since starting Doge Elon Musk has saved

taxpayers hundreds of bill so the actual

savings is around two billion according

to budget experts so Elon needs help and

we spoke to some people who can help him

here's how much money they've saved you

75 billion well over10 billion I think

10.8 billion 30 billion hard dollars

14.5 billion doll at least hundreds of

millions of dollars at Nasa they might

not be 19 and they don't have chainsaws

but these people know a thing or two

about saving you

money we did an audit that was released

in October of last year looking at

pricing for spare parts for the c17 the

big transport we

identified one particularly egregious

spare part I believe it was a

7,943 markup on a soap

dispenser there was this wrapper uh I

think his name was nuk Bizzle and nuke

Bizzle uh he got so comfortable stealing

this unemployment insurance fraud money

that he actually went online and did a

video it was the video that led to his

capture nuke ble boasted about getting

rich off fake covid-19 relief funds

former secretary David schulin had taken

a European trip with his wife it was

essentially a couple of hours of

meetings but the rest of the time they

were sightseing in Europe as well as

getting tickets to the Wimbleton tennis

tournament the government had paid for

this trip so we did the investigation

the secretary had to pay back the value

of the Wimbleton tickets the value of

his wife's trip expensive soap fancy

tennis tournaments you'd think Trump and

musk would be dying to work with these

people unfortunately that's not how this

story

goes Dear Christie dear Larry dear on

behalf ofid president Donald J Trump I'm

writing to inform you that due to

changing priorities your position as

Inspector General Inspector General

Inspector General Inspector General of

Department of Defense at the United

States agency for International

Development of the small business

administration department of labor

Veterans Affairs Interior Health and

Human Services is terminated terminated

effective immediately thank for your

service signed Trent moris deputy

director office of presidential

personnel

so who are these people and what exactly

do they do what inspector generals have

done for almost 50 years is not only

save taxpayers billions and billions of

dollars we look for fraud we look for

misconduct we look for inefficiencies

crimes committed against Medicare

against Medicaid it's everything from

murders to threats against foster care

programs fraud that involved uh covid

supplies contract fraud to benefits

fraud we look for that sort of

waste all the

time over the weekend president Trump

continued his flurry of executive moves

firing at least 15 inspectors General

all right so Trump fired some federal

employees why should we care this is not

a a story of a personal tragedy for Mike

wear right what American taxpayers

should care about is that this was a

wholesale removal of 17 18 19 inspectors

General this is historic uh this has

never been done with this number of IGS

that have been fired at one time you

took away the people who were charged

with ensuring

that Americans are covered firing ig's

puts up an open for business sign to

fraud star administrations come and go

it didn't make any difference to us who

the president was what the party was

President Donald Trump appointed me

President Biden president Donald Trump

president Obama the only way that this

is done in an Fair unbiased and

impartial

way is if inspectors General are allowed

to operate in an independent manner free

from political interference who is he

putting in our place if he's putting in

inexperienced political lackies uh you

know folks who are are lap doogs not

Watchdogs uh then then their credibility

I think just goes out the window the

reports will not have the same efficacy

will not have the same

impact the big deal is that you don't

want to burn down the

institution that is responsible for

ensuring that you have independent

oversight and transparency in

government collectively these people

have seen it all crime fraud government

inefficiency now that they're gone they

have some concerns about the future one

of the impacts of these terminations is

going to be a self-censorship I know

when I left there was a a report on my

desk uh that was uh once giving out it

will probably cause some uh anst there

would be a reluctance uh across the oig

community I'm sure uh with reports that

may have an adverse or negative impact

uh against that department because they

understand that you know this could

cause uh maybe loss of job the message

is sent that if you do the work that

you're intended to do and it's not

popular that you'll be punished because

now if you're an auditor or if you're an

investigator why would you want to write

a report that you think may get you

fired but if you had any doubts look at

what happened to the Uso IG Paul Martin

great IG well-respected put out a very

tough report about the negative impacts

that could occur based on what they were

doing to downsize us Aid the report came

out on Monday night Tuesday he was fired

this is not exactly how I intended to

end my 40-year federal career but so be

it and who's going to be brave enough to

speak truth to

power when speaking truth to power mean

you fired the next the next day

president Trump has just announced Elon

Musk will lead the department of

government efficiency that's d o in many

ways these people were the OG Doge

here's what they think of trump new

working group my first reaction when I

heard of Doge I was like oh this is not

a bad thing at all they dovetail with

exactly what we do in in the Inspector

General Community efficiency is

literally in our name and and I said

well this is great these are folks that

we can work with I reached out to Doge

um on four different occasions we were

excited to be able to meet with them

that never happened never got a call

back they're going in and just firing a

lot of people and that is extremely

dangerous to do I was at VA for almost 9

years I got to know it very very well

that kind of experience is invaluable

and it's almost impossible if not

impossible just to come in and in a

matter of weeks say I know the agency

and I can make decisions and I know all

the implications of those decisions to

me that's very dangerous how much do you

believe Elon you've identified in in

waste fraud abuse corruption now and how

much do you anticipate you will I think

he's going to find a trillion dollars

yeah I think so a trillion dollars is a

lot of money I don't think there's a

trillion dollars in fraud in the federal

government is there bloat is there

ineffectiveness is there inefficiency

absolutely there's no question that

there's a lot of fat to trim uh in the

federal government but to think that

there's a trillion dollars worth of

Fraud and I'm talking criminal fraud in

any government organization

I just don't think it's realistic I

don't know how that's possible in a

matter of three or four days or a week

or two uh it takes anywhere from 9

months to a year to really determine the

effectiveness of a program and that's

with the staffs that we have I can

imagine have a team of uh four or five

or six or seven 19 year olds who don't

understand that particular program how

you could do that good luck what are the

guard rails here that could stop

president Trump this is a nakedly

illegal action so what should we take

away from all of this will there be more

fraud and corruption in America or does

the firing of the inspector's General

symbolize something much much darker is

our democracy in

danger our democracy is not not even in

danger is no longer a

democracy when people don't have the

freedom to speak truth to power we're

independent oversight is no longer a

thing where transparency in government

is viewed negatively when all measures

of accountability when those checks and

balances that the founders put in uh

throughout our our structure of

government um when those checks and

balances start to fail that to me would

send off alarm Bells I think we're

getting close I think the firing of the

IGS was one where the checks and

balances didn't work I think history is

going to frown upon this moment I'm

worried about the deafening silence

that's coming from Congress in many

quarters of congress with respect to the

removal of Inspector generals not as

individuals but the harm and the

chilling effect this is having on

Independent oversight in the federal

government Congress really needs to step

up Congress needs to do more and if

Congress doesn't step up and tell the

administration that they want truly

independent nonpartisan inspectors

General they're going to lose a really

valuable tool and resource to help them

do their job and if they're not doing

their job to do oversight of the

executive branch then one of our checks

and balances is going to fall come on

that's when we know our democracy is in

trouble and I think quite frankly that

that's where we are currently