(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republicans defended the Trump administration’s sweeping revamp of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) led by Elon Musk. But some lawmakers downplayed the billionaire’s power over the president.
“In terms of any decisions made, those are made by the president or the secretary,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told ABC News on Tuesday. “If Musk wants to make recommendations, wants to go and say, you know, ‘We ought to cancel this, we ought to cancel that,’ that’s fine.”
Hawley dismissed Musk’s framing that he has more authority, calling it “a form of self-promotion” and saying the efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are more of an audit.
Other lawmakers defended the administration’s decision to gut a congressionally appropriated agency. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said it was a long time coming.
“This idea that people are concerned in these agencies, there’s a lot of great people that work there, but we’ve gone astray, I think a lot of this spending across the world, the American people are tired of it,” he said.
Elon Musk called the USAID “hopeless,” and said he was “in the process” of “shutting [it] down” — which he said President Donald Trump supports.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk wrote on X.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told ABC News’ Rachel Scott on Tuesday, “My message to my Democratic friends and to the tofu-eating ‘wokerati’ at USAID is, ‘I hear your question, but you need to call somebody who cares.”
A week ago, there were lingering questions on Capitol Hill about whether a handful of Republicans would tank the president’s most controversial nominees or if any Republicans would raise concerns about the sweeping changes across federal agencies, but these questions have since quieted.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he doesn’t have any concerns about Musk’s role in the federal government, saying that Musk reminds him of a “strategist.”
“He is throwing out big ideas. And if anybody thinks that all of these big ideas are going to be implemented to conclusion, they don’t understand the process of disruption,” Tillis said. “Everybody is acting like Congress doesn’t exist anymore. Many of the things he’s thinking about will require Congressional approval to actually structurally change them.”
But when asked why the changes wouldn’t then go through Congress, Tillis called that the “old way of doing things.”
“We’ve got oversight. If it goes too far, I’ll be the first person to step up — he went too far.”
Democrats pounced, continuing to sound the alarm and arguing that it’s only a matter of time until congressional Republicans and Musk are at loggerheads.
“There’s going to be a contest here of who’s really in charge,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said. “Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, the idea that you can go back to last year’s appropriations and just shut it down cold, without any recourse, is wrong.”
“Elon Musk’s role is not only unprecedented, it is unconscionable for him to be exercising the kind of influence and power that he is with his conflicts of interest and his financial benefits flowing to him from the kind of destructive impact,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. “It’s not disruptive, it is destructive.”
In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Monday evening, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, called DOGE’s actions “flatly illegal” and raised questions about whether the U.S. truly believes in the rule of law.
“I’ve got agencies I don’t like … agencies that I think are spending too much money or too little money. Do you know what I do about that? I introduce a bill to change that because I believe in the American system of government,” Schatz said.
While speaking on the floor, Schatz got passionate, raising his voice and pounding his fist on the lectern as he expressed frustration about the situation unfolding. He also suggested that the move to unilaterally act without notifying Congress, in violation of congressional appropriation, was unAmerican.
Schatz questioned why assessments of efficacy could not be made while aid work continues.
“People are dying now,” he emphasized, arguing that changes could be made “while you keep the agency open.”
“What they did is they stormed into the offices of a federal building, sent everybody home, broke into the secure conference facilities, broke into the SCIFs, locked people out of their emails. Does that sound like the United States of America?” Schatz added, painting a picture of what occurred at the USAID offices over the weekend. “It really honestly does not sound like the United States of America to me. These people were not elected.”
Schatz’s speech came after the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, blocked an effort by Coons that asserted the belief that USAID is “essential for advancing the national security interests of the United States.”
“I’m supportive of the Trump administration’s efforts to reform and restructure the agency in a way that better serves United States national security interests,” Risch said.
In a fiery press conference Monday, Senate Democrats said they were “pulling the fire alarm” to warn about the dangers posed by DOGE and Elon Musk’s access to the Treasury’s payments system.
“Before our very eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government,” Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.
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