Face the Facts: CT congressman breaks down concerns about DOGE

Despite benefiting from billions of dollars in federal contracts, the businesses owned by Elon Musk are visionary, but they are not profitable.

It took 17 years for Tesla to turn to profit. He grossly overpaid for Twitter. Its stock dropped 79%.

Now as President Trump's appointee on eliminating government waste, he has also been given access to federal government payment systems, and is trying to get rid of tens of thousands of employees via layoffs in government agencies.

This week, protests were held in state capitals across the country calling for accountability, asking why someone who wasn't elected is allowed to have this kind of impact.

Congressman Joe Courtney talks about how this is being received in Washington and the steps forward.

Mike Hydeck: First up, what Elon Musk is doing, having access to these payment systems, working on trying to get these government employees to resign. Is this legal?

Joe Courtney: So we're going to get answers to that from the courts, actually, very soon. And the first restraining order that was put on their, basically invasion, of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Fiscal Services, which is kind of like the government's or our country's paycheck or checkbook, has so far been successful in terms of slowing down, you know, the access.

Mike Hydeck: So the restraining order means they can't go in the building?

Joe Courtney: So the restraining order means that two people were authorized from DOGE because the Treasury Secretary invited them in, but it's a read only.

Mike Hydeck: Right, so they can't manipulate the data.

Joe Courtney: They can't plug in AI or, you know, unauthorized devices. Again, this is like a black box that has personal information, you know, names, home addresses, social security numbers. I mean, it's just, it's incredibly sensitive.

Mike Hydeck: Do they take their cell phones? Because they could literally just take pictures of all that stuff. Obviously, not millions of documents.

Joe Courtney: Again, the judge's order suggests no. And I will just tell you this. I mean, this has been a pretty tumultuous three weeks. That particular issue has blown up our phones, both in my district office, and also down in Washington. Again, we introduced legislation, as members of Congress, the Taxpayer Data Protection Act, which puts strict rules in law in terms of who is authorized to have access to this information. People who have been scrubbed and cleaned for conflicts of interest, have actual, real background checks and have been at least a year in public service prior to that. So of those two people that the judge authorized, one of them has already been fired because, well, the White House discovered that this individual had racist tweets, which shows that, I mean the, you know, pathetic level of background checks.

Mike Hydeck: Vetting or lack thereof. So does Musk have proper security clearance for the stuff? He has security clearance for his satellite programs and everything like this. That's not data. Getting into Americans' data.

Joe Courtney: Exactly. And I mean, his status is really a provisional government employee, which is, you know, usually somebody who comes in to, you know, fix the air conditioning or something.

Mike Hydeck: Right, like local contractors.

Joe Courtney: And again, as you point out, I mean conflicts of interest. I mean between Starlink, SpaceX, I mean he is a massive contractor in the Department of Defense and other agencies, NASA. So yeah, I mean this, this is, again, one of the many lawsuits that have been just exploded over the last three weeks.

Mike Hydeck: What about the clarity of federal funding pause? So there's hospitals here in Connecticut that require or use federal funding, nonprofits, things like that. Where does that stand in your mind?

Joe Courtney: So again, the rescission of the order, a week ago Monday to block all payments to grantees of almost every stripe was again, paused. The pause, OK , but I will tell you, we had the community health centers in Washington yesterday who were affected initially. Their payment system was shut off right and now it's, it's open again. They're not getting paid.

Mike Hydeck: Does that mean they can't draw the funds out? They can log in, but they can't use it?

Joe Courtney: Exactly. So again, there's another, a second lawsuit, which basically dealt with nonprofit groups like United Ways, who again, receive federal funding for a whole variety of essential services out there. Again, the second lawsuit knocked down the payment freeze for them. But again, then there's a third group. So I was at UConn with research grantees that are up there, and a different executive order, which basically shut down payments based on DEI. Totally vague. No one has any clue about what's going on.

Mike Hydeck: Right, and the DEI memos keep coming out, and they change a little bit each time.

Joe Courtney: And so if you're someone who's doing research, you know, in terms of preventing diabetes or autism, but you're obviously trying to help, you know, really adversely affected communities, maybe that's affected by DEI. I mean, who cares, honestly?

Mike Hydeck: Like research on sickle cell, maybe.

Joe Courtney: So there's lawsuit, again, to deal with that particular executive order. And again, it's the University Professors of America that are plaintiffs in that action. Because, again, the NIH, HHS, Department of Education, I mean, all of these research grants. UConn is a huge research university. Sometimes people don't see that that clearly sometimes. But you know this, by the way, is real funding and jobs. You know, in terms of their system, that's there. But the real harm is that they do really important, good work, and they're just now being just completely paralyzed.

Mike Hydeck: I just got about 30 seconds left. I just wanted you to comment on the Coast Guard situation where the commandant was let go.

Joe Courtney: I mean, personally, knowing Linda Fagan, who, again, was the consummate professional, totally non partisan, outstanding career, doing great work. They had record fentanyl and drug seizures, record recruitment year in 2024. I was at an international conference with her in Singapore, where the Coast Guard is helping smaller island nations out there deal with protecting their fishing rights. And to just, basically, throw her to the wayside with, you know, really one of the most rude and disrespectful manners. Throw her out of her house down in Washington with three hours notice. I mean, I'm sorry. You know that's disrespectful to the uniform and to the service. She wasn't court martialed. She wasn't charged with doing anything bad. And, by the way, we have an investment in people like her, who you know went through all they training and now you just sort of throwing it away.