Musk admits DOGE dorks cut Ebola prevention—but says it’s no biggie
Co-President Elon Musk on Wednesday admitted that the shady Department of Government Efficiency that he leads but doesn’t actually run has made some serious errors, including “briefly” canceling Ebola prevention efforts before reversing the decision.
Musk made the comment during Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, where the unqualified cast of losers Trump picked to lead the country’s federal agencies heaped praise upon Dear Leader in a way that would make a noncultist’s skin crawl.
“We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we do make mistakes we will fix it quickly,” Musk said during the meeting, which he commandeered in a way that should make everyone question who exactly is running things in the Trump administration.
“So for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola, Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately and there was no interruption,” Musk said nonchalantly.
The United States has provided millions of dollars to prevent the spread of Ebola, a horrifying virus that causes organ failure and internal bleeding, leading to a slow and painful death in as many as 50% of people who contract it, according to the World Health Organization (which Trump has withdrawn the United States from).
Musk’s admission that DOGE’s efforts to cut the federal budget by gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development led to the cancellation of Ebola prevention efforts is the first time the country learned of the “mistake.”
But it isn’t the only potentially deadly “mistake” DOGE has made.
For example, the DOGE-led mass purge of federal workers caused the layoffs of 300 people who help oversee the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile. The government had to rush to hire those people back or else risk the country’s national security.
The Department of Agriculture also had to rush to hire back the fired federal workers who were working on bird flu mitigation efforts. The bird flu is currently ravaging chicken populations in the United States, leading to skyrocketing egg prices and shortages. And that doesn’t even take into account the risk that the virus could jump to humans, causing another deadly viral outbreak like the COVID-19 pandemic that Trump failed to manage during his first term.
What’s more, the Food and Drug Administration had to scramble to hire back 180 highly trained medical device workers who monitor the safety of X-ray machines and surgical implants, among others—pretty critical things that you don’t want malfunctioning in or around your body.
And lawmakers had to beg the Trump administration to hire back fired workers who oversee the program that reimburses health care treatment costs for 9/11 first responders and survivors who were sickened from their exposure to the air after the World Trade Center towers fell.
Voters from across the country have begun to show up at Republican lawmakers’ town hall meetings to voice frustration with Musk and DOGE, and urge GOP members of Congress to stop his rampage through the federal government.
Ultimately, Musk’s DOGE effort has been so shambolic that even Republican lawmakers are urging him to slow down to avoid these costly disasters.
“I understand the need to find efficiencies and I support that, but we need to do it in a responsible way so we don’t have unintended consequences,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York during a CNN interview. “What happened last week when we saw the rash decision to fire people and take away grants from the CDC, we saw the 9/11 health care program in New York City that benefits so many first responders and survivors from 9/11 that I represent, we had to go back to the White House and get that reversed.”
But given that Trump has embraced Musk and even let him take over during Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, don’t expect the bigoted billionaire’s behavior to change.
“An average person who did something as incompetent as “accidentally cancelling Ebola prevention” wouldn’t be applauded, they’d be fired,” Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said in a post on X. “Musk is failing up in this administration because he didn’t earn his job, he bought it. It’s corrupt, and risks Americans’ health and safety.”
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