CNN’s chief data reporter, Harry Enten, stated on Wednesday’s edition of “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” that polls indicate Americans want to reduce the size of government, adding that while the Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk isn’t the most popular person, if Republicans in Congress led the effort that might wind up being more impactful for President Donald Trump and the GOP.
” Let me just say a few things. Number one, when it comes to government spending, Americans are in love with the idea of cutting government spending much more so than they were five years ago,” Enten said during a show segment. “I think it’s like 55 percent of Americans who say they want to cut the size of government, they want to make sure it’s doing less, not more. I think the number was reversed — was 55 percent, who said it should be doing more back in 2020. So, that’s one thing.
“But Elon Musk is not a popular guy. I mean, that’s the bottom line here. If he is leading this effort, I think it’s going to go much — it’s not going to go as far as it would if Congress was leading the effort. And this, I think, is the big question. Can Republicans in Congress actually get their act together?” he added. “They have such a thin majority. If they can and they’re the ones who are in charge of cutting the spending, that would be a much better situation for Republicans going into the midterms than not.”
Political consultant Julie Roginsky responded: “I can tell you, yes, polling shows that people want government cut until you start talking to them specifically about what it is that government should be cutting. And then you start talking about taking away my Medicaid or taking away my Medicare or taking away my Social Security, or doing things, which we all know is the biggest expenditure in Congress and the biggest expenditure in the government, and all of a sudden they don’t like it, right? It’s fine until it comes for them.”
For the record, neither President Trump nor Republicans in Congress want to “cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security” benefits for Americans who need or have earned them. Trump and Musk have repeatedly said, however, that they are interested in finding — and cutting — waste, fraud and abuse, such as sending Social Security payments to alleged beneficiaries who are listed as being, in some cases, hundreds of years old.