Here’s the stub of “Trump is giving Elon Musk an unprecedented amount of power: The Department of Government Efficiency could wind up hurting Trump politically” a 538/abcnews chat, featuring Nathanial Rakich, Julia Azari and Cooper Burton:
Welcome to 538’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior editor and elections analyst): One of President Donald Trump’s core campaign promises was to cut government spending and dismantle the federal bureaucracy — and two weeks into his presidency, he’s attempted to consolidate an extraordinary amount of power in order to do just that. Last Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave the Department of Government Efficiency — a unit of Trump advisers led by billionaire Elon Musk — access to the federal payment system, giving DOGE a huge amount of oversight and power over how government money is spent. Over the weekend, two top officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development were also placed on leave for refusing to give DOGE access to classified information at the agency, which Musk now says he and Trump are shutting down. And on Monday, the Small Business Administration also gave DOGE access to all its systems.
All this has greatly alarmed independent watchdogs and Trump critics, who argue that DOGE is operating without oversight and point out that Musk, the world’s richest man and an owner of several businesses that work with the government, could use the data he now has access to for personal gain. But do Americans share that alarm, or are they just interested in getting results? In today’s installment of the 538 politics chat, we’ll talk about whether this weekend’s events — as big of a story as they have been inside the Beltway — will matter to the general electorate.
So, team: I know this story is still developing, but do we have any sense yet about how much Americans care about Musk’s heavy-handed attempts to cut the government?
julia_azari (Julia Azari, political scientist at Marquette University and 538 contributor): The story really seemed to bubble over on Monday when Musk announced that he and Trump were trying to shut down USAID. This might be less true among the broader public, which may or may not have much of an opinion about USAID, and more among members of Congress (who gathered outside the agency to protest its dismantling) and the press.
nrakich: Well, it may be breaking through with the broader public too. Google Trends data is imperfect, but it does show that, over the weekend, Google searches related to USAID exceeded those related to the upcoming Academy Awards. And on Monday morning, Americans were Googling USAID more than they were Googling the search topic “pizza” at dinnertime on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights!
cooper (Cooper Burton, researcher and copy editor): It’s too early to have polling data about Musk’s attempted dismantling of USAID, but we have seen surveys ask more generally about DOGE and its mission, and that data has been mixed. For example, in late January, Data for Progress found that likely voters supported the creation of DOGE, 46 percent to 36 percent. And an AP-NORC poll found that wide majorities of Americans think that issues like corruption, inefficiency and red tape are major problems in the federal government.
But they don’t really like any of DOGE’s proposals to fix those issues. Out of four proposals that the AP-NORC poll asked about, only one was above water: requiring federal workers to return to the office five days a week. Other ideas, like eliminating a large number of federal jobs or eliminating federal agencies, were quite unpopular, though large shares said they didn’t have an opinion either way.
I think these latest actions with USAID and the SBA will probably provoke a similar response from the public: People like the abstract idea of eliminating waste and bureaucracy in the government, but usually dislike it when specific cuts have to be made.
Read more here.
Democrats are continuing the fundamental mistake of defending institutions instead of programs.
People don’t know what the Department of Education does, for example.
But they do care about:
1. Title I funding for low income schools;
2. Funding for special education;
3. Pell Grants;
4. Student Loans (as long as they are fair).
Democrats need to stop assuming voters understand things like the difference between Medicaid and Medicare. Betweeen Medicaid for the poor and Medicaid for long term care. Etc, etc.
If you want to win the budget fights you need to choose when to clarify, when to stay silent and even when to confuse. Some voter ignorance can be used to Democrats’ advantage.
Flooding the zone works when Democrats lack focus, unified message and overall strategy.
The USAID fight distorts Democrats messaging. It switches from day to day economic issues to the “broken record” rule of law debate.
Even if you achieve 95% core Democrat support for USAID, it is the wrong fight.
The Americans expressing an opinion about these issues are already partisan Democrats (probably hyper partisan ones).
They watch a lot of news. They turn out to vote consistently. Etc.
The ones not expressing an opinion include Republicans and Democrats.
Republicans will eventually express the Republican opinion. These voters don’t matter either.
Who matters is the Democrats who don’t have an opinion and don’t care who have behaved like swing voters in the last two elections.
The tiny sliver of non-partisan voters who also don’t care but are also swing voters and low information voters also matter.
So called “moderates” may care about these issues a bit, but they are not primarily animated by them. They are high information voters and are already mostly aligned with one party or the other. They don’t swing elections when the economy and immigration are either important or constantly in the news.