The author of a new book on Project 2025 suggested tech billionaire Elon Musk got played by the authors of the right-wing blueprint guiding Donald Trump's second presidency.
Musk has made sweeping cuts to the federal government from his perch as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, but The Atlantic's David A. Graham told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that White House budget chief Russell Vought and other authors of Project 2025 were happy to let him take the blame for the deeply unpopular cuts they had recommended themselves.
"You look at the layoffs of federal workers, you see attempts to close the Education Department, it's just point-by-point right from here, and I think the thing that gets missed is people talk about the policies, but it's so much, you know, a scheme for how to rework the entire shape of government, and that's something that I think maybe didn't come through during the campaign," Graham said.
Musk's cuts have proven to be unpopular so far, and host Joe Scarborough asked whether that had caught the administration off guard.
"Washington always wins in the end because we've all seen every administration, we're going to come in, we're going to change everything – the people before us were idiots, we're smarter than everybody else," Scarborough said, "and, like, you go see them a year later, go how you doing? Was the Bush administration really as dumb as you thought they were? Were the Obamas really as dumb as you thought they were? You know, like, are they do you think they're surprised at the pushback that they've gotten from all angles?"
Graham said the pushback did seem to catch the Trump administration off guard, and he said Vought and the other authors were happy to let Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency shoulder the blame.
"I don't know the exact numbers, so I think he is surprised," Graham said, "because he clearly doesn't understand how Washington works, and, you know, Vought is happy to use him as a vessel, get that as far as he can, and then he'll move on to the next thing."
"And cost him $100 billion, $150 billion in the process," Scarborough said, laughing.
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