Donald Trump has made it official: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to run a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (or D.O.G.E.), tasked with slashing the federal bureaucracy and spending. But will it be successful? Glenn and Stu review what’s standing in the way of mass firings and Vivek’s possibly genius plan to get around these hurdles.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Hello, Stu.

STU: Hi, Glenn, how are you doing?

GLENN: I think Donald Trump is becoming the greatest president to ever live. If this stuff happens, I may put him up -- honestly I may put him up with Lincoln.

STU: Wow! Wow. Well, he's trying to do a lot. If he can accomplish this, heavy lift.

GLENN: If he can accomplish it. Yeah. Heavy, heavy lift. Oh, my gosh. He speaks my language every night. I'm like, honey, can you leave us alone? I'm just reading the news of his latest proposal. I need some alone time right now.

It is -- woo. Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, okay. This is his -- his latest. Let me see if I can give the -- let me see if I can give the actual release first of what he said. Oh, it's just -- oh. It is so sweet.

So he comes out, and he says, look, what we're going to have is this Department of Government Efficiency. You know that Musk was involved. DOGE.

And he says, it's going to run until their duty will be over, by July 4th, '26, which is the 250th anniversary of America.

So we have a lot of work to do, until then. But we're going to give back to America, the government. Give it back to the people.

And so what they're talking about doing is finding all of the ways to cut waste. And Ramaswamy has come up with this great idea of how to fire people.

Okay. We know the problem is that, you just can't fire people, because they're just going to -- they're going to take you to court, every step of the way. Everybody is going to say. You want to fire me, because I was black or white, or whatever I am.

I'm handicapped, or not handicapped. And you can't fire me. That's all that is going to happen. Then they will go to court and say, the president cannot fire all of these people. We're still going to have that one.

But how does the Supreme Court rule, that the executive is not in charge of all of his employees? Because the executive branch is in charge of the cabinet and all of the cabinet positions. And all of the agencies, under those cabinet positions.

STU: Typically how organizations work. That's why I'm so nice to you.

GLENN: Correct. Wait. What?

STU: You know, you have this power over my job. So I have to be incredibly nice to you, all the time.

GLENN: Right.

So everybody -- if you are running a -- if you're running a company, and you need to reduce the size of the company, you will have companies -- they will just cut whole divisions, because they don't want any of the lawsuits.

It has to be random. And it has to be everybody.

Right?

So what Ramaswamy has come up with. And he said, this is only a thought exercise.

But I think it's brilliant. What he's come up with is, we're going to reduce the government by half. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to say, everyone who has an odd number at the end of their Social Security number, you're fired.

STU: Well -- wait.

GLENN: Now, it's just random. Now, these are not the people that are elected. Okay?

So if you're elected into that office. You're not fired.

But everybody else, because we're reducing the size of the government by half.

STU: Well, I love the idea of reducing the size of the government by half.

GLENN: Here he comes. Here he comes. Naysayer.
STU: I love the idea of reducing the government by half.

GLENN: How did we switch roles?

STU: I don't think I'm being a naysayer.

Let me ask you this: Go back to Glenn Beck back in the day for a moment. Rewind your life a tad. And think of yourself a little patch, a little badge, given out by George Washington. What did it say?

Do you remember what it said?

GLENN: Merit.

STU: Merit! Merit has nothing tolerance with random groups of firing. You want to fire the employees that suck, not just --

GLENN: No, I know that.

But to be able to get to the place, where you have merit. You have to reduce the size of the government first.

You have -- you have bloodletting, that have to happen. Okay? You have to cut it by half.

STU: You do.

GLENN: Now, there might be some really good people that we lose. Might be. Might be. Probably will be. Oh, well.

And then you cut it another -- by half again. By saying, everyone whose Social Security number starts.

STU: Has an even number.

GLENN: -- with an even number. You're gone. So now you've cut the government by 70 percent.

I don't think the people that remain will be focused on doing a good job?

STU: Yeah. I mean, I would like -- I think though, there is just structural limitations that need to occur. Right?

You really do. You will need to fire people that are actually pretty good employees. Because of the size of the government. And because of the bloat.

GLENN: You're going to. You can apply again.

STU: I just would like to lead with the crappy employees.

GLENN: So would I. We would have to -- I mean, remember, this is exactly what Calvin Coolidge did. He cut the federal workforce by half.

And then he cut taxes by half. And when he did that, we got the roaring '20s.

Can you imagine?

Because he's also wanting to cut the federal regulations. Anything that hasn't passed by Congress. So all of these -- the administrator will decide. All of those rules and regulations, gone!
Gone! Do you realize how free this country will be, all of a sudden, overnight?

I mean, hello, sexy! I mean, I'm sorry that I am -- I mean, this is conservative porn! This is what we've always wanted!

This is that hot girl walking in going, you do have a shot with me!

Yeah! Okay.

STU: I mean, it will be fascinating to see if they can pull this off.

GLENN: Oh. If there's anybody that can do it, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

STU: They're both. I would think. Especially Elon. Vivek has pretty obvious political aspirations here. He does.

Elon doesn't. He's the richest guy in the world. The only thing he cares about is doing this job, when it comes to this. I don't think he has any other aspirations.

GLENN: No. His aspirations are, I want to go Mars. Can you make that easier for me?

STU: Right. So it will be interesting. Because he will want to come in and do these things. And he's going to, I'm sure bump into all sorts of issues he's not used to dealing with in places like Tesla. Because at Tesla, he just legitimately fires the people. Right?

Obviously, there will be lots of road blocks, put in his way.

Trump, I think will do everything he can to remove them. But there's a lot of -- there's a lot of -- there's a lot of walls there, that he has to break through. I can't wait to see him try to do it.

GLENN: Oh, I know.

You know, if you can't shut down the Department of Education. Social Security number lottery happening right now.

I mean, think of that. Think of that.

And Donald Trump has said, what I've always said what I want to hear a president say. Real estate prices are going to plunge in the DC metro area.

Yeah! Yeah!

He's going to be cutting so many jobs. So many -- I mean, this is fantastic.

STU: I hate to step in the way of your optimism. I hate it. I hate it. Because you're like a little kid.

GLENN: I'm never like this.

STU: You're never like this.

GLENN: It's been since 2005, I've been a pessimist on what's coming. This is the first real shot we have. This is the moon shot. This is the moon shot. Are we going to make it to the moon? I don't know. We might blow up several people in the attempt to get there.

But if we stay focused, we will get there.

STU: I like it. I really do hope it happens. And, I mean, I think -- I have more optimism, than I normally would have, on such a thing like this.

Normally, I would be like, okay. They say this all the time. I don't know. It just feels like, usually, there's something that gets in the way.

I was thinking about the first Trump term on the border.

The second -- they came out with pretty tough border policies.

They said they were going to implement them.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: About, I don't know. A couple weeks into this. Families are being separated.

And then they changed the policy. This is Trump. This was in the Trump era. This is not like some other, you know, Mitch McConnell, and this mysterious Mitch McConnell presidency. This was Donald Trump.

And they backed off of it, because of all the pressure. Do you think maybe it's a second term, they're like, screw this. I'm not dealing with this anymore.

GLENN: Oh, I think maybe because he was in the first term, he didn't know what he didn't know. He didn't know who to trust.

He also didn't know what was coming. He knows now, what's come.

And he knows, I can't trust any of these people. I'm not going to listen. I'm just going to do what I know is right. I'm going to hire the best people in each area.

And then we're making a plan. And we're moving forward on day one.

STU: I love this Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck is a very optimistic guy. And it's going to be so sad to watch you get crushed.

It is going to be --

GLENN: Look, I know there's going to be -- there's going to be massive pushback. This is not going to be easy.

STU: No.

GLENN: But we at least have a guy. You know, look --

STU: It feels like --

GLENN: Everybody said when Ronald Reagan said, it's an evil empire, and we need to start calling it by name. You can't defeat it, unless you know what it is. That's an evil empire, and we will defeat it, okay?

I, for one, at the time was like, okay. That's scary. But I love that. All right? Finally calling it by its name. Calling it out. Saying, it's the end of that. Everybody fought against that. Even in his own administration. They were saying, don't say that anymore. Don't say that anymore.

He was just, I'm going to say it.

It's because of that, we defeated communism, the first time.

Because he just wouldn't stop.

What do you think is going to stop Donald Trump? What do you think will stop Donald Trump at this time?

What kind of namby-pamby, wishy-washy, guys can wear skirt talk, will stop Donald Trump from doing what he believes is right. Other than the Constitution.

STU: So to reverse this, if he fails, will you accuse him of wearing a namby-pamby skirt?

GLENN: No.

STU: I didn't think so.

GLENN: No. No, no, no, no. I will say that, here are the hurdles that we have to figure out how to get over. Okay?

They threw this in the way. Great. How do we get over?

He's not going to rest. He's not going to stop. He's not going to stop.

STU: It feels that way.

I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with what his priorities are. Right?

GLENN: Hang on. Let me give you -- and let me tell you, what I think happened to him, over the summer.

Okay?

Why I say, he's -- he's --

STU: He got shot.

GLENN: He got shot.

But what did that do to him?

And what else is playing a role?

GLENN: So Donald Trump was shot. He is the kind of guy that just keeps standing up. Okay. That's his natural tendency. Oh, you're going to hit me in the face? You're going to shoot me in the head?

Really. I'm going to get back up and say, fight.

STU: I thought that was going a different direction. Holy crap.
(laughter)

GLENN: So --

STU: That was a long F for that fight there.

GLENN: So he's the kind of guy that does that just naturally. Okay?

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And he's also the guy who -- he told me, after he lost the last election. In the most humble of ways. He became very, very reflective. And I said, how are you doing?

And he said, I can't believe I've let all of these people who fought for me, I let them down.

I lost the election. Remember, I told you this. I let them down.

I can't. Now we're reversing all of the things that we had made progress on.

I can't live with that. So he also really cares about you, the people.

He's the first politician, that I've seen, that I think actually thinks about you, first.

George Bush, thought about the troops. That was on his mind, all the time.

But this one, thinks about not only the troops.

But you. All the time.

He is serving you.

I truly believe that.

Now, what else happened to him? He gets up. He says, fight. Because that's who he is.

Also, he wanted to see the crowd.

You stood there, if you were in Pennsylvania, you didn't run and hide.

He knew he was part of a movement.

He also knew, this was a God thing.

So the natural thing is: Why was I saved?

He has told me, and he has told others, that he knows he was saved for a reason.

He believes that reason is to fix America. So now you have a much higher calling than, I am just me. I'm Donald Trump. I want to be whatever.

Plus, he knows that the -- the country is either sink or swim.

We're at the end of the republic. Or at the beginning.

Coincidentally, in this term, is our 250th anniversary.

It's not a coincidence that he has DOGE, the final day of their work, July 4th, '26. That's the date of the 250th anniversary. They're not going to gather information and then enact those things by July 4th, '26. He wants it done by then.

STU: That's the right approach.

GLENN: It is. And he wants to hand America back to her people and her founding principles in a year and a half. That's ripe for the economy. That's -- he believes that's his mission.

He believes that's his -- his mission, honestly from God.

I really believe that. He believes this is a nation with a purpose, a higher purpose. He believes in our founding documents.

He believes in you, the people.

He is quite possibly the refounder I have looked for, my whole life. And I can't believe it.

STU: It's an amazing.

I'm more amazed by your optimism, generally, than I am by even the giant aspirations here by the president.

But I'm excited about it. I think it's a great -- first of all, it's nice to have a little hope. Right?

GLENN: I haven't had hope since 2008.

STU: Yeah. It's nice. It's a good feeling.

GLENN: Yeah. It's really nice.

STU: Like I am super optimistic I think from my scale as to what someone like Elon Musk can accomplish. If given the sort of room he needs to operate. Look, it's all going to be tough.

When you talk about the budget and stuff, a lot of stuff comes out of these programs like Medicare, that I don't know is necessarily going to be the focus of this. Do you know?

Is it going to be looking at these generalized programs. They're not diving into Medicare. Because you can't do that without legislation.

GLENN: No. He's not doing that. He's not looking at anything that Congress has to do first.

STU: Right.

GLENN: He wants to cut the size of the federal government and regulation which will give you control of your life back.

STU: I feel like, that's too why he's not too worried about taking people out of the House for these appointments.

Because I think he knows, he's got a few months, where he will be doing executive order type stuff. Executive management, before he's looking necessarily at that first bill.

GLENN: Yeah. He has to be careful on that. He needs to make sure he keeps the House.

But, I mean, this could turn the country around economically, pretty quickly.