“We cannot allow Elon Musk and a small group of people to secretly, behind closed doors, take away our privacy, take away our dollars, take away everything we have,” said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. “I am going to stand with you in this fight! And we will win,” said Schumer, who led a chant of those words.
“We will let them know, especially the Republicans, that we will not take this!,” said Rep. LaMonica McIver. “We will fight back! And as I close out… God d*mnit, shut down the Senate! We are at war! Any time a person can pay $250 million into a campaign and they be given access to the Department of Treasury of the United States of America, we are at war!”
As Rep. Dave Min took to the podium, a chant of "lock him up" broke out in the crowd about Musk.
Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley went a step further in calling Musk a “Nazi,” warning him that “we will see you in the streets.”
“With unprecedented organizing, mobiliging [sic], mobilizing, agitating, we will see you in the courts, and Congress, and the streets. Elon Musk is a Nazi nepo-baby,” she said to loud applause. “A lawless, Godless billionaire, and no one elected Elon. This is the American people. This is not your trashy cyber truck that you can dismantle in the park and sell the pieces of,” she continued.
Protests come after Representatives from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were granted access to the federal payment system by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, providing Musk’s team with a new tool to monitor and limit government spending.
The federal payment system is responsible for sending funds on behalf of the government, and access to it could support the Trump administration’s broader efforts to restrict spending on programs they oppose. Musk, who has been tasked by President Trump with identifying wasteful government expenditures, took to X on Saturday to claim that the Treasury Department has been approving fraudulent or improper payments.
