Trump says Musk to uncover billions in ‘fraud and abuse’ at US Pentagon
In an interview with Fox News, which was aired on Sunday morning, Trump said, “We’re going to find billions, hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and abuse.”
“And, you know, the people elected me on that”.
The Pentagon’s budget is approaching $1 trillion per year. Joe Biden, the president at the time, authorized $ 895 billion in defense spending for the fiscal year that ended on September 30th.
To accomplish the mandate, the White House appointed right-wing billionaire and SpaceX and Tesla boss Musk to lead the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Leaders from all political parties have long criticized the Pentagon’s waste and inefficiency, but opponents claim that these efforts run the risk of exposing classified information and gutting entire institutions without the approval of the government.
Musk’s companies also hold major contracts with the Pentagon, which has raised significant conflict-of-interest concerns. DOGE is prohibited from accessing Treasury Department payment systems that contain sensitive data from Americans, according to a US judge’s emergency order on Saturday.
Despite the concerns, Trump seemed to double down on the idea, saying he was going to ask Musk “very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education. … Then I’m going to go, go to the military”.
In a separate interview on Sunday, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz suggested that the Pentagon’s shipbuilding processes might be of particular interest.
We do need business leaders to enter the acquisition process and completely reform the Pentagon’s acquisition process, Waltz said in an interview with NBC News. “Everything seems to cost too much, take too long, and deliver too little to the soldiers,” Waltz said.
Trump has issued numerous executive orders in his three weeks in office, including one that stops funding US Agency for International Development (USAID), but no evidence of widespread fraud has been presented.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was effectively shut down by the Trump administration after the 2008 financial crisis and the subprime mortgage-lending scandal, which was effective on Saturday.
Democrats have slammed Trump’s efforts. Senator Chris Murphy blasted Trump for allegedly violating the Constitution and called for a “billionaire takeover of government” on Sunday.
Source: Aljazeera
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