Yambo Finally Puts The Brakes On Elmo’s Authority, Sort Of
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The Talking Yam convened his Cabinet yesterday to tell them, “You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.” (I wonder where they got that idea!) According to sources, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make “recommendations” to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musky Man was also in the room. Via Politico:
The president’s message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to Trump’s new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role — but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel, policy and the pacing of implementation.
Musk joined the conversation and indicated he was on board with Trump’s directive. According to one person familiar with the meeting, Musk acknowledged that DOGE had made some missteps — a message he shared earlier this week with members of Congress.
Trump stressed that he wants to keep good people in government and not to eject capable federal workers en masse. But his administration has in recent weeks fired tens of thousands of federal workers across numerous agencies in a series of blanket terminations. A federal judge and the chair of a federal civil service board have both concluded that the terminations were not tied to performance issues — and may have violated civil service laws.
It is unclear whether the new guidance will result in laid off workers getting rehired.
After the meeting, Yambo later told reporters he wants Cabinet members to “keep all the people you want, everybody that you need.”
BUT BUT BUT he also said he wanted cuts. “If they can cut, it’s better. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”
Talk about mixed messages! Sounds more like a threat: “Big, beautiful cuts, or we send in the DOGE hounds!”
Judges have increasingly expressed frustration and bewilderment at the Trump administration’s inability to explain who is in charge of the bureaucracy-culling effort and whether Musk himself is playing any role in ordering up the steep cuts to programs and jobs.
Complicating the matter further, Trump declared during his address to Congress Tuesday that Musk is indeed the “head” of DOGE, a label that immediately reverberated in several of the Musk-focused court cases. Trump’s assertion conflicted with the White House’s representation in court last month that Musk had no independent authority to make policy decisions.
Just sounds like Yambo is doing some CYA for all these court challenges!