US Secretary of State Rubio, Musk and Trump had “explosive” meeting at White House, NYT says
Pravda Ukraine
An “explosive” meeting of Donald Trump’s government took place at the White House on Thursday 6 March, where Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, engaged in a heated exchange with billionaire Elon Musk over his approach to employee cuts.
Source: The New York Times citing five sources familiar with the events, as reported by European Pravda
Details: During the meeting, Musk confronted Rubio for supposedly failing to reduce the workforce in his department.
Rubio, who had been angry with Musk for weeks, as his team had effectively closed an entire agency – the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – finally voiced his frustrations at the meeting.
Rubio believes that Musk was not being truthful because he overlooked the fact that more than 1,500 State Department officials had taken early retirement in buyouts. Rubio sarcastically asked whether Musk wanted him to rehire all those people only to then stage a firing show. He then outlined his detailed plans for reorganising the State Department.
Musk, in response, told Rubio that he was “good on TV”, implying that Rubio was capable of little else.
Throughout the exchange, Trump sat back in his chair with his arms crossed. After the dispute dragged on for a considerable amount of time, Trump finally intervened to defend Rubio, praising him for doing a “great job”.
Trump remarked that Rubio was incredibly busy, constantly travelling and appearing on television and that he had an agency to manage.
In addition to Rubio, Musk also clashed with several other government officials.
The meeting marked a potential turning point following the frenetic early weeks of Trump’s second term. It was the first clear indication that Trump was willing to place limits on Musk’s efforts, which had been the subject of several lawsuits and raised concerns among Republican lawmakers. Some had even complained about Musk directly to the president.
Government officials broadly support the concept behind Musk’s initiative to reduce waste, fraud and abuse within the government. However, they are frustrated by his approach to reforming the government, which they feel resembles a chainsaw, and by the lack of coordinated action.
The Thursday meeting, which was called abruptly on Wednesday evening, signalled that Trump had taken into account numerous complaints. He attempted to offer something to both sides, praising both Musk and the secretaries of his Cabinet. Trump made it clear that he still supported Musk’s initiative but suggested that now was the time to adopt a more refined approach.
From now on, Trump stated, it would be the secretaries who would be responsible for workforce reductions, with Musk’s team only serving in an advisory capacity.
In a social media post following the meeting, Trump stated that the next phase of his personnel reduction plan would be carried out with a “scalpel” rather than a “hatchet”, a clear reference to Musk’s more drastic approach.
Musk, who attended the meeting in a suit and tie instead of his usual T-shirt after Trump had publicly criticised his scruffy appearance, defended his position, arguing that he ran three companies with market capitalisations in the billions and that the results of their operations spoke for themselves.
Background: Earlier reports indicated that personnel cuts aimed at reducing government expenditures, initiated by the Trump administration, also affected CIA employees.
Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!