Analysis: A nascent backlash against Musk sharpens risk for Trump and GOP

CNN

26-02-2025

The resistance may be stirring.
Elon Musk's chainsaw is not only slashing away at the bureaucracy but is generating the first warning signs that it could eventually cut deep into the political standing of President Donald Trump and his MAGA allies.
Political risks are rising for Republicans as court defeats pile up for the administration and as confusion is fomented by conflicting instructions from the SpaceX chief-turned-government cost cutter and the rest of the administration.
Trump often prospers in the chaos that he foments, and the erratic swathe that Musk is slicing through the civil service is a direct response to the fury many voters expressed in last year's election. And for some in Trump's base who embrace the president's anti-elite rhetoric, the act of subjecting federal workers to fear and pain may be a political end in itself. Among conservatives more generally, meanwhile, cutting government is perennially popular.
So, Musk's onslaught may still be a winner – at least for now.
But pushback from some of the most authentic Make America Great Again Cabinet secretaries to Musk's email to federal workers asking 'what did you do last week?' hints at another possibility – concern that confusion and morale-busting assaults on staff could make it harder to enact Trump's agenda.
Two dozen and counting court challenges to the constitutionality of the administration's dramatic personnel and cost cutting purges could be similarly chilling to the president's goals. As could several cases testing whether Musk is acting legally in assuming more power than any private citizen in modern history.
Some GOP members of Congress are meanwhile beginning to experience a backlash over Musk's frenzy — including in rowdy town hall meetings that have gone viral. While it's unclear whether these represent the first roots of a political uprising, or just canny progressive organizing, they're a reminder that the federal government is not limited to Washington but is also a huge red state employer.
And while Musk's wild anti-government theater fits Trump's shock-and-awe application of raw power since his White House return, some lawmakers are wondering whether the sheer velocity of his effort could be politically counterproductive.
'Things are happening so fast and furiously,' Rep Nicole Malliotakis told CNN's Manu Raju on Tuesday. 'We need to take a step back and make sure that we're doing things in a way that we are rooting out the waste, the fraud and the abuse and the mismanagement, making programs efficient but not resulting in unintended consequences,' the New York Republican said.
Some recent polls have shown majority public disapproval of Musk's Blitzkrieg through the federal government and concern about his potential overreach. In a CNN/SSRS poll last week, 51% said Trump had gone too far in cutting federal programs and 53% thought it was bad that Musk is so prominent.
If attitudes towards Musk harden, they could crystallize into broader opposition to what many critics see as an unprecedented and unconstitutional attempt to destroy the rule of law and the federal government. This would deepen the intrigue over the friendship between the world's richest man and its most powerful man. Their capacity to preserve their relationship under stress could also shed light on one of the key unknowns of the president's second term: If his plans for the most far-reaching shake-up of US governance and society in decades make him unpopular — will he press on or take it down a notch?
So far, Trump has shown no sense of disengaging from Musk or that he's whipped up an incoming political storm. 'I thought it was great,' the president said Monday of his friend's demand for federal workers to reply to an email justifying their productivity last week. For now, the Tesla pioneer is the personification of his determination to ensure that this term, no one will rein in his power grabs.
The White House will attempt to dispel any suggestions of concern within the administration over Musk's role when he shows up to the first Cabinet meeting of the president's second term on Wednesday.
'The president and Elon and his entire Cabinet are working as one unified team,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Tuesday brought another dizzying spate of developments in the high-speed effort to dismember the US government and in the drama surrounding Musk.
— Twenty-one United States Digital Service technology staffers, including skilled engineers, designers and data scientists resigned. The staffers complained of hostile interviews from DOGE employees and said that in the current extreme circumstances they could no longer honor their oaths to serve the people and uphold the Constitution. Their gesture threatens to severely hamper government operations through the loss of experts who best understand its operating system.
But Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University's Stern School of Business, said that the symbolic value of the resignations of public servants who intimately understand the government's operating systems, would outstrip any operational risk their departures posed. 'The federal government is a big workforce, a couple of million. So, 20 people leaving is not going to change the situation in some dramatic way,' Barrett said. 'What's important here is that, like some of their brother and sister civil servants who have resigned or been willing to be fired rather than cooperating with the Musk-DOGE rampage, these people are saying, 'We will not cooperate. We will not obey. This is not legitimate.''
— In another development likely to exacerbate concerns about crushed legal and personnel protections, the Office of Management and Budget, along with the Office of Personnel Management, are expected to issue a memo that will direct agencies to prepare for large-scale firings, CNN's Alayna Treene reported.
— Trump meanwhile sowed new confusion about Musk's directive to federal employees to detail their productivity after the tech mogul several times said a failure to respond would be tantamount to a resignation. 'Well, it's somewhat voluntary, but it's also, if you don't answer, I guess you get fired,' Trump said in the Oval Office. 'What it really is, what it is, is – do people exist?' he added, underscoring the baffling logic and execution of his government gutting plan.
— A federal judge indefinitely blocked the administration from freezing federal loans and grants. That move, in the first days of the administration caused nationwide uproar as vital services were shuttered, showing for the first time how the loss of federal services could impact daily life and be a political liability. 'Defendants' actions were irrational, imprudent, and precipitated a nationwide crisis,' said US District Judge Loren AliKhan.
— Another federal judge halted Trump's executive order that indefinitely suspended refugee admissions, while a second ordered the administration to pay foreign-aid related funds owed to government contractors and nonprofits by Wednesday following Musk's evisceration of USAID.
— Hostility towards government runs deep in America's DNA. But the callous treatment of thousands of government employees who've been fired, including probationary workers, often with little notice or compensation, seemingly at the whim of Musk and his young followers, has been callous. Some of those workers spent Tuesday going door to door in the Senate demanding action. 'Our goal is to just start putting some faces and names to all the federal workers who have been impacted by the furloughs, layoffs, immediate firings by Musk and DOGE,' said Elizabeth Glidden, who was fired as a technical program officer in USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. 'It's been terrible. I've cried everyday,' Glidden said. 'I go through waves of crying, anger, frustration.'
The human toll of the firings, as well as the concern among Americans over potentially lost government help is beginning to crest into political momentum, CNN's Annie Grayer reported. Several House Republicans pleaded with leadership Tuesday for guidance on handling a deluge of questions from constituents about recent cuts, multiple sources said. GOP lawmakers are on a tightrope between pro-Trump base voters and constituents being hurt by Musk's destruction.
Malliotakis said Trump had appointed 'very smart people' as Cabinet secretaries and they should be empowered to make cuts. 'This idea that they were going to just fire people via Twitter, Elon Musk, that to me, seems rash,' she said. The New York lawmaker is far from the most endangered Republican in next year's midterm election, so her concern is notable.
But so far, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is already hampered by a tiny majority, is holding the line. 'I think the vast majority of the American people understand and applaud and appreciate the DOGE effort, the goal to scale down the size and scope of government,' the Louisiana Republican said.
GOP Senate Majority Leader John Thune was more mindful of the humanity of the federal workers let go, while sharing the goal of trimming government, saying 'It needs to be done in a respectful way.'
Respectful is the antithesis of Musk's approach – one reason why it's worth watching whether he develops into a political liability for Trump.
Revolts often start from a small pile of political kindling – for instance, the Tea Party movement that reached critical mass in response to the early policies of President Barack Obama. Barrett believes that significant political pressure on even a small number of GOP members in Congress could slow the DOGE purge. He said: 'I think there's every chance in the world that a handful of members of Congress will summon the courage to confront Trump and suffer his wrath if they get enough constituents back home telling them 'Hey, we sent you to Washington and we've had enough of this. This is this is chaos, craziness.''
Should such a backlash develop, Musk's swinging of a chainsaw above his head at the Conservative Political Action Conference will be seen less as an exuberant emblem of disruption and more an act of hubris that presaged a political fall.