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Commentary: Trump is cheering Elon Musk now, but if anything goes wrong it will be the president's problem

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Commentary: Trump is cheering Elon Musk now, but if anything goes wrong it will be the president's problem

For the last six weeks, President Trump’s demolition man Elon Musk has rampaged across the federal bureaucracy — freezing payments, firing workers and disabling entire agencies.

“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk bragged, referring to the foreign aid agency.

And Trump cheered him on. “Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him get more aggressive,” the president posted on social media in capital letters.

But Trump and Musk are planting political landmines across the government that could end up damaging them both.

Many federal programs are intended to respond to disasters — or prevent them. Cut those programs and you increase the risk that small problems will turn into big ones.

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I asked officials and management experts to help compile a list of possible side effects from Musk’s blitzkrieg. Here’s a sample:

Cutting the Food and Drug Administration could cripple the agency’s ability to trace foodborne illnesses back to the source, an important step in stopping their spread.

Slashing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could slow the agency’s ability to react to epidemics, like the measles outbreak in Texas that has infected at least 146 people and killed one child, the first U.S. measles death since 2015.

Firing Federal Aviation Administration technicians, as the Trump administration did in January, could make air transportation less safe or merely less reliable. Musk tweeted last week that the FAA’s air control communications system “is breaking down very rapidly [and] putting air traveler safety at serious risk.” (But take that with a grain of salt; he’s promoting his Starlink system as a replacement.)

Purging the FBI and CIA could weaken efforts to prevent terrorist attacks. FBI Director Kash Patel has said he wants to send every agent in his Washington headquarters to field offices to “be cops.” If he follows through, that would include many of the bureau’s top counterterrorism specialists.

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Other possible effects from the government-wide chaos are less terrifying, but would still disrupt Americans’ lives.

If Musk’s technicians inadvertently insert errors in the government’s financial payment systems, Social Security checks could be interrupted, Medicare benefits disrupted, IRS tax refunds delayed.

Officials also worry that confidential information could leak — not only taxpayers’ personal details, but classified data about intelligence or defense programs.

Musk’s layoffs are also likely to produce a massive brain drain, driving talented managers out of the civil service and discouraging young people from joining. That will make federal agencies less efficient, not more.

Thankfully, none of the worst-case scenarios has occurred. But any one of them could cause a political explosion that would damage Trump’s presidency.

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The president may not recognize it, but he’s taking major risks — not only for the country, but for his standing with the public.

“We all love the idea of slashing the size of government,” said Donald F. Kettl, a public administration scholar at the University of Maryland. “But the more you cut back on government capacities, the more likely something will go wrong. And the instant it affects peoples’ lives — trouble with Social Security checks, problems with Medicare, having to worry about getting on an airplane — it becomes a political problem.”

“Trump is playing with unexploded bombs here,” said Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution. “By doing this in so many places across the government — and by cutting with an axe instead of a scalpel — you increase the possibility of a major f— up.”

Kamarck says just one highly visible management failure can sink a presidency. Think Hurricane Katrina under President George W. Bush, the Obamacare rollout under President Obama, the Afghanistan withdrawal under President Biden — or Trump’s chaotic initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kamarck wrote a book about such disasters: “Why Presidents Fail.”

Trump has taken high-risk behavior in the Oval Office to a new level, she said.

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“Other presidents took hits because they missed the signals when problems were developing,” she said. “This is the first president who actually created the problems himself.”

The public is already worried. A Reuters/IPSOS poll released Feb. 20 found that 58% of Americans said they were concerned that Social Security payments and other federal benefits could be delayed by Musk’s actions. A slightly larger number, 62%, said they do not support the freeze on federal grants and services that Musk’s team imposed.

As Kamarck found, presidents often get blamed for disasters they didn’t cause directly. “Obama didn’t design the Obamacare website that crashed, but he set up the system that produced it,” she noted.

Whether or not a president deserves it, politicians in the other party can be relied on to blame him. When a bungled FDA inspection led to a shortage of baby formula in 2022, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York said the root cause was “Joe Biden’s failed leadership.”

Trump critics have already warned that they will hold the president accountable if a disaster occurs on his watch.

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“If there’s a terrorist attack in this country over the next four years, and he’s put someone who is judged to not be qualified in as the director of the FBI, then that blood is going to be on his hands,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, said last year.

If any of the problems on that list do occur, it will only be natural for the public to ask whether Trump and Musk were responsible. It will also be natural for reporters to investigate whether Musk’s actions played a part.

Trump might be tempted to pin responsibility on Musk and his young cyberwarriors, but it’s too late for that. He’s spent the last six weeks publicly cheering Musk’s actions and urging him to do more.

“It’s his mess now,” Kamarck said.

Let’s hope no disasters materialize. But if any of them do, Trump will learn the meaning of what then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.

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A personal note: This will be my last weekly column for The Times. I’m grateful to the many readers who have given me part of their time over the last 16 years of columnizing — even, and sometimes especially, the ones who told me politely when I was wrong.

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.

Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.

Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.

Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

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KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS

President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”

The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.

MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES

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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.

Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)

He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.

Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.

“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.

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He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.

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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.

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Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

As anxiety mounts among California Democrats about the potential of a Republican being elected governor, the state party will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on polling to assess the viability of the sprawling field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to plans released Tuesday.

The move comes after nearly every Democratic candidate refused party leaders’ call last week to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote in the June primary — an outcome that could lead to a Republican being elected to statewide office for the first time in two decades.

“Candidates have filed, and now they’ve got the opportunity to showcase their viability, their path to win. I want to simply ensure that everybody has information to fully understand the current state of the race,” said Rusty Hicks, the leader of the California Democratic Party.

As campaign season ramps up, the series of six polls will allow “candidates, supporters, the media, voters, anyone and everyone to have a clear understanding of what is or is not happening in this particular race,” he said.

The filing deadline to appear on the June 2 ballot was Friday. Three days earlier, Hicks released an open letter urging candidates who did not have a path to victory to withdraw from the race. Of the nine prominent Democrats who had announced runs for governor, only one heeded his call: former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.

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That means the eight other candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, regardless of whether they decide to later drop out. And that creates the possibility of a Republican winning the race because of how California elections are decided.

The state has a voter-approved top-two primary system, under which the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.

Two prominent Republicans will appear on the ballot: former conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Even though Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, and the state’s electorate last elevated Republicans to statewide office in 2006, it is mathematically possible for Democrats to splinter the vote, allowing the two GOP candidates to advance.

Under such a scenario, not only would Republicans be guaranteed the leadership of the nation’s most-populous state, but Democratic voter turnout also would probably be depressed in November, potentially affecting down-ballot races such as those that could determine control of Congress.

Hicks’ call last week prompted concerns among candidates of color, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, that the effort was aimed at every nonwhite candidate in the race.

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The state party chairman responded that his letter was not aimed at any specific candidate.

“It’s not something I lose sleep over,” Hicks said when asked about the racial claims. But he added that the voter surveys will be conducted by Los Angeles-based Evitarus, the state’s only Black- and Latino-led full-service polling firm, and will oversample historically underrepresented communities: Latino, Black and Asian American voters.

Hicks said the polling will cost “multiple six figures” but did not specify the exact amount.

The first poll will be released on March 24, and then five additional surveys will come out every seven to 10 days until voters start receiving mail ballots in early May.

“We’re putting this forward to ensure everyone is armed with the information they need to clearly have an eyes-wide-open assessment of where the state of the race currently is between now and when ballots land in the mailboxes of voters,” Hicks said.

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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President Donald Trump outlined five key items he believes will tip the upcoming midterm elections in the GOP’s favor — if Republicans can muscle them through Congress.

“No transgender mutilation surgery for our children,” Trump told an audience at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference. “Voter ID, citizenship [verification], mail-in ballots, we don’t want men playing in women’s sports.”

It’s the best of Trump. Those are the best of Trump. This is the number one priority, it should be, for the House,” Trump said.

Trump’s exhortations to Republican lawmakers come as the GOP wages an uphill campaign to hang on to a controlling majority in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He framed his legislative priorities as a way for Republicans to capitalize on popular demands within the GOP base that would increase their chances of preserving a Republican governing trifecta.

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President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One before departing Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH ELECTION OVERHAUL WITH VOTER ID, MAIL-IN BALLOT CHANGES AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

Currently, Republicans hold just four more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives.

The GOP holds six more than Democrats in the Senate.

To keep the numbers in their favor, Republicans will need to beat historical trends. In the vast majority of past cases, parties that capture the White House in presidential elections face blowback in the midterms. Notably, the last time a majority party gained seats in both chambers of Congress in the midterms came under the Bush administration in 2002, following devastating attacks on the World Trade Center.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left, and President Donald Trump shake hands during an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL

Trump said he believes Republicans have a shot at bucking the trend come November if they focus on his list.

“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said of his legislative priorities.

Republicans have already taken strikes towards two of them through the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and cast a ballot. That bill cleared the House last month for a second time in the 119th Congress.

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Its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Republicans would need the assistance of seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. Democrats, for their part, believe the legislation would disenfranchise voters who cannot readily provide documented proof of citizenship through a passport, REAL ID, or birth certificate. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. has promised a vote on the package despite its long odds. 

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during a “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.

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I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver on this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers, just as they did in 2024,” Trump said.

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