John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island
From the February 8th Emergency Rally to End Musk’s Government Takeover
“I’m here on behalf of Common Cause Rhode Island and our 1.5 million members nationwide. We’re a national, grassroots organization focused on government ethics, accountability, and transparency, and we have held power accountable for over half a century. We’re here today because right now, there is an unprecedented assault on democracy as we know it happening in Washington, D.C., and we need our United States Senators and Representatives to do more to stop it.”
“Right now, Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire whose name you know because he received hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies, is bullying his way into our government and our livelihoods. If I tried to list his conflicts of interest, we would be here for days. Yet the Trump administration has put him in charge of a pretend public agency, and he’s using that as cover to give his minions access to the government’s checkbook. There is no transparency, and there are no ethics.
“No one elected Elon Musk to be our president. But Elon Musk used our broken campaign finance system to buy a president. Now, Donald Trump is trying to illegally fire the Democratic chair of the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub, who is charged with investigating Musk’s donations. This after Trump fired 15 inspectors general across the federal government. Firing the watchdogs means Musk will go unchecked. There is no accountability.
“Members of Congress are being barred from federal buildings when they try to find out what Elon Musk’s crew is doing. Meanwhile, every day, government agencies are scrubbing their websites of critical data that we need to keep our food safe, track deadly diseases, and understand who we are as a people. We are less safe as a country than we were just three weeks ago, and we largely don’t know why that’s happening. There is no transparency.
“We are fortunate to have Attorney General Peter Neronha, who is fighting back with the available tools—joining or initiating litigation to stop this. However, lawsuits take time, and the courts don’t always have the means to enforce their orders.
“As other speakers have said, Senator Reed and Senator Whitehouse have already done much. Senator Reed led the fight against our unqualified Secretary of Defense, exposing some of his egregious personal behavior. We are grateful for his leadership in that fight. Senator Whitehouse joined him this week in the fight against the confirmation of the architect of Project 2025, Russ Vought. Again, we are grateful for his leadership in that fight.
“But we need more action for ethics, accountability, and transparency. The United States Senate is the institution in our government best positioned to protect the views of the minority. While we don’t believe a majority of Americans support the lawlessness we’re now seeing, there is no denying that a majority of the Senate is turning a blind eye. We need Senators Reed and Whitehouse to use every available tool at their disposal to protect all Americans from what Musk and others are doing and to get Donald Trump to tell Elon Musk, ‘You’re fired!’”
[Transcription is edited for clarity.]
