Jillian Michaels says 'of course' Americans want to 'drain the swamp' after cases of government waste
DOGE under Elon Musk has claimed it's uncovering billions of dollars in government "waste, fraud and abuse," and is seeking to continue federal audits and firings.
"If I were to play devil's advocate, the argument would be, 'Hey, slow down. You know, make sure you don't break something. Be very precise with this,'" Michaels said Wednesday on "Jesse Watters Primetime," explaining how she has tried to listen to the counterargument and "maintain neutrality" for Musk's strategy.
Federal Watchdog Releases First Doge-era Report Detailing Areas Of Government Prone To Fraud, Waste And Abuse
The fitness star reiterated that despite her efforts, she has been "horrified" by the excessive government waste DOGE has been discovering.
"I can only imagine that the average American who lives paycheck to paycheck — that when they see their tax dollars funding stuff like this, of course they're outraged," Michaels said, adding that it is no wonder Americans "want to drain the swamp."
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Michaels said she believes a lot is going on in the government that the average person, including herself, cannot understand.
"What I can tell you is that it's clear some of this funding is like a CIA slush fund," she said.
The fitness legend likened the removal of government bloat to a "brain tumor," and how removing it would require precision and a "methodical" process.
$1,300 Coffee Cups, 8,000% Overpay For Soap Dispensers Show Waste As Doge Locks In On Pentagon
"Be methodical, be careful — but at the end of the day, this is just insane," Michaels said.
The Office of Personnel Management recently emailed federal employees asking them to write five accomplishments they met at work the prior week. While the emails stirred up controversy, Musk described them not as a performance review, but a "pulse check."
"I think that email was perhaps interpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse?" Musk said during a Cabinet meeting.
Michaels said the criticism Musk's emails drew was "absurd" and that no business would be able to run effectively without accountability.
"The fact that we can't ask people to take 30 seconds to answer an email without appearing Draconian is absurd," she said.
Musk Tells Cabinet That Doge Email Was 'Pulse Check' For Workers, Warns Us Will 'Go Bankrupt' Without Action
Since taking office, President Trump, Elon Musk and the DOGE agenda have faced mounting scrutiny from several Democrats and media outlets. The latest wave of criticism facing the Tesla founder concerned his South African heritage.
Michaels noted how she initially felt bad for employees who were cut, saying they're "innocent people."
"You know, they probably have kids and they have bills to pay. You can't just rip the rug out from under that," she said before doing some digging on the severance packages government workers were receiving.
"I thought, well, wait a minute, that sounds like kind of a good deal," she said. "You've got eight months with benefits to find another gig, and we know that there are, like, 7 million job openings in the country right now."Original article source: Jillian Michaels says 'of course' Americans want to 'drain the swamp' after cases of government waste
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Bashing Brazil, clobbering Canada, shellacking the Swiss Countries that didn't knuckle under — and those that found other ways to incur Trump's wrath — got hit harder. Even some of the poor were not spared. Laos' annual economic output comes to $2,100 per person and Algeria's $5,600 — versus America's $75,000. Nonetheless, Laos got rocked with a 40% tariff and Algeria with a 30% levy. Trump slammed Brazil with a 50% import tax largely because he didn't like the way it was treating former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for trying to lose his electoral defeat in 2022. Never mind that the U.S. has exported more to Brazil than it's imported every year since 2007. Trump's decision to plaster a 35% tariff on longstanding U.S. ally Canada was partly designed to threaten Ottawa for saying it would recognize a Palestinian state. Trump is a staunch supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Switzerland was clobbered with a 39% import tax — even higher than the 31% Trump originally announced on April 2. 'The Swiss probably wish that they had camped in Washington' to make a deal, said Wolff, now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 'They're clearly not at all happy.'' Fortunes may change if Trump's tariffs are upended in court. Five American businesses and 12 states are suing the president, arguing that his Liberation Day tariffs exceeded his authority under the 1977 law. In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized court in New York, agreed and blocked the tariffs, although the government was allowed to continue collecting them while its appeal wend its way through the legal system, and may likely end up at the U.S. Supreme Court. In a hearing Thursday, the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sounded skeptical about Trump's justifications for the tariffs. 'If (the tariffs) get struck down, then maybe Brazil's a winner and not a loser,'' Appleton said. Paying more for knapsacks and video games Trump portrays his tariffs as a tax on foreign countries. But they are actually paid by import companies in the U.S. who try to pass along the cost to their customers via higher prices. True, tariffs can hurt other countries by forcing their exporters to cut prices and sacrifice profits — or risk losing market share in the United States. But economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that overseas exporters have absorbed just one-fifth of the rising costs from tariffs, while Americans and U.S. businesses have picked up the most of the tab. Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Ford, Best Buy, Adidas, Nike, Mattel and Stanley Black & Decker, have all hiked prices due to U.S. tariffs 'This is a consumption tax, so it disproportionately affects those who have lower incomes,' Appleton said. 'Sneakers, knapsacks … your appliances are going to go up. Your TV and electronics are going to go up. Your video game devices, consoles are going to up because none of those are made in America.'' Trump's trade war has pushed the average U.S. tariff from 2.5% at the start of 2025 to 18.3% now, the highest since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. And that will impose a $2,400 cost on the average household, the lab estimates. 'The U.S. consumer's a big loser,″ Wolff said.
