of the case.
It also wails mightily about plaintiffs’ request to conduct discovery, including by deposing Marco Rubio.
Worse, this order exposes the government to the risk of contempt proceedings and other sanctions. Agency leadership has determined that the ordered payments “cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the” district court. App., infra, 97a. That risk is especially concerning because the district court appears poised to require mini-trials, discovery, and depositions of senior officials as to whether a host of foreign-aid decisions genuinely rested on the government’s conceded discretionary authority to terminate contracts and grants, or were instead supposed pretexts for a blanket foreign-aid cut that the district court considers unlawful. See id. at 141a (respondents’ proposed discovery plan) (requesting deposition of Secretary of State) Respondents are pressing even further, demanding discovery into personnel actions, payment-processing protocols, and other agency actions that have nothing to do with their original APA claims challenging a categorical funding pause. The threat of invasive discovery into senior officials’ subjective motivations only exacerbates the Article II harms inflicted by the court’s order.
Or perhaps it wails mightily about being called on a claim made below: That Marco Rubio has been personally involved in all this.
After Judge Ali first issued a TRO, State offered a new claimed basis for the freeze: that State was in the process of canceling the contracts via clauses within the contracts, applied individually. It claimed that the reduced staff of State reviewed every contract and decided whether to keep or eliminate it.
And according to multiple declarations from Pete Marocco, Marco Rubio was personally involved in all of that.
5. USAID led a rigorous multi-level review process that began with spreadsheets including each contract, grant, or funding instrument where each line of the spreadsheeting reflected one such agreement and included information about the recipient, the amount of the award, the subject matter, and a description of the project that often included the location of the project. Policy staff first performed a first line review to determine whether the individual agreement was in line with foreign policy priorities (and therefore could potentially be continued) or not (and presumptively could be terminated as inconsistent with Agency priorities and the national interest). Those recommendations were reviewed by a senior policy official to confirm that, for awards recommended for termination, that ending the program was consistent with the foreign policy of the United States and the operations and priorities of the Agency. The results of that review were routed to me for further review, including of institutional and diplomatic equities. As one example, a presumptively terminated agreement might be continued for a variety of foreign policy reasons, such as the location of the project or the general subject matter, or the judgment and foreign policy perspectives of the second line reviewer. Termination recommendations approved by me ultimately received the Secretary of State’s review. The Secretary of State’s personal involvement confirmed that termination decisions were taken with full visibility into the unique diplomatic, national security, and foreign policy interests at stake vis-à-vis foreign assistance programs. [my emphasis]
Just in time to rush this to the Supreme Court, Marocco claimed that Rubio had finished his decision-making.
Since last night when I executed a declaration, the process for individually reviewing each outstanding State Department grant and federal assistance award obligation has concluded. Secretary Rubio has now made a final decision with respect to each such award, affirmatively electing to either retain the award or terminate as inconsistent with the national interests and foreign policy of the United States. State is processing termination letters with the goal to reach substantial completion within the next 24-48 hours. Notification letters will be distributed for retained awards withing 2 weeks to take account of the overseas lag. In total, approximately 4,100 awards were terminated, and approximately 2,700 awards were retained. Of approximately 711 contracts originally paused, approximately 297 still need to be reviewed; the remainder have either been terminated or resumed. Defendants are committed to fully moving forward with the remaining awards and programs that Secretary Rubio has determined to retain.
A Contracting Officer submitted a declaration yesterday explaining how “implausible” the claim of personal involvement from Rubio is.
36. As a CO who manages a portfolio of less than 50 awards, the claims of “individual reviews” by Secretary Rubio are completely implausible. Contracts and awards are lengthy, technical, and complicated documents. They often include technical specifications that are dozens of pages long, as well as lengthy technical appendices. It would take a single person weeks and weeks of work to substantively review hundreds of contracts and awards, especially if that person was not already familiar with the programs at issue. For example, when the Agency asked COs to review the Scopes of Work and Program Descriptions contained in our awards to determine whether provisions regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion were incorporated, it took me and my team a week to review fewer than 50 awards. Not only did we have a team of people doing this work, but these were awards which I manage and have significant foundational knowledge about.
37. Beyond that, without consulting the COs and CORs/OARs who manage a specific contract or award, it would be impossible in most cases to understand whether a specific award could be terminated, effective immediately, without incurring even greater termination costs or causing even greater harms to the national interest or Agency priorities. For example, the COs and CORs/OARs have specific information about the status of ongoing work, whether immediate termination would incur sunk costs (for example, by allowing already-purchased food and medicine to expire), whether immediate termination would risk the health or safety of Agency personnel or implementing partners, among many other award-specific factors.
Rubio’s recent schedule makes that all the more implausible. For six days after the original stay, Rubio was traveling.
Secretary Rubio is on travel to Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates from February 13-19, 2025.
He had nothing but briefings on his schedule on February 20. But then he had two high level meetings on February 21. More high level meetings, including with President Macron, on Monday. A meeting with the Saudi Defense Minister Tuesday. And the aforementioned Cabinet Meeting yesterday, where Rubio didn’t speak up to correct Elon’s false claim about Ebola. Rubio did, however, blow off EU foreign policy minister Kaja Kallas yesterday, avoiding a discussion about Ukraine. Today, Keir Starmer visits.
Even with the canceled Kallas meeting, though, Rubio simply had no time — especially not blocks of time that fell into the periods when Pete Marocco claims these decisions were made — to review the contracts in depth.
State needs to claim Rubio had personal involvement in rescinding these contracts. But it is virtually impossible that he did, much less that he had meaningful input on it.
What is far more likely is that Elon’s AI reviewed these contracts, and State is claiming that the work of that AI is instead the considered conclusion of the Senate-confirmed Secretary of State.
No wonder DOJ panicked when plaintiffs said they wanted to depose the people who made the decisions (a request Judge Ali has not endorsed).
Someone just shut down the bulk of foreign aid, purportedly with the personal involvement of the Secretary of the State. But that very same Secretary of State sat silent when Elon Musk falsely claimed that State was still funding Ebola prevention.
The $55 billion question is how will SCOTUS handle the USAID case now before it?
Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope that the High Court, currently constituted with at least two corrupt Fed Soc ghouls and also Associate Justice I-like-beer-and-I-drink-beer, won’t do anything but let what is a significant Project 25 strategy to gut the Federal Government administrative workforce proceed unabated.
“State needs to claim Rubio had personal involvement in rescinding these contracts. But it is virtually impossible that he did, much less that he had meaningful input on it.”
Well, the State Secrets Doctrine case was based on false submissions to the courts,
so there’s no reason why a DOGE Uber Alles Doctrine can’t be as well.
Most of the DOGE reporting is false. Reports of billions and trillions of dollars unaccounted for and untraced are ludicrous.
Speaking for the Department of Education, I accounted for federal and state grants for a major school district for twenty years. Whether the money came directly from DC or came from DC through Tallahassee, reporting was extremely detailed and linked to very specific grant ID numbers and award years. Requests for cash on fed direct project and Pell grants with USDOE are submitted through the G5 system and reference very specific award ID’s. Other departments and agencies use the more antiquated federal Payment Management System (PMS), but also must identify a specific award number.
Reporting on federal expenditures was done annually, audited according to OMB guidance, and published on the district’s website. Every dollar of federal money was broken down by federal department (USDOE, DHS, Agriculture, DOJ, etc). Every dollar had to be identified to the original funding source code using the Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number for that grant or contract. This, too, was audited on the Schedule A. (I can attest that auditors get extremely anal over the formatting of the SEFA and using the correct CFDA numbers.)
I have zero confidence in the claims of lost and untraceable amounts as large as we’ve been told. The level of accountability is simply too great.
The level of audit you described should be the least level of scrutiny that DOGE and that band of misfits – including Trump – need to abide by.
I realize this level of detail that you provide does not make for attention getting headlines, but perhaps all the more reason to craft it into something that would be of interest to the masses.
I have my doubts that any level of pushback will change what Musk, Trump ,etc lie about, but that should NOT be the focus. It will take time to sink in, but repetition is important.
Somewhat unrelated, I think the time frame is within 90 days when the Red Staters and MAGA really realize they have been screwed over.
Thank you for this. This is very destabilizing and incredibly sad. So basically, Elon’s AI, flawed as it appears to be, is effectively running parts of our government.
I listened to his word salad at the Cabinet meeting during which said they (AI?) would assess how well our dedicated civil service workers were performing. He had no idea what he was talking about.
Speaking of which, I am trying to create an on-line account at the SSA for security reasons. I’ve been locked out and the suggestion was to call the SSA. Auto message said wait time approx 40 minutes.
The automated response also mentioned that due to a reduction in force SS Disability Applications would take 200 -230 days to process. When our kids were small I worked at the State SS Disability bureau (9 years). Turn around was 60 – 90 days, if that.
We are witnessing the enshitification of the US.Gov
Best results with SSA are to call the nearest local office, if there is one. (I had trouble, and the local guy was very helpful.)
Thanks a lot. It was easier talking w the local branch. They are snail mailing me stuff to help sort this all out. Much appreciated.
The only appropriate response from SCOTUS was to tell the Executive branch to comply with the damn Court order already. Once again, John Roberts puts his thumb on the scale for the Orange one and removes another brick from the wall separating us from tyranny.
Thank you. He’s a coward and a weasel. Never forget he has always tried to prevent people from voting. Of all the justices, I have the most disdain for him.
He is calling his balls and strikes through his very partisan lenses. And now his eyes seem to be failing, so he is going by instinct.
This is being done across the government.
DOGE is trying to tie a budget code to a specific statutory authorization, if they can’t find it in the AI database it is cut.
And of course, most programs aren’t really listed like that in actual budget documents — which is why they can claim to cut 90% of them.
It’s the new form of impoundment, being done by an extra-constitutional organization.
He’s moving toward declaring the emergency he needs to finish his autogolpe, by triggering protests in response to the layoffs or to his refusal to abide by an unfavorable SCOTUS decision or to his staggeringly incompetent and corrupt gang of thugs he calls his government.
Even if the privately “concerned” GOPers decide to impeach/convict he won’t leave.
That will be difficult to push past unless enough MAGAistas have their faces eaten, which is also happening.
The whole meeting reminds me of the Wannsee Conference.
The ironic thing is, like I posted above, when the Red Staters and MAGAs realize they have been screwed over by Musk-Trump will it be them that precipitate the “emergency”?
It seems Erik Prince with his mercenary army is willing to offer his services to Mr. Trump.
According to Politico, for the great deal of about $25 billion, his group will deputize 10,000 citizens to round up and deport “illegal” immigrants. Then fly them away on a fleet of planes.
A private brown shirt army, paid for by our taxes.
My thoughts exactly.
It is time to start talking about an action that will result in mass arrests nationwide.
Sigh.
I’d settle for arrests of musk & tra/ump, cabinet heads & International Criminal Court referrals.
Elon’s new, self-driving ship of state is colliding with every iceberg, reef, rock, and other ship of state as it makes its way to the distant shores of techbro nirvana. Tesla-proven experience. AI may be fun new technology, but it sure ain’t good enough for government work.
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AI is a model highly dependent upon its input and its structure. As charlie noted above the snot-nosed kids had no clue how to determine what programs were necessary, instead making a gross assumption about what evidence shows a program is important. Ass U Me. Then they never validated their assumptions.
The problem became apparent when Elno published his list of savings and it was instantly torn apart by the intuitively obvious to a casual observer errors that riddled the report. No wonder they want secrecy.
The Cabinet meeting also highlighted just how far the MAGA wing rules party decisions in Congress and the Cabinet. No elected politico wants to be primaried where MAGA hates them, and several examples exist even in the last budget brawl vote where the ‘concerned’ ones were dragged into line. If they continue voting for MAGA, we should call them what they are. Rubio should be looking for his bus soon.
And as far as I know there is still NO basis for DOGE to have any pull in any decision.
Leave the tough questions to BBBBBBB aka Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Body’s Boyfriend.
BRIAN GLENN: Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome, President Macron.
I just want to touch upon, real quickly, the Harvard poll that came out that had – thank you very much – the Harvard poll that came out …
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yes.
BRIAN GLENN:: … had you up nine-plus points. And all of your agenda that you ran on, you’re accomplishing that. You’ve got the support of the American people, including stopping the war in Ukraine. If you can comment on the latest Harvard poll, I’d appreciate that.
Saying that Marco Rubio approved every decision is certainly scapegoating, using Rubio as a cutout for the work of others with more political clout and/or who want less visibility and accountability.
It’s also nonsense, in the manner of the health insurer’s nonsense, when it says it denied your claim – after thorough review. The “review” by qualified staff took about 1.2 seconds, which means the rubber stamp barely hit the page before the next file hit the desk for it’s thorough review. It’s fraud. As Marcy has laid out at length, Rubio could not possibly do all this, but he’s the one Trump-Musk have staked out like a goat.
So will rubio’s term be shorter or longer than scaramucci? I believe he’ll be sacrificed quickly.
Every barn needs a lightning rod. If Rubio is sacrificed to the T. Rex, they’ll have to find another goat.
That ritual self humiliation is the coin of the realm is certainly a wonder of the age but expecting anything other than Bambi from Secretary of State Bambi is a fools errand.
Measles cases averaging 50 per month this year vs. 25 per month last year, per CDC data.
Shh, don’t tell RFK.
The FDA was supposed to meet with pharma to decide which flu strains go into next fall’s vaccines. That meeting got cancelled, no reason available.
Pharma needs 6 months to get the vaccines made.