Against the backdrop of Elon Musk’s budget-cutting initiatives, Washington Post associate editor and MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart got triggered on Friday’s PBS News Hour when the American Enterprise Institute’s Matthew Continetti reminded him that former President Joe Biden abused executive power on his student loan order. Capehart argued that comparisons were “apples and cannonballs” and claimed Biden gets a pass because “he did it to help people.”
Host Geoff Bennett kicked things off by asking Continetti, “How do you view Congress really abdicating their role, ceding their power to the executive?”
Continetti began by giving a much-needed history lesson, “Well, I think this process of ceding power to the executive is decades in the making, and it's bipartisan. Congress has really just become an investigatory body that delegates tremendous authority to the executive branch of government and the bureaucracy. And we now see the results when you have Trump come in his second term wanting to leave a profoundly changed government in his wake when he departs the Oval Office.”
He then recalled how, “because of acts of Congress, Congress's own denial of its role, the president has enormous power to wield. And let's remember, when President Obama said he had a pen and a phone, the first Trump administration used a lot of executive orders. Joe Biden tried to cancel student debt through executive order.”
Continetti claimed that the reason why certain people are freaking out is because that power is now being used in the opposite direction, “This process we're seeing is long in the making. And I think one reason Washington is stunned is that you have an outsider in Elon Musk actually punching the delete button on some of these programs.”
Bennett followed up by asking Capehart to respond, “Matthew raised the question I was going to ask you, because that's what I have heard from Republicans this past week, that Democrats can't in good faith criticize Donald Trump, when Joe Biden tried to unilaterally without Congress waive $400 billion worth of student loan debt. And when the Supreme Court said no, ‘you can't do that,’ he basically shrugged and then tried to do it via a piecemeal approach.”
A displeased Capehart began, “This is like comparing apples and cannonballs. What we're seeing coming from the Trump administration is executive orders uprooting and upending the federal government. And what makes this all the more galling and terrifying for a lot of people is that he has delegated a lot of power to someone who was elected to no office, to someone who was not confirmed by the Senate.”
He further worried, “you have an unelected person, who also happens to be the wealthiest person in the world, and also the wealthiest person in the world who owns a huge social media megaphone, and is able to manipulate the information that the people on that huge platform receive. That's what is so dangerous about what is happening now.”
Circling back to Biden, Capehart dusted off the old argument that says whether something is legal or not depends on whether he agrees with it, “we're trying to compare President Biden's executive order on student loans and what Donald Trump is doing, Donald Trump is destroying. President Biden signed an executive order and, yeah, pushed the limits of executive action, but to the benefit of people who were drowning in student debt. He did it in order to help people, not to destroy the government that the American people depend on for a whole host, a whole host of things.”
If that’s the standard, Trump and Musk think they are helping people by ensuring that their tax dollars are being spent wisely.
Here is a transcript for the February 7 show:
PBS News Hour
2/7/2025
7:35 PM ET
GEOFF BENNETT: How do you view Congress really abdicating their role, ceding their power to the executive?
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Well, I think this process of ceding power to the executive is decades in the making, and it's bipartisan.
Congress has really just become an investigatory body that delegates tremendous authority to the executive branch of government and the bureaucracy. And we now see the results when you have Trump come in his second term wanting to leave a profoundly changed government in his wake when he departs the Oval Office.
And you see that, because of acts of Congress, Congress's own denial of its role, the president has enormous power to wield. And let's remember, when President Obama said he had a pen and a phone, the first Trump administration used a lot of executive orders. Joe Biden tried to cancel student debt through executive order.
This process we're seeing is long in the making. And I think one reason Washington is stunned is that you have an outsider in Elon Musk actually punching the delete button on some of these programs.
BENNETT: Jonathan, Matthew raised the question I was going to ask you, because that's what I have heard from Republicans this past week, that Democrats can't in good faith criticize Donald Trump, when Joe Biden tried to unilaterally, without Congress, waive $400 billion worth of student loan debt. And when the Supreme Court said, “No, you can't do that,” he basically shrugged and then tried to do it via a piecemeal approach.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: This is like comparing apples and cannonballs. What we're seeing coming from the Trump administration is executive orders uprooting and upending the federal government. And what makes this all the more galling and terrifying for a lot of people is that he has delegated a lot of power to someone who was elected to no office, to someone who was not confirmed by the Senate.
He is accountable to no one, except for maybe, except for maybe President Trump. And President Trump has already said, well, he will only do things that we want him to do. Well, so far, Elon Musk is doing everything that Donald Trump wants to do.
That is what is so terrifying about this moment, is that you have an unelected person, who also happens to be the wealthiest person in the world, and also the wealthiest person in the world who owns a huge social media megaphone, and is able to manipulate the information that the people on that huge platform receive.
That's what is so dangerous about what is happening now. And as we're trying to compare President Biden's executive order on student loans and what Donald Trump is doing, Donald Trump is destroying. President Biden signed an executive order and, yeah, pushed the limits of executive action, but to the benefit of people who were drowning in student debt.
He did it in order to help people, not to destroy the government that the American people depend on for a whole host, a whole host of things.
