Ex-Rep. Kinzinger schools Musk defender after she blows off VA suicide hotline firings

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger butted heads with a GOP strategist after she defended DOGE head Elon Musk mass firings of federal workers regardless of how important their jobs are for American taxpayers.

Reacting to Musk firing off a post on X on Saturday telling federal workers they need to respond to an email and list five government tasks they completed last week or face being terminated, Republican strategist Kristin Davison applauded the "creative tension" the billionaire has created with civil servants.

After she noted it was about time a reduction of government workers was implemented, Kinzinger pointed out that Musk's methods are also eliminating jobs that most Americans would agree should not be touched.

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"The government is all of a sudden going to find that it has an age problem and then when people's Social Security checks or, as a veteran, they're firing people at the VA hotline, the suicide prevention hotline, which, by the way, three years ago or so, we plussed up because too many veterans were killing themselves. Now all of a sudden we're cutting that because we want to save a few dollars," Kinzinger explained.

"I'm all for it but this is the wrong way of doing it," the former Republican lawmaker added. "And Elon Musk smiling and giggling on the stage of CPAC with a chainsaw? That is going to come back in every commercial against every Republican candidate about, 'Yeah, you didn't get your Social Security check on time or, you know, veterans that have taken their own life.' This guy was laughing about it on the stage with a chainsaw."

"Well, I mean, you know, you could say we got to cut smartly," Davison interjected. "Then why haven't we done it for the last 30 years? Republicans, I mean, when you were in Congress ––."

"Do you want to do it dumbly?' Kinzinger interrupted.

"No, I think Elon Musk is a disruptor –- it's what he does, " she countered. "He's not part of government. It's to break glass and change. He's already said, we're going to––."

"But there is a legal way to do it and there's an Elon way" the ex-GOP lawmaker interrupted again. "Elon is, I mean, they've been stopped at every end by the courts by the way. And then when they haven't, they're sitting there laying off probation –– if you think laying off all the probationary employees, including people that have moved up and now are in a different spot, is a smart way to go about government, I mean, it's fine. I'm not upset about that. I'm just telling you in a year or two we're going to pay the price for that."

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