The Gateway Pundit’s Jordan Conradson fires off questions at the White House Press Briefing on Thursday, February 20, 2025.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller gave an epic response Thursday to the fake news media’s smears of Elon Musk and the DOGE team, giving them a civics lesson and schooling them on the bureaucratic corruption that the Trump Administration is tackling.
This was in response to The Gateway Pundit’s question on the media’s narrative that Elon Musk is a dangerous unelected bureaucrat.
Despite Musk’s help to cut billions in waste, fraud, and abuse, as well as unnecessary bureaucratic positions from our government, they’re attacking him while ignoring that the bureaucratic deep state has been running the country for the last four years.
“many of the people in this room, for four years, failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country,” Miller said before giving what he called a “brief civics lesson.”
WATCH:
Conradson: You said roughly $50 billion is set to be cut in a year of waste, fraud, and abuse by unelected bureaucrats. We’re hearing this ironic narrative from the President’s critics and the leftwing media that Elon Musk is an unelected bureaucrat and he’s doing all this terrible stuff. Isn’t one of DOGE’s objectives to get rid of the federal bureaucracy, the deep state? And also, who was running the White House when Joe Biden was in office? I don’t know a single person who believes it was Joe Biden.
Miller: You’re tempting me to say some very harsh things about some of our media friends. Yes, it is true that many of the people in this room, for four years, failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country. It is also true that many people in this room, who have used this talking point that Elon is not elected, fail to understand how government works. So I’m glad for the opportunity for a brief civics lesson.
A president is elected by the whole American people. He’s the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation, right? Judges are appointed. Members of Congress are elected at the district or state level. Just one man, and the Constitution Article Two has a clause known as the vesting clause, and it says the executive power shall be vested in a president, singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president. That president then appoints staff to then impose that democratic will onto the government.
The threat to democracy, indeed, the existential threat to democracy, is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime, tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one, who believe they can do whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for. So, Americans vote for radical FBI reform, and FBI agents say they don’t want to change. Or Americans vote for radical reform under energy policies, but EPA bureaucrats say they don’t want to change. Or Americans vote to end DEI, racist DEI policies, and lawyers at the Department of Justice say they don’t want to change. What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett also responded to this reporter’s question about President Trump’s plans to replace the federal income tax with revenue generated from tariffs on foreign imports.
President Trump has announced that his External Revenue Service will collect tariffs from foreign countries and counter the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) taxation of American citizens. During a rally last month in Las Vegas, Nevada, the President hinted that he would abolish the federal income tax.
When asked if this was possible amid the massive cuts in waste, fraud, and abuse, Hassett said, “Absolutely,” and noted that the U.S. will receive “between 500 billion and a trillion dollars over 10 years” from tariffs.
Conradson: President Trump has spoken about replacing income tax with tariff revenue. Especially with all this waste, fraud and abuse that we’re seeing cut, is that a possibility?
Hassett: Absolutely, and in fact, if you think about the China tariff revenue that we’re estimating is coming in from the 10% that we just added, plus the de minimis thing, then it’s between 500 billion and a trillion dollars over 10 years is our estimate. And that’s something that is outside of the reductions that markets are seeing through the negotiations up on the Hill. And so we expect that the tariff revenue is actually going to make it much easier for Republicans to pass a bill, and that was the President’s plan all along.
As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, Leavitt and senior officials from the White House held a press briefing Thursday to tout the one-month accomplishments and historic progress of the Trump Administration.
WATCH LIVE: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Holds Press Briefing With Senior White House Officials
Watch the full clip below:
The post WATCH: TGP’s Jordan Conradson Fires Off Questions at Press Briefing – WH Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller Scolds Leftist Media Over DOGE Attacks – Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett CONFIRMS Tariff Revenue Could Replace Income Tax appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.