Reply All: Trump Administration Faces Pushback
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What pushback is the Trump administration facing?
Okay. I know Joy just ended her show by thanking her team, which is the most authentically Joy thing to do, I can tell you. And they are also a very incredible team. But I want to start this show tonight by thanking her. I want to thank her because she's done amazing work here. She does tell stories no one tells. She does that fearlessly on her show. but also for the person that she is. And even before I met Joy Reid, and I didn't meet her until I started working her, I felt like I kind of knew her. I don't know if you relate to this. I felt like she was kind of talking directly to me through the screen. I know many of you watching at home know exactly what I mean. And then when I got here, she became my office neighbor, literally two doors down.
And she is the best office neighbor I could have asked for. I mean, she's somebody whose mind and her talent and her fierceness I admire so much. But she's also someone who I kind of just love running into in the hallway or chatting with on the set during specials, as my colleagues were just talking about, about anything, what's happening in the world, what's going on in her life. And I'm going to miss all of that. And so thank you to Joy Reid. I just wanted to start there. In the meantime, I watched her show, as many of you probably did. And I want to start. I also want to do what I know she wants us to do, which is to start fearlessly in talking about what's in the news and not holding back. And that's what we always intend to do here, too, just like she does.
I do want to start tonight with the fast approaching deadline for federal workers to respond to what was a pretty wild Saturday email from unelected billionaire Elon Musk. I mean, according to Musk, who I will also note has literally absolutely zero authority to enforce this, all federal workers had until midnight tonight to reply to an email listing five things they accomplished last week. Now, he said if they don't respond, they lose their jobs. Again, that's all according to an unelected billionaire who thought bringing a chainsaw on stage of CPAC last week was the right choice. That's what he with sunglasses on. But then today, Musk's bizarre email threat was backed up by none other than Donald Trump, who, of course, offered up this super clear, super helpful guidance.
Quote, if you don't answer, you're sort of semi-fired. or you're fired, semi-fired or fired. I'm sure that alleviated all of the confusion being felt by millions of federal employees that was brewing for the last couple of days. Now, today, the Office of Personnel Management came out and said that responding to this email is voluntary and workers will not lose their jobs if they don't respond. But remember, all weekend, millions of federal workers were faced with this kind of bizarre choice. I mean, do they respond and risk must doing who knows what with the information, perhaps sending it through an AI system is one of the things that's been reported? Or do they not respond and risk losing their jobs?
How is Elon Musk's email threatening federal workers?
Now, here's where it gets kind of a little interesting, because even before OPM issued their guidance that responding was voluntary, as I just said, some what I would consider unlikely characters actually pushed back. So the director of national intelligence and definitely a Trump devotee, Tulsi Gabbard, ordered all intelligence community officers not to respond. The Department of Defense, led by Trump's buddy Pete Hegseth, yes, that guy, told employees to ignore the email. An FBI director, QAnon supporter, and maybe the most dedicated Trump loyalist of the whole posse, Kash Patel, told employees at the FBI not to respond also. Now remember, this is a guy, Kash Patel, who literally wrote a children's book series portraying Trump as a king.
But this time, he's telling the people at the agency he now leads not to follow the order. And Elon Musk doesn't appear to be taking this too well. It seems to be a little bit under that guy's skin. I mean, he tweeted in the last hour that the email request was utterly trivial. Then he tweeted that it was subject to the discretion of the president. Workers will be given another chance.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What pushback is the Trump administration facing?
0:00–2:55
2
How is Elon Musk's email threatening federal workers?
2:55–9:11
3
What are the implications of Trump's military purges?
9:11–12:12
4
How do world leaders respond to Trump's policies?
12:12–22:32
5
What concerns arise with Dan Bongino as deputy FBI director?
22:32
6
How does disinformation affect the perception of the Ukraine war?
19:26–32:03
7
What are the potential consequences of loyalty over competence in the FBI?
32:03–33:35
8
How can legal guardrails limit power abuse in the FBI?
33:35–41:31
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Briefing with Jen Psaki
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Alarming new disclosures highlight dangers of A.I. as Trump turns his back on regulation