Don't Step in Elon Musk's Bullshit

Niccolò Machiavelli was a Florentine political philosopher whose writings gave rise to the term “Machiavellian,” a word that describes the use of manipulation and deception in an the-ends-justify-the-means approach to the acquisition of political power. In his book The Prince – which he wrote in 1513 – Machiavelli observed that “he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.” Five centuries later, the MAGA movement validates Machiavelli’s thesis.

Donald Trump has only been in office for a month and already there are multiple examples of he and his cronies making fallacious claims that the MAGA faithful lap up with gusto and with little regard for their veracity. The deceptions are too numerous to try and debunk in a short article, but one example illustrates the point.

On his social media platform X, Elon Musk claimed that his DOGE team discovered that FEMA sent $59 million to New York City to pay for luxury hotel rooms for migrants, which he said was money diverted from funds that should have gone to help Americans suffering from disasters. As a result, FEMA revoked $80 million in grants to New York City and fired four FEMA officials for alleged insubordination for having disbursed the funds. Musk’s claim fits neatly into Trump’s narrative that FEMA is corrupt and should be terminated.

Clawing back millions of dollars snatched illegally from the hands of American disaster victims to pay for migrants to live in the lap of luxury would be hard to argue against if in fact that is what happened. Here’s the thing … it didn’t.

Elon Musk’s FEMA hoax relies on the fact most Americans are clueless about how their tax dollars end up in the hands of federal agencies and get spent. The perception is that FEMA has a pot of money and that every dollar it spends on migrant housing is a dollar taken away from American disaster victims like those in Western North Carolina impacted by Hurricane Helene. If that is your perception of how things work, then you would naturally be outraged that FEMA is prioritizing migrants over citizens, and that outrage is exactly what Trump and Musk want to foment with their litany of lies.

Federal agencies can only spend money that has been appropriated by Congress. The last full appropriations bill Congress passed was in March 2024 and covered the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2024. Since then, the government has operated under temporary funding bills that maintain the status quo for short periods of time. The current short-term bill lasts through March 14.

You can find the Fiscal Year 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act on the internet by searching for Public Law 118-47. If you do so, you will see that it is 401 pages long and sets out in detail specific dollar amounts appropriated to federal agencies to carry out specific functions.

On pages 150-151, Congress appropriated $20,261,000,000 to FEMA for major disasters

declared pursuant to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.

That’s the program that has helped many in Western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. On pages 139-140, Congress appropriated $18,426,870,000 to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and directed CBP to transfer $650,000,000 to FEMA “to support sheltering and related activities provided by non-Federal entities, in support of relieving overcrowding in short-term holding facilities of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” That’s the program that reimbursed New York City for the costs associated with housing migrants.

A federal law called the Purpose Statute madates that funds appropriated by Congress can only be spent for the specific purposes for which they were appropriated. In other words, funds appropriated for disaster relief cannot be used for migrant housing and funds appropriated for migrant housing cannot be used for disaster relief.

Perhaps you think we should not be spending millions of dollars to house migrants. If so, you should let members of Congress who voted for the funding know, like Representative Chuck Edwards and Senator Thom Tillis.

Trump and Musk are more Machiavellian than Machiavelli, but their manipulation and deception only works if we allow ourselves to be deceived. Here’s my advice: Treat deception like dung … don’t step in it.