‘The View’ Cohosts Say Elon Musk’s Federal Takeover Should Leave Americans ‘Enraged’

Amanda Bell February 4, 2025, 11:37 am

Comments

Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin — ABC

As the richest man in the world is being given apparent carte blanche to infiltrate the information systems of federal agencies in the United States government, the cohosts of The View are sounding the alarm bells for audiences to pay attention and act.

On Tuesday’s (February 4) episode, Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin were on the panel (with Joy Behar absent for reasons undisclosed) to discuss the threat Elon Musk and his team of DOGE (the nebulous Department of Government Effenciency, as authorized by Donald Trump) pose to everyday citizens.

“The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has full access to the U.S. Treasury’s federal payment system, and Democrats are ringing the alarm bell,” Goldberg said before rolling clips of several high-profile Democrats calling the Trump’s “the most corrupt administration in our history” and saying it’s putting “communities in serious jeopardy.” She then introduced a clip of Trump downplaying Musk’s access and insisting he can act “only if we agree with him.”

Goldberg then posed the question, “Are Americans going to be okay with Musk…” and the in-person audience immediately responded with a chorus of “No.”

After that, Haines jumped in to note that six of the men on Musk’s team are under 25 years old and noted, “Who are these people and why do they have access to any of your business? Well, they don’t. What they’re doing is actually illegal.” She then cited The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and said, “So it’s beyond Elon Musk. Donald Trump doesn’t have the power to do what he’s doing right now.” However, she also admitted that public outrage hasn’t met the moment because “Donald Trump floods the zone,” adding, “This is the thing people should keep their eye on because this flies in the face of our Constitution, and that’s where people should be enraged.”

Hostin then stepped in to offer a brief clinic on the separation of powers in the United States, explaining that it’s Congress who has the “power of the purse.” She then hypothesized that by allowing all of this, Trump is attempting to expand the power of his office.

“What even is the purpose of being in Congress, if things that you vote for, that you work on, could be just completely thrown out the window by the president?” Griffin then asked. She went on to explain that, as a fellow Republican, she is supportive of “cutting waste, fraud, and abuse” in government, but she’s miffed by the lack of clarity. “They need to say. Are we doing away with USAID? Are we moving it under the State Department? Are we doing away with the Department of Education? That’s something that is in the press right now that might be next on the chopping block.”

After turning their ire to the hiring of Darren Beattie, a man who has repeatedly said the U.S. needs “competent white men” to be in charge, to the State Department, Goldberg closed out the segment with a call to action for the crowd.

'The View' Cohosts Warn Trump Voters Will Suffer Most From Trade War

“When I was a little girl, that’s kind of what Washington looked like. Those are the folks that were in at one point,” she said. “What is going to be new is, if we stop paying attention, that’s going to be new. Because the thing that got Americans moving was they didn’t like that system. That system didn’t work. So we’ve worked and tried and tried to get women where they needed to be, people of color, where they needed to be, freedoms for gay people. We fought for all of that because that was the country we’re trying to get into. So see everything we’re talking about, hear us, and then you make a decision where you stand on all of this because it’s really up to each individual person whether they’re going to participate or not.”

The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC