“Elon has worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations,” Trump said in a farewell press conference Friday for Elon Musk. The billionaire is ending his time as a special government employee leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Trump extolled Musk for his work as the head of DOGE, citing his work modernizing government departments, finding wasteful federal programs, and cutting government spending. “Elon’s service to America has been without comparison in modern America,” the president said. “Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude.” 

Trump promised that DOGE would continue its work even after Elon’s departure and said that he supported Congress codifying the cuts made by the department. “Those hundreds of billions of dollars are going to continue to add [up],” he said.

To demonstrate his gratitude to Musk, Trump presented him with a massive gold key to the White House.

In his own statement at the press conference, Musk said that DOGE’s work would not end with his departure, and that the DOGE mindset would continue to permeate the federal government under the Trump administration. “This is not the end of DOGE, but only the beginning,” he said. “I am confident that over time, we’ll see a trillion dollars in savings.”

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Bernard Kerik, who served as the commissioner of the New York Police Department, died Thursday in Manhattan.

Kerik was appointed as NYPD commissioner by Mayor Rudy Giuliani in August 2000. The appointment was controversial at the time due to Kerik’s perceived rapid promotion through the NYPD and lack of a college degree.

Kerik became famous nationwide due to his response to 9/11 as police commissioner. During the attacks, Kerik, as well as Giuliani and their staffs were showered by debris and trapped in a nearby building temporarily.

In 2003, during the Iraq War, President George W. Bush appointed Kerik the acting interior minister for Iraq’s provisional authority.

In 2004, Kerik was briefly nominated by Bush to serve as the second secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, but withdrew his name after a week due to his earlier hiring of an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper.

Kerik’s reputation was further damaged in 2009 when he pled guilty to two counts of tax fraud, five counts of making false statements to the federal government during vetting, and one count of making a false statement on a loan application. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2010, but was released in 2013 and served an additional five months of home confinement.

President Donald Trump pardoned Kerik in early 2020. 

Kerik worked again for Giuliani in the aftermath of the 2020 election on post-election litigation. Kerik was one of 34 unindicted co-conspirators in Fani Willis’s campaign against Trump and various Trump-associates. 

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Andrew Day, Sumantra Maitra, and Joseph Addington debate whether America should “walk away” from Russia-Ukraine diplomacy. Next they discuss President Trump’s foreign-policy realism, signs of civilizational politics, and the “big beautiful bill.” Recorded May 29, 2025.

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