Trump, Musk and the tech billionaires: Is there a coup happening in the US? | To the Point

even Republicans are surprised at how radically US president Trump and his trusted advisor Elon Musk are fulfilling their election Promises by restructuring the government and the state apparatus Trump sees his cutback plans as a service to the American taxpayer intending to help reduce what he sees as excessive bureaucracy in Washington Trump claims he's ending the inefficiency and waste of taxpayers money but critics sense a secret agenda by the administration aimed at discrediting and weakening American institutions today we ask Trump musk and the tech billionaires is a coup happening in the [Music] [Music] US hello and

welcome to to the point let me introduce today's panel Anika Brock Schmid a writer and US expert her bestseller America's religious Warriors deals with a powerful political force of the religious rights and Brandon Bourne expert on US policy and foreign policy with a battles manong that's a think tag here in Berlin and Eric kbam a writer and journalist who also reports for the Los Angeles Times a very warm welcome to all of you and Brandon I want to start with you a very simple question what's happening well I mean Trump's in a in a relatively

unique position for any president it's only happened one time in US history that a president has had pause between two administrations and essentially what he's done is he took that time to reflect on what went wrong in his first Administration what he wasn't able to get over the Finish Line you can see within the last three and a half weeks the speed at which some of these um executive orders have come it's just uh it's chaos that's the word that I've that I've heard um used the most but um the uh you know if you

talk to any American at the moment reducing red tape reducing bureaucracy those are good things but the way in which it's being done uh there are political motivations apparently if you if you look at some of the actions the conflicts of interests that are there and then the rule of law is simply being ignored that's the main concern is it not yeah that's blatant lawlessness that we see we basically see an executive branch that sees itself above the other two branches that are supposedly there to ensure that there are checks and balances on the executive's

power and we now see prominent members of the Trump Administration openly stating that they don't see themselves Bound for example by the courts and um you know we have to see how this plays out I don't think any of us know how it's going to go because there's just so much happening at the moment but the speed and the destructiveness I think has even surpassed I would say the most pessimistic um expectations checks and balances famous uh famously uh controlling the democracy and keeping a democracy in uh alive in in the US uh are they

being thrown out of the window right now uh definitely is challenging I would call it disruption not destruction destruction I think Trump feels like he wanted mandate to change things he feels like it's his his duty now he has a promise to the voters his first four years weren't as successful because he wasn't as well prepared he was maybe surprised that he won and I think as Brendon mentioned he's making up for that lost time now by trying to learn from all those mistakes and doing as much as he can but I think the checks

and balances are still there there's still the Constitution there are there's a supreme court up there that will uh stop anything unconstitutional the the Senate and the Congress are supposed to be a check and balance as well right now uh the Republican dominated Senate and um Congress are not really challenging Trump they seem to be a bit afraid of him at the moment afraid of primary challenges that could make them lose their job but things change in Washington uh two years is the next midterm election and it could be a completely different story and Trump

knows his window is small he might only have two years to get through as much as he wants now but we just heard you said uh you know all the checks and balances that are still in place but for example we just heard from I believe JD Vance who uh said that the courts not there to um countermand the actions of the government uh I mean that's exactly what they're there for um so I ask you again is this a threat to the system of checks and balances I would say absolutely I mean I think

if you look at if you look at those comments and and JD Vance has also said okay the judges have decided let them try to enforce it mhm Ching Andrew Jackson by the way absolutely that's where we're going back to absolutely so uh you know I think the issue is what we've seen is um there's there's not a a pathway to follow the law it's challenging the law outright and seeing what sticks because as we're seeing following the law um takes time it's much quicker if you don't and by the time the court the courts

are reacting you know the damage is done I think uh that's one of the issues at the moment also if you don't follow the law what we've seen is the consequences of not doing so are actually not that not that serious I mean we're talking about fines in some way political shame that could come with some of these actions but the reality is that for certain individuals Elon Musk in particular if you don't follow the law and a financial um burden comes he's pretty well positioned to take care he doesn't care really yeah but hold

on I mean the most important court is the court of public opinion and that's the court that Trump loves and if these things really look like a takeover like some people in Europe are worried of a hostile takeover it's going to it's going to there's going to be a whiplash and Trump will will feel that in the next elections is popular where to go down so I'm optimistic I believe the Constitution is still working I believe the checks and balances are working and I think the media is a very important check on things that Trump

are doing and we're reading in detail about all these things that are going on it's not like it's happening in secret I mean um and and musk has admitted he's made mistakes and he's going to correct them so um he's only been three weeks I think we should give him give him at least 100 days but at the same time we see the administration and you know of course administration's relationship to Media can be Frosty at times we've also seen that under Biden however this Administration is openly threatening journalists is removing journalists they don't like

from the offices that they've had making it harder to report on this we have seen some excellent reporting that's true however I think because you mentioned the court of public opinion I think one of the reasons and we've seen this in I think there was a CNN report on some of the protesters who are now going on you know going out onto the street to protest and they were asked why do you think there's fewer people protesting now on it and one of them said I think people also are scared this is not a regular

Administration this is an Administration that has openly threatened to use the American Military against protesters so I think that's also something we can't um you know we can't forget when looking at the response from the public and that's why I think we we should be careful to say oh we'll just leave it to you know public opinion opinion will change because the question is if it changes and when it changes will it matter there's one name that has been mentioned twice already and that's the name of Elon Musk Donald Trump's new US government has radically

uh realigned the uh political system of the United States and the impact is immediate um billionaire Elon Musk plays a central role in this Elon Musk richest man in the world close confident of US president Trump and now also head of a newly established government agency called the department of government efficiency or Doge for short musk and his team promis to radically downsize the state apparatus and make it more efficient some of the things that we found which are shocking billions and billions of dollars in waste Fraud and Abuse and uh I think it's very

important and that's one of the reasons I got elected opponents suspect that Trump is primarily concerned with the political restructuring of the state apparatus they criticize the fact that musk and his team are mainly acting against authorities that don't align with Trump another critique musk's employees have access to sensitive CIA data used by Financial authorities without it being clear what they need access for musk can weigh up potential conflicts of interest with his own companies as he sees fit will musk and Doge become a risk to US National Security and US [Applause] democracy who's more

dangerous musk or Trump I think that question dangerous I don't I don't see either as dangerous I think Trump was elected with this mandate and he's doing what he many things he promised to do and and U musk is sort of carrying out his wishes and I think musk will be along along around as long as he's doing what Trump wants and Trump is following what he's doing musk says he's reporting to Trump regularly he's got an office in the white house um I this fear sometimes I hear abroad that he's not elected and all

this and that he's serving a president and he's doing what the president wants and he'll keep doing that as long as he does what Trump wants uh they had a falling out eight years ago in another body advisory panel they'll probably have a falling out at some point um but at the moment I think musk is doing what Trump wants and um a lot of Americans I was in the US last two weeks a lot of Americans like the idea of as you mentioned cutting the red tape cutting the size of the government the government

has bloated over the last century and there's plenty of room for cuts the let's go through what musk has done or wants to do let's start with us Aid um that is creating a huge opportunity for example for China to step into that uh Gap if you will is that uh dangerous I think it's I think it's counterproductive to this reset in US strategic foreign policy so you know yesterday Pete hex mentioned the asia-pacific region is our Focus the primary mission of us Aid is to of course help people in need right a secondary goal

is to provide is is American influence it's a great example of American soft power and if the United States Retreats that creates a vacuum that then China can exploit we know that China is already in touch with Vietnam the Philippines Nepal Cambodia about filling the Gap created by USA not being there so it's actually counterproductive I find another um big part of his cutting down is actually uh looking at the FBI uh and uh in in a kind of vindictive way punishing everyone who has been part of Investigations against him or his supporters the January

6 uh uh that was in uh in in jail um what will that what effect will that have I mean I think we're already seeing the effects um uh Jacob Chanley I think maybe most or better better known as the so-called kin Shaman the guy with the horns from January 6th um he tweeted out uh right after he was pardoned uh thank you president Trump I'm now going to go buy some guns and so what you have now is just with the Pardons and this is not even starting with the FBI but just with pardoning

1,500 people who were uh charged and convicted for their role in the storming of the capital is you have now rewarded political violence against the the the the heart chamber of American democracy you are signaling to your supporters if you do political violence that aligns with my political project I will not only protect you I will reward you I will make you into Heroes we will call you Martyrs and we will make sure that you don't have to worry about the consequences and The Purge at the FBI you know as you just said this is

not just not just that would be scandalous enough this is like we are so beyond Watergate territory um that I think uh Nixon's probably laughing in his grave but what we're seeing is that everybody who had anything to do any FBI agent who had anything to do with the roughly thousand cases that's the biggest case loud in the history of the FBI that means roughly 34 of the whole FBI were involved in that are now under review and this sends a clear message to law enforcement which is supposed to be independent that you now serve

at the mercy of the president another thing oh just well said I mean we have individuals on lists people are it's I agree completely it it sounds properly stalinist does it not it does I mean I think something else is you know we're focusing on on on doj you know there are other agencies that are also under review this for example the consumer uh Financial Protection Bureau there are clear conflicts of interest also with with a look to I mean this is an or we talk about transparency this is a body that is there to

provide oversight to digital payment systems these are uh markets that both Trump and musk are entering Trump with his cryptocurrency and musk he's he he'd like to expand X into a digital payment services well so they're they're the ones who are now overseeing the this body that oversees this uh sector that they want to get into I mean that sound right not not only that because now uh musk employees apparently have access to the central financial data of the whole uh uh country and and and and the treasury uh conflict of interest would be a

mild way to describe this right well we're reading about this in the in the newspapers and we're following it so and and and musk said we've made mistakes so obviously that was a mistake and um there's been a reaction uh the the the treasury um officer who was fired for resisting that I mean that's been in every newspaper in the United States so people are following this and they are making mistakes and unfortunately we're finding out about it and uh and I think Trump realizes is that if he goes too far there's going to be

a boomerang there's going to be a reaction I mean there's a lot of Americans who voted for Trump uh not out of enthusiasm but they thought the country needs this and if Trump goes too far and if he spends too much time retiga January 6th it's going to hurt him he found that out in 22 22 midterm elections nobody wanted to hear about it anymore and if he spends a lot of time uh trying to clean up the clean out the FBI and the Department of Justice it's going to hurt him and he's not going

to do well in the midterms Republicans are going to probably uh pay the price for that so Trump realizes this court of public opinion he's got to he's got to do well in that and if he's going to spend a lot of time looking back he's probably going to have to pay a price let's have a look at um the kind of resistance that you just uh mentioned that will come at some stage where it could come from uh let's start with the Republican Party um how long is the Republican party uh that is pretty

much behind Trump at the moment but there are also lots of moderates there how long is the Republic Republican party going to play this game well I think at the moment you you as as you mentioned rightly Eric that you know Republicans are are in line with the agenda they're they're linguish their powers in many ways to the executive um because they agree with the agenda we'll see how long that lasts so I I agree with that that in particular um I think the actions of Doge um tie into something a bit larger you know

from my conversations Doge and the actions taking place in Washington are sort of secondary to this large bill that's going to come later in the year the tax cuts that are that that will surpass what we saw in 2017 if we include tax cuts the deficit goes up this is an attempt to bring the deficit down there are fiscal fiscally conservative republicans in Congress who um will will take issues so there are some checks from that corner you think the resistance will originate inside the maybe not from them but I think there are there are

segments of the Republican Party who do have their interests um who do have their own interests and and they'll make sure that they um represent them let's talk about the Democrats then where are they that's a good question um I think they're licking their wounds still I think um I had the feeling in the United States right now Democrats aren't really trusted the whole Joe Biden thing people kind of concealing his health problems and then the whole way kamla was sort of anointed without a real proper primary I think that rubbed a lot of people

who lean to voting toward of the Democrats the wrong way and I think they're in the in the wilderness right now even though they're kind of debating we only lost by two points the we really get wiped out or was it a close call or and so there there's this internal struggle going on there's also the the woke side of the democratic party the progressive side are are they going to become lambs and be quiet and let the let the the the conservative wing of the Democrats run the show again where the Democrats have a

better chance winning in four years all these things are this debate is still has to happen in the Democratic party they haven't really got there yet what kind of responsibility do the Democrats have to shoulder for the situation uh uh that the country is in right now and the this rather clear loss they had to take well I think they have a responsibility not just to their own base uh but also to every single American Who belongs to a marginalized group whose life and existence is now under direct attack from this government so I think

uh that's why there's been a lot of um discontent from their own base with the way that Democrats have been reacting with this sort of uh fecklessness almost that they've displayed in the last it's gotten a bit better within the last couple of days but still considering what they're faced with this is a very still very tepid reaction to something that you know the speed of what's Happening yes that was a surprise but not the fact that it is happening if I may add one more detail I think you know I I have members of

my family that are Ardent Trump supporters and I think the as you rightly said you know in the leadup to the election last year the Democrats focused primarily on what was wrong with Trump you know I think if if to to counteract what we saw in the election just in November the Democrats just have to do better the Democrats have to have a clear agenda that speaks to a greater portion of the American public that's the that's the mission ahead of the midterms in two years I'd like to have another look at the external um

um consequences that the world is actually uh facing now one of the best known examples of musks cutbacks is US Aid we spoke about this earlier that's the government agency for International Development Aid established by Kennedy in 1961 its goal was to counter the growing influence of the Soviet Union through foreign aid Medical Aid in Africa Recon destructing Afghanistan Dem mining in Cambodia the global range of usaid's Aid measures is vast now all of this could be dismantled the plan shrinking the agency from 10,000 to 300 employees and integrating it into the US state department

under Marco Rubio the global consequences are already serious many Aid programs were discontinued overnight in 2023 six of the 10 countries that received the most Aid were from Africa a famine early warning system has now been shut down as a result last year around 50 billion US were invested in US Aid development Aid projects not even. 5% of total government spending for Advocates us Aid was the US strongest soft power in the world Elon Musk on the other hand has said usaid is a Viper nest of radical left marxists who hate America and a criminal

organization how dramatic are the global consequences of Trump's plans to cut usaid uh let's have a look at how uh dramatic um the consequences are globally not just for that but the whole change does the West need to reform completely to adjust to that I mean Pete hex made it very clear I think it was yesterday when uh I'm paraphrasing but only mildly when he said the security of Europe is not uh the US's Prime concern which you know it hasn't been for a while but saying it out loud as uh the new defense minister

clearly sets a statement um that's a watershed yeah and it also sets a tone for what we can expect uh within NATO and uh Trump has repeatedly made comments uh in the you know in the runup to the election that were either direct attacks against NATO allies the whole Greenland thing Denmark you know that's also an unconscionable break of any diplomatic rules of any anything that goes within NATO and so I think we're really in Uncharted Territory here I think it's important to remember it's not just Trump it's a lot of Americans think why are

we spending so much money abroad why are why is the UN United States spending 70% of the defense for Ukraine why aren't Europeans doing that and usaid is similar not a lot of Americans probably knew what usaid was a month ago and now they do but it's another one of these things where Americans are spending billions of dollars abroad and there's a lot of problems in the United States with homelessness with uh homeless veterans with all kinds of problems in the US and a lot of the Republican voters for a long time now have been

talking about why are we doing this and Trump latched onto and Trump has has has um heated that up and and so this is not really a surprise for people in the Midwest and a lot of red States they're happy with these these steps that Trump is doing would you agree I I think there are certainly segments of the US population that agree with that sentiment so that's that's absolutely true but we know that it's a very much a divided country and there are certainly individuals who don't agree with it so it's um that's that's

the that's how it is so um I would like to um have a look in your uh collected Collective Crystal uh balls uh Trump is stepping on lots of people's toes right now and he will that group of people will increase over time will there be resistance and who will be those that actually resist yeah there's going to be resistance I mean the Democrats are going to regroup at some point I mean one leading Democrat Gavin Newsome in California California has an awkward situation he needs money from the federal government because of the fire so

he can't be the mouthpiece against Trump that he would probably like to be but that'll change and there'll be elections coming up and and the Democrats will probably do better there's always a a swing in the pendulum and the midterms if they go bad for Trump I think you'll see his popularity declined pretty fast and and there'll be rebellions and I think the media is a very important guard rail in the United States an important and and these things will happen I mean it's a democracy and Trump is a challenge to it but there's been

other American presidents like uh Franklin Roosevelt who grabbed made a grab for power and the courts came back and I'm optimistic that that Trump will there'll be limits on Trump and we'll see those and one other thing inflation is a big issue in the United States right now today and Trump promised to roll back inflation he's already failing at that and that's it's not going to take long for Americans to be really annoyed by the price of eggs and gasoline do you share that optimism um to a certain extent I think you know it it

largely depends on the policies that are taking place what is the impact on the American public um you know the Tariff policy at the moment almost all uh analyses that you see about this about this policy is we're going to have increases to Consumer prices in the United States we could see that play out in the in the 2026 midterms as well I think it depends on whether Democrats and Independent Media can manage to communicate clearly how dire the situation for the democracy is and what it means specifically for the lives of everyday Americans because

that's the key that you need for like public resistance there would be so much more to discuss we're running out of time thank you very much to my panel that's it for this edition of two the points we hope you enjoyed our discussion and please join the conversation if you're watching us on YouTube leave a comment below from me and the whole team many thanks for watching [Music]