MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday dismissed Elon Musk’s black eye ― visible last week during his final day as a special government employee ― as the defining metaphor of the chaos he’s left behind in Washington.
Instead, Maddow suggested the world’s richest person’s time running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aimed at slashing public spending, could be better summed up by the destruction its employees wreaked at the independent, non-profit U.S. Institute of Peace.
DOGE members allegedly fired staff, wiped IT systems and canceled contracts after taking the organization’s building by force, said Maddow. After a federal judge ruled DOGE’s actions as illegal, she said, staff returned to reportedly find water damage, evidence of rats and even marijuana allegedly left behind.
“It’s just pure pointlessness and waste,” said Maddow. “Yes, the black eye was cute, but may I suggest that this is perhaps more on the nose as the legacy of what the Trump administration has done through Trump’s top campaign donor, Elon Musk, as Elon Musk leaves Washington.”
“A building seized pointlessly. Shut down pointlessly. Left to be infested by vermin. All so its rightful owners can eventually come back and have to put it all back together again. For no reason at all. I think that’s a better metaphor,” she added.
Maddow elsewhere on her show slammed the “performatively cruel” crackdown on undocumented immigrants that’s being ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration.
She pointed out multiple recent examples of egregious behavior, including the “bananas” moment that Homeland Security Investigations agents last week raided an Italian restaurant in San Diego while dressed as if “they were going to be invading Fallujah” in Iraq.
The sweep on the Buona Forchetta eatery involved “multiple clown cars of Trump’s HSI agents in full battle rattle with helmets and long guns and flak jackets and goggles and masks,” noted Maddow.
They looked like “they were going to rappel out of helicopters into the Tora Bora cave complex to fight Al Qaeda,” she continued.
Busboys and waiters were detained in the raid.
When “the whole neighborhood” came out to protest, Maddow said “Trump’s immigration agents had no idea what to do” and set off “what appeared to be these flashbang smoke grenades” in response.
“Seriously. This is not a sign of strength, this is not a show of force,” she said. “This is a show of weakness and cluelessness.”
“These guys talked themselves into the idea that the country would be so excited to see them be really performatively cruel to immigrants, right? They thought this would be a great political advantage for them,” she added. “Turns out, everywhere they try it. Everyone in America hates it. Everyone hates what they’re doing.”
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