The Musk-Trump Pact Is Sealed In Bizarre Oval Office Circus

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Commissar-in-Chief

In a bizarre and surreal Oval Office circus, Elon Musk and Donald Trump ratcheted up DOGE’s infiltration of the federal government.

The occasion was Trump signing a new executive order furthering seeding DOGE across government (except the military) and laying the groundwork for a new round of purges of the federal workforce.

The executive order lays out draconian and absurdist methods for extending the hiring freeze Trump previously ordered by, for example, limiting hiring to one employee for every four who depart.

But the true significance of the executive order was empowering DOGE, overseen by the world’s richest man, to have a key role in every department and agency. The result is an arrangement where Musk and his team operates as a layer superimposed between the White House and the rest of the federal government, positioning them as political enforcers in the style of the old Soviet commissars, as TPM’s Josh Marshall noted.

It still seems wildly improbable that the Musk-Trump pact survives for long with these two volatile and unstable personalities, but the damage they may do before they self-combust is almost unimaginable.

Elon Musk Watch

• NYT: Elon Musk’s Business Empire Scores Benefits Under Trump Shake-Up
• ProPublica: One Agency Tried to Regulate SpaceX. Now Its Fate Could Be in Elon Musk’s Hands.
• NYT: Elon Musk’s Financial Disclosure Will Not Be Made Public

First Of All …

Reporter: You said an example of fraud that you have cited was $50 million of condoms was sent to Gaza but after a fact-check apparently it was Gaza in Mozambique meant to protect them against HIV. Musk: First of all, some of the things I say will be incorrect

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 4:49 PM

Shoot Me Now

The Associated Press was not allowed to attend the Trump-Musk circus in the Oval Office as White House retaliation for the wire service not adopting Trump’s preferred moniker “Gulf of America” in its coverage.

Pay Attention To FEMA

The Trump administration sacked four FEMA employees and continues to freeze some of FEMA’s spending despite a court order blocking the freeze.

The Purge Continues …

In addition to the four sackings at FEMA:

• USAID: The White House fired the USAID inspector general last night after he issued a report Monday warning of the impacts of the Trump administration’s unlawful dismantling of the independent agency.
• MSPB: President Trump fired Cathy Harris, a Democratic member of the Merit Systems Protection Board.
• DOJ: David Hubbert, a 40-year Justice Department employee who is now its chief tax official, is resigning rather than accept a forced transfer to a new unit, Bloomberg reports.
• DOJ: Devin DeBacker, who the Trump administration installed as the acting head of the DOJ’s National Security Division, has been removed from that position after only a few weeks, ABC News reports.

Other Turmoil

• CFPB: “Senior officials at the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were forced to resign on Tuesday after the Trump administration effectively shut down all major operations at the once-powerful agency,” Semafor reports.
• CFPB: Oopsie! Russell Vought, the acting head of the CFPB, was forced to restore one of its key functions before it tanked mortgage markets, David Dayen reports.
• CISA: “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency placed several members of its election security group on administrative leave last week,” CyberScoop reports.
• ICE: Two top officials have been reassigned for allegedly failing to be sufficiently aggressive on deportations, WaPo reports.
• SBA: Some probationary employees at the Small Business Administration have been terminated twice since Friday, Politico reports.

New Court Decisions Pushing Back On Trump

• A federal judge in DC ordered health care information restored on the websites of HHS, CDC, and FDA.
• The First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s appeal of the temporary restraining order blocking the OMB spending freeze.

Predictably Absurd Results

President Trump’s executive orders are generating ham-handed efforts at compliance, like keyword searches of government contracts and websites for terms that may evoke DEI or illegal immigration – but which may appear in many other unrelated contexts. In one example reported by CNN, a Commerce Department office was ordered to review its contracts for nearly 150 terms, including:

• immigrant
• undocumented
• foreign assistance
• Green New Deal
• climate change
• diversity
• equity
• racism
• discrimination
• transgender
• LGBT
• abortion
• pregnant
• birth control
• fetus

Durbin Claims Kash Patel Involved In FBI Purge

Senate Judiciary ranking member Dick Durbin (D-IL) is claiming that FBI director nominee Kash Patel has been involved in the purges of the FBI and that during his confirmation hearing misled senators about his involvement.

The Shockwaves Reverberate At DOJ

The acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan still hasn’t publicly moved to dismiss the criminal case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams as she was ordered to to do by Main Justice:

Danielle Sassoon, a longtime federal prosecutor whom Trump elevated to be the Manhattan U.S. attorney, is left with few options: to follow the Justice Department directive, to defy the order, or to resign, former prosecutors said. To obey the order would be an unprecedented blow to the Manhattan office’s prized independence from Washington. If she resigned or were fired, the Justice Department could handpick her successor.

Quote Of The Day

“Our founders were hellbent on ensuring that we didn’t have a monarchy, and the first way they thought of that was to give Congress the power of the purse.”–Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking generally about the constitutional structure

Bannon Pleads Guilty

MAGA majordomo Steve Bannon has pleaded guilty to state charges in the We Build the Wall fraud case. As part of the plea agreement, he avoids jail time. The original federal case against Bannon was wiped away with a Trump pardon in 2021. Upon leaving the courthouse yesterday, Bannon called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin an immediate criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Leticia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

We Live In The Dumbest Timeline

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Georgia) has introduced a bill to "authorize the President to enter into negotiations to acquire Greenland"—and to rename Greenland as "Red, White, and Blueland."“America is back and will soon be bigger than ever with the addition of Red, White, and Blueland,” Carter said.

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— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 12:13 PM

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