I appeared tonight on the NBC Nightly News in a segment by Peter Alexander about bad stuff the Trump administration has done recently and how people are reacting to it (I imagine this may be a daily segment?). I recommend the whole segment (only 3 minutes), or you can fast forward to 1:10 to see my 26 seconds.
I’m not going to hide, not going to back down, not going to run. What’s happening inside the federal government is endangering our democracy and harming the American people. I dissent.
(Transcript below the video.)
ALEXANDER: Tonight, NBC News has learned defense secretary Pete Hegseth is considering firing military generals in some of the department’s most senior officers as early as this week, according to two defense officials and three congressional sources. Most of those targeted have been closely associated with former defense secretary Lloyd Austin, who served under former president Biden and have worked on DEI initiatives or have voiced opinions that Trump allies view is politically out of line with his agenda, the officials said. Late tonight, the Pentagon said Hegseth is looking to cut 8% of next year’s defense budget, totaling around $50,000,000,000. It comes as Elon Musk’s DOGE employees are now working inside the Pentagon, according to senior officials, eyeing staffing cuts there. Overnight, president Trump, alongside Musk, dismissed concerns about conflicts of interest with Musk’s businesses, even though the tech billionaire’s companies, like SpaceX, have massive contracts with the federal government.
TRUMP: “If there’s a conflict, you won’t be involved. I mean, I wouldn’t want that, and he won’t want it.”
ALEXANDER: First, the mass firings, now the fallout. Across the country, growing protests opposed to the president’s efforts to rapidly shrink the federal workforce.
Jonathan Kamens was fired just days ago from his job overseeing cybersecurity for the VA’s website.
ALEXANDER: Your firing has a potential to have a direct impact on the benefits American veterans receive. Right?
KAMENS: So, many veterans rely exclusively on VA.gov for accessing their benefits because it’s difficult for them to get out of the house and get to a VA medical center. If VA.gov goes down, then those people can’t get to their benefits.
ALEXANDER: Still, the president and his top lieutenant, both appearing today at a Saudi investment conference in Miami, are defending their reshaping of the federal government.
MUSK: I think what we’re seeing here is, the sort of the thrashing of the the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people.
ALEXANDER: Musk also insisted the majority of federal workers are anti Trump, noting DC is largely democratic. But more than 80% of federal workers are not in DC, spread throughout the rest of the country. The acting FAA administrator revealing a letter to staffers today obtained by NBC News, special government employees who work for SpaceX have now visited the FAA’s command center and will be going to other FAA sites to engineer solutions. While the administrator says the agency is keeping employees who perform safety critical functions, its union says some FAA jobs already eliminated supported safety and airport operations.
HOLT: And, Peter, the administration getting involved in some local politics pushing forward with the plan to kill New York’s traffic congestion pricing.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, Lester. That’s right. The controversial program that charges drivers to enter parts of Manhattan is what we’re talking about here. President Trump today posting congestion pricing is dead. Long live the king. Then the White House itself posted an image of Trump as a monarch. New York’s governor responding, we are a nation of laws not ruled by a king. We’ll see you in court.
