Sabrina Tavernisi

Now, President-elect Trump is empowering them to drastically shrink it by whatever means necessary.

Now, President-elect Trump is empowering them to drastically shrink it by whatever means necessary.

Today, my colleague David Fahrenthold examines their plans and what it would look like if they actually carried them out. It's Wednesday, December 4th. So, David, you've been doing some reporting on plans by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to cut government to the tune of $2 trillion. You're trying to understand exactly what this effort is and how it would work. Tell me what you're finding.

Today, my colleague David Fahrenthold examines their plans and what it would look like if they actually carried them out. It's Wednesday, December 4th. So, David, you've been doing some reporting on plans by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to cut government to the tune of $2 trillion. You're trying to understand exactly what this effort is and how it would work. Tell me what you're finding.

And a cryptocurrency, apparently.

And a cryptocurrency, apparently.

So basically, very, very big promises. But, you know, to be kind of real about this, I think anyone who stood in line that DMV could get behind the idea that a more efficient government, as they say that they want to make, makes sense. I mean, you know, efficiency is a hard concept to argue with, right?

So basically, very, very big promises. But, you know, to be kind of real about this, I think anyone who stood in line that DMV could get behind the idea that a more efficient government, as they say that they want to make, makes sense. I mean, you know, efficiency is a hard concept to argue with, right?

Right. Like, how do these two people take the private sector idea of efficiency of this process engineering and map it on to the federal government? There are, of course, risks to this, right? I mean, if you make a mistake at Twitter and it goes offline for a day, not really that big of a deal. But if you do it with air traffic controllers, planes could collide. So what's the plan here?

Right. Like, how do these two people take the private sector idea of efficiency of this process engineering and map it on to the federal government? There are, of course, risks to this, right? I mean, if you make a mistake at Twitter and it goes offline for a day, not really that big of a deal. But if you do it with air traffic controllers, planes could collide. So what's the plan here?

Which is kind of a little rich. I mean, power back to the people. It's basically to them, right? So power back to the business people.

Which is kind of a little rich. I mean, power back to the people. It's basically to them, right? So power back to the business people.

Right. OK, so what are they actually saying? What are they going to do?

Right. OK, so what are they actually saying? What are they going to do?

So the power of the federal government is kind of present there because the court defers to what the federal agency says the rule is. But SCOTUS changed that in the past few terms.

So the power of the federal government is kind of present there because the court defers to what the federal agency says the rule is. But SCOTUS changed that in the past few terms.

So basically their argument is that they have this magic wand that they can just wave and stop enforcing federal regulations. What else do they say they're going to do?

So basically their argument is that they have this magic wand that they can just wave and stop enforcing federal regulations. What else do they say they're going to do?

Got it.

Got it.