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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. Now, let's look at the new Trump administration's effort to remake the federal bureaucracy through Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE with sweeping actions that are shaking up Washington and the people who rely on the agencies now in disarray through freezings, firings, and takeovers. The legality of all of which is a little TBD.

Where do his comments on taking over Gaza fit in? Andrew Prokop joins us now. He's a senior politics correspondent at Vox where he covers the White House elections and political scandals and investigations. His latest article on this has the headline, What Trump and Musk are Doing Could Change the American System Forever. Andrew, welcome back to the show.

Andrew Prokop: Thanks so much for having me back.

Brigid Bergin: It's tough to know where to start. As we look at the bigger picture of what the President and Elon Musk are doing to reshape a government they see as determined to thwart them either through inefficiency or liberal bias, do the President's remarks on moving the Palestinians from Gaza and the US taking it over fit into that effort?

Andrew Prokop: Well, I think it's just the latest example of Trump feeling completely unchained. I don't really view this as similar to the efforts to take on the deep state or transform the American system. This falls into a genre of Trump saying something and then the system eventually deciding whether or not it will actually mean anything. Is this an idea he's throwing out? It seemed to come as a surprise to a great many people. How serious is it? Logistically, is this something that he's actually going to try to make happen or is he more just tossing off thoughts? I'm just reserving judgment on what happens there. Not prepared to jump to conclusions yet about what will actually take place.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. I'm sure you're dealing with a lot of that because each day, there seems to be another decision, another announcement that we need to take a pause and understand. Your article divides things between what's happening to the wider federal workforce and what's happening at the FBI and Department of Justice. Why should we look at those separately? One is about eliminating the so-called deep state and cutting spending and the other about loyalty and retribution.

Andrew Prokop: Yes, the common thread is that both of these are about centralizing more power in the presidency itself among Donald Trump and among the people he has chosen to delegate power to, including Elon Musk, away from career civil servants, away from Congress and its control of spending policy, away from, in a sense, courts if the courts are not prepared to step in and block him from doing a lot of this stuff.

It's just a kind of bold assertion of presidential power, the president's power to run the executive branch as he sees fit and crash through any long-running guardrails against the corrupt weaponization of the government. This increased level of political control we're going to see at DOJ over criminal investigations, which used to have some measure of independence from the political appointees, and then also just this incredibly, surprisingly wide-ranging effort with Elon Musk rampaging through the government, trying to dismantle agencies and push out workers and all that.

Brigid Bergin: Then would you say that foreign policy, the Greenland, Panama, now Gaza talk is also on a separate track?

Andrew Prokop: Yes, I view that separately because it is a break from Trump from the previous foreign policy establishment thinking. He's very focused on the Americas. He puts immigration and stopping unauthorized immigration from Latin America at the center of his foreign policy, but also in this American expansionism effort, which is something that we haven't really seen since the end of Manifest Destiny in a sense. He's tapped into this and we're going to have to see where it goes.

In dealing with other countries, that is a more difficult proposition in some sense than actually running the executive branch of the United States federal government as you see fit when you're the president. He's much further along, I'd say. We have more facts about what is actually taking place in just the two weeks and two days since he was sworn in in that latter mission. Foreign policy is still a question mark for me about what will actually happen.

Brigid Bergin: Sure, so let's look at what Elon Musk is doing since, I think, getting access to Treasury Department data on individuals really set off some big alarm bells. What was the reason given for that?

Andrew Prokop: Well, Musk is saying that government payment systems are just rife with fraud. He wants to go in there and find the fraud and stop it. Generally, people who have looked at this think he's widely overestimating how much fraud there is and certainly overestimating how much of an impact it would make on the federal deficit, which mostly exists because of entitlement payments, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, as well as defense spending and veterans' health benefits.

That's 80%-plus of the federal budget right there. He's nibbling around the edges with this stuff, it seems like. What it does do is give him immense power if it's actually implemented. There are conflicting reports on whether he has been given the power to actually change things within those systems or whether he's just looking at it in read-only access right now.

He seems to have ambitions to change them. That's a big deal because this is the plumbing of government is run by nonpartisan civil servants without political interference. If payments were requested, those payments were made. There wasn't someone saying, "Hey, I don't really like the person that this payment was set to go to, so maybe they should not get this payment after all." The same thing we're seeing in the Justice Department, stuff that was out of the hands of the politicals, now being put into the hands of the politicals.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we want to know what your questions are. Do you want to weigh in on these efforts to reshape the federal bureaucracy, Elon Musk's power, or do you have a question for my guest, Vox politics reporter Andrew Prokop? Call us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. If you can't get through on the phones, you can also text at that number. I want to go to Todd on the Upper West Side. Todd, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling.

Todd: Hi, Brigid. First, I want to say I've been a loyal listener for a long time. I used to work with Brian when I was at WNYC-TV. I've called him many times. I'm a great admirer of your reporting.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you.

Todd: You're very welcome. I appreciate your screener having the patience to put me on. I'm a little concerned in general with the language and accepting tone of voice that both you and, actually, the guest you have on right now have been using in describing the very dangerous series of events that have occurred since January 20th. Now, I don't have any good answers about how the media should be approaching, which is what effectively a kind of a coup d'etat going on right now.

First of all, your guest is wrong. It's been documented that it's not just read-only access. There's obviously Elon Musk and his band of merry 20-somethings going in there are determined to actually turn our payment system inside out. Otherwise, why would they be there? I guess I don't have any good answers of how people like you and Brian or Rachel Maddow, other people, or The New York Times should be covering what is an extraordinarily dangerous turn of events. I just wanted to raise the issue that we need the free press to think of a different way of covering something that is not business as usual.

Brigid Bergin: Excuse me. Todd, I want to thank you for that, both critique and comment. I want to give you, Andrew, a chance to respond to it because, as we have noted, there's a lot that has happened in a very short period of time, which also involves having to educate people about what some of these institutions actually do. A lot of people don't necessarily pay attention to the General Services Administration or the Office of Personnel Management. If you want to respond to the caller and talk about how this is informing some of your coverage, the work that you have to do.

Andrew Prokop: Sure. Todd, I would just like to say that I largely agree with you. I would recommend that you read my article, What Trump and Musk are Doing Could Change the American System Forever. I make the point that if you were to imagine, think back to a few years ago, and imagine some of the things happening that we've seen happen in the past two weeks, they would have seemed absurd. They would have seemed shocking.

We shouldn't put ourselves in the mindset that, "Oh, this is just normal and no big deal. Just ordinary stuff." No, this is really we're seeing, the shattering of the independence of the Justice Department. I see no reason to believe that Trump's appointees will be looking over their shoulders for fear of investigations or legal consequences because he has shattered the Justice Department's independence.

They know that with the combination of his January 6th pardons and his firings of people involved in prosecutions, not just of Trump himself but even of the rioters who tried to make an illegal effort to keep him in power, he has shown that he will not permit investigations and prosecutions of his people. That is a very alarming change in the American system unless there is some kind of pushback to this, inside the Justice Department to preserve their independence.

It's been disturbingly effective so far at pushing aside constraints on his power. Elon Musk also seems to be operating with a complete disregard for law, for constraints on his power in any way in the executive branch. He's just plunging ahead through doing all sorts of things that certainly legal experts and lawyers believe that are not legal for the President to do. Whether that's firing civil servants, making offers of these severance fork-in-the-road offers, and this access to the payment system as well.

It's just all over the place, what they're doing with this aggressive seizure of power. I said that there were conflicting reports about whether Elon Musk has the ability to change the Treasury code because there are conflicting reports. I know some say there aren't, some say there are. We will soon learn probably what the truth actually is, but it's entirely possible that he does have that power. Yes, I do think, overall, the guest's point is completely correct that there are very dramatic things happening that will be very tough to come back from or unwind. There's no reset button to put things back where they were on the independence of the Justice Department.

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Brigid Bergin: I'm going to jump in, Andrew, just for a second because I need to do a legal ID. This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York and live streaming at WNYC.org. Andrew, I apologize for interrupting you because, as you said, the caller raised some interesting points and valid about how quickly this is all happening and the way it's being covered and we're responding to it. I'm getting texts now. We've had callers in the past who have called this a coup and see this as a blatant attempt to end democracy. As you were just saying, there are things that-- what do you think argues for and against some of the more alarmist interpretations?

Andrew Prokop: Well, again, what we're clearly seeing is a centralization of power in the President and Trump and his people crashing through legal guardrails, procedural guardrails to be able to do what they want to achieve his agenda and Elon Musk's agenda, which may not be the same as Trump's, interestingly, in all particulars. Trump has seemed to empower him and take this hands-off approach to reining in what he's doing.

We'll have to see how that plays out and whether some pushback does materialize on Elon's wrecking-ball approach in the coming weeks and months and years. When we're talking about the future of the democratic system, I see no reason to believe that we won't have midterm elections next year as ordinarily scheduled. Of course, that is a long way away, you might say. Why would I have any information otherwise on that?

Brigid Bergin: Sure.

Andrew Prokop: This is a new president at the beginning of a new presidency stretching the bounds of his authority, really trying to transform the executive branch in enduring ways that will allow him to act without legal constraint or traditional checks on corruption or abuse of power. That is certainly a very alarming thing.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to one of our callers. Leslie in the Bronx, you're on WNYC.

Leslie: Thank you. I would like your guest to speak about technocracy, the system of government that places people in office. By the way, Elon Musk is actually picking people from Silicon Valley, people who are scientific experts, putting them in charge, and then not having any elections. This would do away with a democratic republic. Donald Trump had said at one of his last election rallies prior to the election, "Vote for me and you will never have to vote again."

This seems to be what's going on. Elon Musk cannot become president, but he seems to be standing in the background, acting as president to put in place this system of technocracy, which would do away with the electoral process. It seems to be the beginning of the end of the United States as a democratic republic. Please have your guest talk about technocracy, which came down to Elon Musk through his grandfather, who was an officer of technocrats.

Brigid Bergin: Leslie, I want to let Andrew respond to your question. Andrew, pretty heavy but straightforward question there.

Andrew Prokop: Yes, I think the people to look at here are the people who are known as the tech right. They've become dubbed the tech right. Elon Musk, of course, is one of them. Also, Marc Andreessen is a venture capitalist. He's a big figure in this world. Various other appointees and colleagues of them have been involved in this effort. They have this mindset of viewing the federal government and also the media and academia as this woke blob that is aligned against them and they are the enemy that must be taken over, disrupted, and defeated.

This is a big change from Trump's first term. He didn't have any of these people really on board with him at the time. Peter Thiel is also in this world. He did endorse Trump in 2016 but quickly fell out with him and didn't really seem to be calling the shots in the administration. It's very different now with this full-on empowerment of Musk and the people around him who had these very big plans and ambitions for how to essentially smash the power of the federal government and remake it.

The disregarding of existing laws, processes, and procedures is core to this mindset. It's like the Silicon Valley. Think about the founding of Uber when they would push into new markets and just disregard the local taxi laws. They'll say, "We'll deal with that later. What we will do first is make ourselves and our presence undeniable, become an on-the-ground reality, and then deal with legal consequences later on."

That seems to be what's happening now. They're thinking about this in grand historical terms of-- Marc Andreessen has talked about how Trump could be a new FDR. In his view, FDR created the modern state by greatly expanding it and the New Deal and then in World War II. Now, it's time for Trump and Elon Musk to completely change that and form a new federal government. They're influenced by anti-democratic thinkers.

There's a right-wing intellectual named Curtis Yarvin, who I've written about in the past, that he wants to overthrow the American system of government entirely. His ideas are influential in this world. He says, "Oh, it's inefficient. It doesn't work. Let's just get rid of it, empower a centralized executive, a monarch, and bye-bye democracy." I don't think it's paranoia at all. These ideas are coursing through this world. Now, whether they can actually make them happen or whether they will is another question.

Brigid Bergin: Right. As you've laid out there, you've got this divide between the tech right and people who are viewing the federal bureaucracy as inefficient and bloated and then the President, who seems to be a little bit more interested in avoiding any constraint on executive power and, of course, avoiding any additional prosecution. As these things slam up against each other, how much tension is there between those goals?

Andrew Prokop: It's funny because Trump, he's never struck me as a techie or someone into futurism or modernization. He's an old guy who's old school and he tweeted a lot, but he's not exactly an early adopter of new technologies. We saw another tension during the transition when they had that fight about H-1B visas. The tech right, including Musk, are very pro, more H-1B visas, and high-skilled workers from foreign countries to come and work for tech companies, whereas the MAGA right is very against that.

Nativists, they just want less immigration in general, but they have seemed to put that difference aside for the time being to focus on their shared war against the federal bureaucracy as it currently exists. I think we have seen this alliance so far between Elon Musk and Stephen Miller, who I view of as the main MAGA figure who is in power under Trump. He is the mastermind of the anti-immigration agenda. He's deputy White House chief of staff for policy now.

In many ways, this has been in the Musk and Miller presidency so far, so much of what Trump did, leaving foreign policy aside, because that's a different topic and there's much we still don't know there. So much of what's actually happened early on has had the stamp of either Musk or Miller. Trump has empowered them to run rampant. Whether he eventually gets tired of having so much attention on Elon causing controversies, we will have to see how that plays out.

Brigid Bergin: Andrew, we do have just about two minutes left, but I'm wondering, so much of the thrust of your article is that we aren't just looking at two years if there's blowback in the midterms or four years if someone else becomes president that some of these efforts to upend things will last far beyond that. Why do you make that case and what are you watching for in the near term?

Andrew Prokop: Well, when you break institutions and the way things are and norms, it's very hard to put them back together. That's what we're seeing. USAID, the US foreign aid agency, they just put almost every employee on administrative leave and told everyone who's deployed in foreign countries, almost everyone, to come home. This is week three of the Trump administration and we still have nearly four more years to go in it. If a Democrat is elected in 2028 and returns to power, it's very hard to just press the button of, "Put USAID back."

That's just the start. They're going to be doing this in many other agencies. These transformations are going to be permanent. If they do succeed in firing millions and millions of federal civil servants, you can't hire them back so easily. Then it's also the case for the Justice Department when you shatter this norm against political control and interference of criminal investigations. Democrats would look like suckers to just go back to it. It's difficult to put these things back together once they're broken.

Brigid Bergin: Right.

Andrew Prokop: I think we're only at the beginning of the breaking that's going to happen.

Brigid Bergin: Andrew, just briefly, could any of these lawsuits, ones that have been filed, that will be filed, reverse any of this?

Andrew Prokop: It's possible, but the quicker and more aggressively they move in actually making things happen, the tougher it's going to be for judges to unwind it, and I think the more daunting it will be for the Supreme Court conservatives who have the majority to actually want to step in and reverse the implemented agenda of the Trump administration. It seems like a lot of this is clearly illegal and should be stopped or overturned, but the courts are conservative now. They have some sympathy in these aims to strengthen the President and to smash the administrative state. There's some political sympathy probably for Trump as well. When it gets to the Supreme Court, they might have some hesitation in doing too much to reverse his agenda.

Brigid Bergin: Well, a lot more to watch and a lot more to report on. Andrew Prokop, senior politics correspondent at Vox, covers the White House elections and political scandals and investigations. Andrew, thank you so much.

Andrew Prokop: Thanks for having me.

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