ICYMI: Rep. Cisneros Rebukes Elon Musk for Prioritizing Personal Gain and Bypassing the American People

Washington, DC – Yesterday, Congressman Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr. joined Spectrum News 1 to express his concerns with Elon Musk’s power grab and continued to call on him to answer to Congress. Rep. Cisneros highlighted how Musk has illegally obtained the private data of American citizens, upended the lives of thousands of Americans and public employees, and bypassed Congressional oversight. Rep. Cisneros spoke on the House floor earlier this week condemning Elon Musk and President Trump for twisting the purpose of government for their own personal gain, rather than working to improve the lives of everyday Americans.

The interview can be watched here.

A partial transcript of the interview can be found below:

“The amount of power that they have given an individual who is not and never been a government employee, or even an appointee by the President,... it just goes beyond anything that has ever happened in this country before and it needs to stop.”

Yeah, I mean, you bring up some good points there, which is the question that I wanted to ask you. In terms of the way that he has been, given this power, is it unusual for someone who is not vetted? Who has not been appointed who has not been approved and gone through committees?

“Not only is it unusual, like I said, it's unprecedented that this is going on. This has never happened before in our country's history. And I will tell you the one thing that Elon probably won't stop is the funding going to SpaceX… They are trying to buy out government employees, which was not authorized by Congress. They stopped funding that's already been appropriated by Congress. That is illegal, but Congress has the power of the purse… I just had some individuals in my office, moments ago talking about how they've received letters telling them not to spend any of their grant money.”

…

What is the legislative branch saying about this though? Because you're asking Republican members of Congress to speak out. Is this something that's being talked about in the Halls of Congress? Are there concerns? What are your colleagues saying to you?

“Unfortunately Republican colleagues are staying silent right now on this issue. They are going along with the program. For me, it's unfortunate to see that they have no respect for the branch of government that they've been elected to, the House of Representatives. We are not supposed to be cut out of the picture, we're supposed to be part of the picture. We're not here to do the President's bidding. And it doesn't matter who the president is, whether it's a Democrat, a Republican, we are here to do oversight.”

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