DeSantis heaps praise on Musk for piercing federal agencies' ‘aura of invincibility’

While a new poll indicates a growing percentage of Republicans aren’t pleased by all of Elon Musk’s moves to take down certain federal agencies through his “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), Ron DeSantis is not one of them.

The Florida governor said Thursday that he thinks it’s “great” what the tech billionaire has accomplished with his DOGE team since they began looking at reducing government spending over the past three weeks. Despite its name, the operation is not a federal department and runs outside of normal government channels.

Speaking during the opening day Governor’s Day Luncheon at the Florida State Fair in Tampa, DeSantis specifically praised Musk for exposing what he described as spending excesses at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which was established by Democratic President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to coordinate U.S. foreign aid.

“They’ll talk a big game about what they are accomplishing but, really, I mean, it’s almost like a corrupt scheme to political supporters and trying to promote an ideological agenda,” DeSantis said. “They’re doing a good job of exposing really, really deep corruption into how the federal administrative apparatus actually operates.”

Musk’s focus on USAID has exposed some examples of government spending he has characterized as dubious, but its supporters say the agency has also provided financial aid to countries around the world for decades to combat human trafficking and diseases, and has funded equipment, medicine, and staffing in countries battling pandemics and disease outbreaks.

News subscriptions

“They’re even funneling it to favorable media outlets to be able to presumably get good coverage,” DeSantis added, a reference to published reports cited by Trump that the agency had paid more than $8 million to Politico.

But that’s not accurate, according to The Dispatch. They report that only two payments were made by USAID to the publication in the past year, and that was for subscriptions to E&E, an environmental report published by Politico. The report also says that various other government agencies have purchased subscriptions to Politico publications going back to 2016.

DeSantis went on to blast Congress for amassing trillions in debt, adding that it’s been Republicans who have been in control of the House of Representatives longer than Democrats have over the past 15 years. He said that while it “great to be able to see a lot of the corruption be rooted out,” it is ultimately up to lawmakers in D.C. to do a better job of protecting taxpayer dollars and “defunding corrupt agencies in the first place.”

“DOGE is kind of the first real significant intrusion into the bureaucrat’s aura of invincibility that somehow they can’t be touched, and you’re seeing the apple cart be upended, and so that’s a great sign,” he said.

Wary of Musk

Meanwhile, the percentage of Republicans who want Musk to have “a lot” of influence in the Trump administration has fallen to 26%, according to a The Economist/YouGov poll released this week, down from 47% in a poll taken in November.

The survey also shows that 43% of GOP respondents want Musk to have “a little” influence, while 17% want him to have “none at all.”

Overall, only 13% of surveyed Americans want Musk to have “a lot” of influence on the Trump administration, while 25% say want “a little” and 46% want “none at all.”

That’s substantially down from November, when 34% of surveyed Americans wanted Musk to have “a lot” of influence, 22% wanted him to have “a little,” and 30% said, “None at all.”