Rep. John Larson (D-CT) lost his cool during a Wednesday meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee and raged at his Republican colleagues for refusing to bring Elon Musk before the committee to discuss his work with DOGE.
“We’re an equal branch of government! And you start off with a blather and yet look at the empty seats here. Where is Elon Musk?!” Larson fumed, adding:
I’m sure he’s a genius and is a very credible person because of the wealth he’s accumulated. But that does not put him above the law or the responsibility to come before this committee in this Congress. If he’s so great, if these plans and all the fraud and abuse that he found are so eminent, why isn’t he here explaining it? You know why.
Because he’s out to privatize Social Security. He’s been on television the last couple of days talking exactly about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and what he intends to do. Privatize it! The American people, some of them may have been born at night, but not last night.
Musk raised eyebrows earlier in the week when he said his so-called Department of Government Efficiency would work to cut some 6 to 700 billion dollars of waste from entitlement programs. Many pundits and observers argued that in order to cut such a hefty figure from social security and Medicaid, Musk would need to cut benefits themselves, not just waste and fraud.
Later in the meeting, Larson added, “This unaccountable person. Not a federal employee. Not a volunteer, but a special person who’s not had to– gone through Senate approval.”
“And who this committee is now saying, yes, we agree with the president. He should not be accountable. He should be able to have free reign and do whatever he wants,” Larson said of Musk and his GOP colleagues, adding:
We will willingly follow him and do whatever he says, because he’s the wealthiest man in the world. And surely he must know how to save us from ourselves. This program of Social Security that, oh, just happens to be the number one antipoverty program for the elderly and for the children of this country. Yeah I agree. Mr. Musk, you and Mr. Trump aren’t going to lose a moment’s sleep thinking about the privatization and what it means to those individuals.
Watch the clip above.
