Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa appeared on Fox News Tuesday to whitewash billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal government.
Ernst, whose bona fides include voting to confirm an alleged rapist as defense secretary and blaming students for predatory debt practices, was asked whether Democratic congressional leaders calling Musk’s seizure of government agencies was “overreach.”
“It is going to be a very aggressive movement on the part of Republicans, President Trump, and Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, so the Democrats need to get used to this,” Ernst said. “We are going to find ways to focus our American taxpayer dollars on the things that they should be spent on, which is the American people and our interests.”
Vice President JD Vance joined the propaganda party on Tuesday, retweeting Musk’s claims that he’s on the road to cutting “$700 billion per year” in government waste.
“When Elon and the team started I was very supportive but thought the waste and fraud would top out at $250 billion,” Vance wrote. “The real number will end up much higher.”
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The propaganda was being pushed in a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday as well. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa bent herself into a pretzel defending Musk.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois asked Reynolds to give her take on Musk’s threats to shut down funding for Lutheran groups that provide community support.
“Governor, you don't believe that the Lutheran church or Lutheran Family Services is a money-laundering operation, correct?” Krishnamoorthi asked.
After a tense exchange, Reynolds cowardly responded that she “can’t speak to that.”
It has taken Musk just two weeks to violate the rights of millions of Americans while getting access to millions of Americans’ private data. Meanwhile, Musk was just given a “special government employee” designation by Trump that could allow him to keep his finances private.
And at his current clip, it’s possible Musk will have destroyed much of our country's administrative capacities at the end of Trump’s four years in office.
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