In defense of whom?

Of Elon Musk, of course---the most hated man on the planet. 

And who is defending him? A senator Kennedy---John Kennedy---who's not part of the Kennedy clan, and unrelated to the new US health hecretary.

John Kennedy, junior US senator for Louisiana

This is apparently a speech on the US Senate floor:

"I wanna try to put in perspective what many of my Democratic friends have been talking about today. They're very, very, very upset at president Trump, and they're very, very, very upset at Elon Musk. President Trump ran for president on a number of issues. One of the issues he ran on, he said it almost every day. He said, if you will make me president, I'm gonna go through the entire budget and review all the spending line by line."

"I heard if I heard him say that once, I heard him say it a thousand times. And that's what he's been doing. He went out and appointed through an executive order, Elon Musk, who, people some people like him, some don't, but he's not a dummy. He's a very successful business person. He's got a top secret security clearance."

"President Trump issued an executive order and he turned to mister Musk, and he said, mister Musk, I want you to do for me what I said I was gonna do in the election. I want you to go through all the spending line by line. Now let me ask you something, mister president. How are you gonna review the spending without reviewing the spending? How are you gonna audit the spending by an agency without auditing the agency?"

"That's what I mean when I say common sense is illegal in Washington DC. That's what mister Musk is doing. He's put together a crackerjack team and, they're going through everybody spending line by line, item by item. And my my Democratic colleagues are very, very, very upset. And they they're they've been very eloquent."

"They've talked about the process and, president Trump's executive order supposedly violates the constitution, and they've accused mister Musk of having conflicts of interest. And so I've heard people say he's sitting over there with a notepad copying down everybody's social security number, and he's gonna go use it to make money. I mean, people in this town, not just my democratic colleagues, they're really upset." 

"They've never said anybody question their spending. But that's what Mr. Musk is doing. But you know what? I've listened. This has been going on for a week. People have been screaming like they're part of a prison riot."

"Oh, my God. Look at what Musk is doing. He's looking at the spending. And I've listened to people talk about the process and debate whether it's constitutional and and and and discuss how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pen. But you know what?"

"I haven't heard one single person who's upset with president Trump or mister Musk talk about what he's found. They don't wanna talk about the spending the spending porn, the waste of taxpayer money that he's found. I mean, that's the point of all of this. I tell you who is interested, the American people. The people in America who get up every day and go to work and obey them all and pay their taxes and try to educate their kids and try to do the right thing by their kids and try to save a little money for retirement."

"And they've had to to to, to live through 20% inflation under president Biden. They understand what Musk is doing. They understand spending porn and wasting taxpayer money. Now mister Musk started with the USAID That hands handles a lot of, a foreign aid for American American people, very generous. In in our country, you know, when you're homeless, we'll we'll house you."

"When you're, when you're hungry, we'll feed you. In our country, when you're too poor to be sick, we'll pay for your doctor. And and we we send a lot of money overseas to help our world's neighbors. And the USAID is in charge in large part of that. But I'll tell you what mister Musk discovered."

"I found it it fascinating. He discovered that the American taxpayers are giving money to, Afghanistan. He found that we are giving money to Yemen. He found that we are giving money to Syria. I didn't know that. Some of our foreign aid is going to Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria. He found that the USAID has 10,000 people. 10,000 people, employees. And every year, they give away $40,000,000,000. Mister Musk, also found and I'm not saying that that all of this money is wasteful."

"I'm not. Some of this money, I'm sure, does some good. That's why secretary Rubio is gonna revamp the the the department to separate the good from the bad. But this is the kind of stuff mister Musk found. He he found that the USAID, gave money to support electric vehicles in Vietnam."

"Our money, taxpayer money. He found that, USAID gave money to a transgender clinic in India. I didn't know that. I bet the American people didn't know that. He found that, USAID gave $1,500,000 to a Serbian l b LGBTQ group called Grupa Zlodadji."

"I probably mispronounced that. My apologies. Anyway, they got $1,500,000 to quote, advance diversity, commitment. What else did mister Musk found that my colleagues don't wanna talk about? Well, he he reviewed a study and then went and checked it."

"The study was done by the Middle East Forum. They found that USAID spent a hundred and $64,000,000 to support radical organizations about around the world. We're not talking Cub Scout troops here. We're talking about radical organizations around the world. They gave a hundred and $22,000,000 of that to groups aligned with foreign terrorist organizations, our taxpayer money."

"According to this report in mister Musk, the USAID has given millions of dollars to, quote, organizations in Gaza controlled by Hamas. Why why why aren't my colleagues talking about that? Recipients of the money they found have, quote, called for their lands to be cleansed from the impurity of Jews. That's what we're getting my foreign aid too. What else?"

"I'm not gonna spend my whole time talking about this, but nobody else is talking about it. They're just talking about the process and mister Musk, and he's a mean guy, and he shouldn't be looking at our spending. Well, he is. And I kinda find that I kinda find what he's found out interesting. He found that we gave $2,000,000, USAID did, for sex changes in Guatemala."

"He found that we gave $20,000,000 to produce a new Sesame Street show in Iraq. He found that we, we gave $4,500,000 of taxpayer money to combat miss disinformation in Kazakhstan. He found that we gave $10,000,000, USAID did, of meals to an Al Qaeda linked terrorist group called the Nusra Front. Mister Musk found that we gave $7,900,000 of taxpayer money to a project that would teach Sri Lankan journalists to avoid binary gendered language. We took the USAID took $8,000,000 and gave it to a bunch of journalists in Sri Lanka to teach them how to avoid binary gendered language."

"I don't know what the hell binary gendered language is. I think I do. You think most taxpayers would support that? Why aren't we talking about that? USAID gave $1,500,000 to promote LGBT advocacy in Jamaica."

"They gave $1,500,000 to rebuild the Cuban media ecosystem. They gave $1,500,000 for, quote, art for inclusion of people with disabilities in Belarus. Another $3,900,000 for LGBT causes in Macedonia. Eight Point Three Million Dollars for equity and inclusion education in Nepal. I could I could go all night."

"And many of my colleagues are upset. They're really mad, mister Musk. Hell, I think we ought to give him a medal. All he's doing is what president Trump said he was gonna do. President Trump said he's gonna audit the spending."

"So Trump goes and hires Musk, again, with a top top secret security clearance. Nobody can quibble with his intelligence, you know. The guy's as smart as Einstein's cousin. He's a very successful businessman. Some say he's the richest guy in the world."

"And he's doing the auditing. And man, he's finding a lot of stuff. I call it spending porn. Now I'm not saying everything that USAID does is wasted. But I'm saying a lot of it is. A hell of a lot of it is. And we ought to be on the floor of this United States Senate thanking Mr. Musk. And we ought to be asking him to go through every agency and look at everybody's budget. Everybody's budget."

"That's what the American people want. They don't wanna talk about process. They they they they they don't want to, to continue with the Washington way. They wanna save some money. Now let me tell you what's really going on here too, mister president."

"For four years under president Biden and for what? Eight years under president Obama. I have all the respect in the world for president Biden and president Obama. Tough job. But between them, they spent twelve years in Washington, and president set the tone. They they they they control the questions that are asked. And here's the question that President Obama and President Biden asked for eight years. I heard it every for twelve years. I heard it every single day. Who needs to pay more in taxes?"

"Is it you? Is it you? Who needs to pay more in taxes? We need more money. Who needs to pony up more? That was the issue. But that's not the issue today. We have a new president. You know what the issue is today? What the hell happened to all the money?"

"What the hell happened to all the money? And that's what mister Musk is finding out. That's all this is about. And and I'm just I'm just shocked that my colleagues have decided that this is a hill they're gonna die on. How can you look the American people in the eye and support this kind of waste, support this kind of spending porn?"

"I mean, the the the election to me made up at least one thing clear, that the American people were sick and tired of people in Washington denying reality. The the last administration tried to convince us that we were living in a crime free world where inflation was temporary and the border was secure, and the American people didn't buy it. You know why? Because it wasn't true. And, the administration our last administration tried to argue that Bidenomics was making our lives better, but the American people knew differently."

"They they understood Bidenomics to mean, I get to to spend more to live worse, and they voted. Now, I mean, the American people were poor under the last administration, but they didn't become stupid. That they could see that the government was creating a problem, not trying to fix it. And they noticed the national debt too. Put up that first chart for me."

"You know what our national debt is, mister president? Thirty six trillion dollars. Not million, not billion. 36 trillion dollars. It takes my breath away. Highest it's ever been over a % of our gross domestic product. Our debt's growing faster than our economy, and we toss around these numbers a trillion, a billion, a million. Since 02/2019, America's population has grown 2%. We're not having babies. 2%."

"And that's after massive immigration. You know how much our budget has grown? 55%. Fifty five %. Yeah.We've had inflation. We hadn't had 55% worth of inflation. That's how we got to this $36 trillion in debt. Put up the next chart for me. Now some of this money we had to spend during the pandemic, and and, and and it was a bipartisan effort during the pandemic."

"Republicans voted for it and Democrats voted for it because we had no choice. I was there. I saw it from the inside. We came this close to losing the American economy. And you know who helped a lot? Doesn't get enough credit? Jay Powell of the Federal Reserve. I watched it. The whole world wanted to go into a cave and retreat. Back in the great recession, I remember all the other countries in the world who looked to us."

"They may hate us, but they know we're the greatest country in all of human history. They look to America. And you know what? Back in the great recession, all the other countries wanted our our they wanted treasuries. Treasury notes, treasury bonds. Not this time. They were so scared. They didn't want treasures. They wanted dollars. Cash dollars."

"So Jay Powell, thank thank the Lord, he goes over to the Federal Reserve. He opens what's called a currency swap line, and he told every country, you want dollars? I'll trade your dollars for your current currency. And everything calmed down. You don't get any credit for that, but it was a gutsy thing to do."

"But on top of that, save the American economy. That wasn't helping the American economy. We had we had to to to keep the economy going. We spent a lot of money, but then COVID ended. And what we should have done was go back to free COVID spending."

"But we didn't do that. President Biden, after the the, the the shutdowns and the coronavirus, the pandemic was over, passed the American rescue plan. COVID was over. He spent $1,900,000,000,000. Never let a good crisis go to waste. I didn't vote for it. Then he came back and passed what he called an infrastructure bill. It was really just the Green New Deal. I know what's in that bill. That was another $1,200,000,000,000."

"And then he passed the Inflation Reduction Act. I didn't vote for it, but that was another 1,000,000,000,000. And then he passed the Chips Act. This is really special. He said, big tech. The semiconductor companies need our money. They need taxpayer money. They're not making enough money. And he gave them money. He didn't give hardware stores money."

"President Biden didn't give the health care industry money. He said, I wanna help big tech. And, boy, they sucked it up like a Hoover deluxe. We spent $280,000,000,000 subsidizing big tech. And you add it all up and that's 4.3, almost $4,500,000,000,000, and that's how we got $36,000,000,000,000 in debt."

"And that's why Donald Trump said I'm gonna look at every single light item we're we're spending, and that's why he hand he, gave the job to Elon Musk, and that's why Musk is auditing these accounts. But nobody wants to talk about what he's finding. Nobody wants to talk about the spending point except the American people. They get it, mister president. They get it."

"And I hope mister Musk continues. My, my colleague and friend, we had a little discussion in banking today. Senator Warner makes a good point. He wants mister Musk to come over and talk to congress about how he's doing this. I'm all for that."

"I am all for that. I would love to have him come over and and walk us through what he's doing and how he's discovering all this spending for him. We need all the help we can get on reducing our spending because we can't continue at this pace. I just want to spend a few minutes putting all this in perspective, mister president. The world's not gonna spend off its taxes, folks."

"Every business that I know of goes through an audit. Now we're being audited, but we're being audited by, not by, the usual auditors, but we're being audited by a person appointed by the president of The United States. And I'm I'm betting betting you when he's through, and he's gonna go go to all these agencies. He's starting on the Department of Education next. I think he'll end up finding that some of our money is being well spent, but he's also gonna find that some of our money is being stolen and it's being wasted."

"And that's an insult to every taxpayer in this country. So I'm also I'm gonna end like I began. We ought to be giving mister Muska medal. We ought to be thanking him. Maybe nobody else wants to hear about the spending porn, but I can't wait to read the book."

"I hope he finds all of it and compiles it. I hope Marco Rubio, our new secretary of state, takes USAID and shakes them by the shoulder and lifts up the good people there and fires the bad people, the people that wasted taxpayer money like this, given money to terrorist organizations, given money to organizations that support Hamas. Hope he gets rid of every single one of them. And I think if we if we listen to mister Musk, we can save a lot of money. And I hope he does come over and explain, explain what he's doing."