Trump plans radical remake of government with RFK Jr. and Elon Musk

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For much of the presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump worked to distance himself from Project 2025, the detailed plan drafted by conservative activists for a second Trump term.

Whether or not his allies will attempt to implement parts of the controversial plan if he wins the 2024 election is still up for debate.

But there is an equally sweeping and sweeping plan for government reform coming out of Trump's own mouth, in which heterodox figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be given carte blanche to lash out at the health security system and Elon Musk would be allowed to do so, as the tech billionaire said, starting from scratch with the federal workforce.

So, without getting into whether or not Trump supports Project 2025, here's a look at what the former president and the people he claims he can empower said they would do if he won the White House.

Trump promised to give Kennedy room to rethink how the government's health care system protects Americans.

I'm going to let him run wild with the food. I'm going to let him run wild on drugs, Trump said during his closing remarks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

Much of what Kennedy advocates seems positive. His Make America Healthy Again PAC promises to focus on prioritizing regenerative agriculture, preserving natural habitats and removing toxins from our food, water and air.

But these ideas lack detail and there are personal issues that would prevent anyone from gaining government service. Kennedy compared vaccine requirements to the era of Nazi Germany, saying Anne Frank was in a better situation; was arrested once for possession of heroin; and pushed wild conspiracy theories about chemicals in water making children gay or transgender.

Kennedy's health is also a concern. He once ate so much tuna and perch that he experienced severe brain fog from mercury poisoning, he told the New York Times.

In a video obtained by CNN, Kennedy told supporters Monday that Trump had promised to give him sweeping power over multiple agencies if the former president won the election.

The key that I think I know, and that President Trump promised me, is control of the public health agencies, which are the HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) and its sub-agencies, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). , the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), the NIH (National Institutes of Health) and a few others, and then also the USDA (Department of Agriculture), which is, you know, the key to making America healthy. Because we need to get rid of seed oils and pesticide-intensive agriculture, Kennedy said.

CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment, according to a report from Aaron Pellish. So it's not clear that if Trump lashes out it's the same as Kennedy's view that he would have such broad control. Trump clearly stated that Kennedy would be part of a panel investigating the rise in chronic disease. For what it's worth, Project 2025 suggested a massive overhaul of health agencies, including splitting up the CDC.

Trump's plans have been met with concern in the public health community, not so much because of the specific policy proposals Kennedy communicated as part of his Make America Healthy Again platform, but rather because of the key issue that he left aside: vaccines, according to CNN. Meg Tirell. She wrote an in-depth analysis of Kennedy's health record.

Both Trump and Kennedy have expressed skepticism about vaccines, and Kennedy is a longtime activist who advocates debunked theories about vaccines. During the campaign, Kennedy downplayed his views on vaccines, Tirrell notes. His efforts towards a more natural diet find support from some health experts.

Musk, the ultra-rich Trump supporter, would be given a much larger portfolio than Kennedy and would be tasked with a massive downsizing of the federal government.

It's an even trickier situation since many of Musk's companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, have a profit-driven interest in dealing with the government. The US government currently relies on SpaceX, which also owns satellite internet provider Starlink.

If there's any doubt that a government role for Musk could pose a conflict of interest risk, just consider the fact that he said he could be in charge of the Department of Defense. 'Efficiency of Government. DOGE is the name of Musk's cryptocurrency, an area the Trump family also wants to expand into.

Musk also constantly calls out anti-Semitic remarks and muses about how women should not vote. Not to mention reports of his meetings with hostile foreign leaders.

In a potential new Trump administration, Musk promises a reinvention of the federal bureaucracy.

Let's start from scratch, Musk said at an October event in Pittsburgh, suggesting a radical overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.

CNN's David Goldman this month examined what Trump and Musk have said about a potential role for Musk in government, which would be focused on deep spending cuts. Musk said he could cut $2 trillion, perhaps with the help of artificial intelligence and rolling back regulations. But he would do it in a nice way, apparently.

Musk has promised to go soft, offering generous severance packages to laid-off civil servants, while at the same time proposing an evaluation system that threatens wasteful employees with layoffs, Goldman wrote.

The problem, according to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summer, is that there isn't $2 trillion to be gained from massive government layoffs.

Respectfully, I think it's stupid, Summers said on Fox News this week. These people think it's like business. But here's the problem: only 15% of the federal budget goes to payroll. So even if you cut every employee, every single person working for the federal government, you couldn't save something like $2 trillion.

Summers is right about the paycheck. The government spent about $271 billion to compensate 2.3 million civilian employees in 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Summers said that to achieve multi-billion cuts, Musk would have to look at Social Security and Medicare benefits, something Trump has promised not to do.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a top Trump ally, said in Pennsylvania on Monday that if Trump wins and Republicans retain the House, there will be a massive overhaul of the health care system. No Obamacare? » shouted one participant at the campaign event. No Obamacare, Johnson said.

He added: The ACA is so deeply rooted; we need massive reform to make this work. And we have lots of ideas on how to do this.

During a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in September, Trump did not offer details, but he said he had ideas for a plan. These have not been shared publicly.

Trump tried unsuccessfully during his tenure in the White House to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but revamping the health care system clearly remains a priority for Republicans.

This is a good time to point out that no matter what Trump promises Kennedy and Musk, and no matter what Johnson hopes to do on health care, the realities of American government make it difficult to achieve radical change.

A minority in the Senate, assuming it has more than 40 senators, could block any attempt to actually dismantle the Affordable Care Act. The Senate is supposed to confirm top officials like Cabinet secretaries, although Trump and other presidents have found ways to get around that rule in the Constitution. It's unclear whether Kennedy could find the votes to be confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary or whether Trump would even nominate him. If Kennedy had a role in the White House, his ability to make sweeping changes would be limited.

While presidents have authority over the federal workforce and Trump worked to reclassify many federal employees to make them easier to fire when he was president, a start-from-scratch scenario would theoretically require l Congressional approval.

We can't say for sure what would require congressional approval since, unlike the detailed Project 2025 plan, there are no specific details corresponding to any of these big ideas. At least not yet.

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