A CNN anchor repeatedly pressed a Republican congressman to explain why lawmakers were not holding Elon Musk accountable for his growing influence over Donald Trump's presidency.
The tech billionaire has placed inexperienced allies in key roles throughout the government and called for the mass firings of federal employees, including the CIA's entire workforce, and CNN's Pamela Brown asked Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who currently sits on the House Oversight Committee but was pushed out last month as chair of the intelligence panel.
"There's still this big question of accountability, right?" Brown said. "I think that Americans are looking at this and wondering, 'What is going on here – we didn't put this guy in charge, right, and he has a massive amount of power as the richest man in the world with all of this conflict of interest in front of the federal government, and we don't really have insight and a clear view of what is going on, and when you take a step back, I know you say that Congress is reviewing, but there are a lot of lawsuits because there's a lot of lawyers who are out there watching this saying laws are being broken and there is a disregard for this, agencies like USAID, money appropriated by Congress just being, you know, wiped away against the law, and as you well know, the framers created this system of government to have checks and balances. Article 1 of the Constitution makes the legislative branch a co-equal branch of government to the executive branch. Is the legislative branch ceding power here to the executive branch right now?"
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Turner insisted that reporting on Musk's allies gaining access to sensitive data and possibly the authority to make changes to government computer codes were unfounded, but he seemed uninterested in conducting a congressional investigation to confirm.
"Well, you said a lot there, none of which yet has been has been determined," Turner said, and Brown asked specifically what he meant.
"There are there are laws that Congress made, at least four lawsuits have been filed alleging that laws have been broken," Brown interjected.
Turner, who missed a surprise vote on a subpoena of Musk during his CNN appearance, defended the unelected billionaire's wholesale cuts to programs and agencies that lawmakers had approved, saying they should be uncontroversial.
"Regardless of where you are on all these issues, everyone understands that one, financially, we cannot keep going in the direction that we are," Turner said. "Two, that this system is massive and enormous and is out of control. Three, we have to move quickly to make certain that we do the triage, the assessment, to be able to find ways to be able to get this system under control so that we can protect the American public and get this back on track for both our economy, to stop these deficits and to protect our country. This is going to be messy and sloppy and and not pretty, but it's not going to be illegal, and it's not going to be, and it's going to be, in the end, the process that everyone wants, and that is let's get this country back on track where we're we're living within our means and that we have a system that financially protects our economy."
Brown wouldn't let him off the hook just yet.
"I know we have to go, but can Congress move quickly enough to do the checks and balances that you were given that the power to do and hold the certain people accountable?" Brown said. "Can you move quickly, because this is happening very fast? Can you do your job, your checks and balances job, as quickly as it is moving?"
Turner assured her that Republican majorities could move quickly enough, and he suggested the media wasn't accurately covering Musk's activities.
"We need the media to help us and make certain that you use those commas and explain actually what's happening," Turner said, as Brown defended her work. "People believe that that people are running amok in a ways that they're not."
