On Monday, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell suggested that there is no telling who has access to “nuclear codes” in President Donald Trump’s administration based on Elon Musk’s surprising access to information.
Musk has reportedly been given access to the government’s federal payment system under his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) responsibilities.
O’Donnell argued on MSNBC’s The Last Word that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the first person in his position in history who should be “impeached” for “handing the keys of the Treasury” to Musk.
O’Donnell called Trump’s administration a dangerous free-for-all.
“Who has the nuclear codes? Think about it. The only answer to that question tonight, for the first time in history, is we don’t know. We don’t know who has the nuclear codes,” he said. “We don’t know who has what inside the Trump government. We don’t know who is doing what inside the Trump government. But we do know they are doing things that have never been done before and that are illegal. We know that those things are not legal.”
The MSNBC host claimed Musk was already given the “domestic equivalent” of nuclear codes with the access he’s already been granted. DOGE is an advisory committee recommending federal government spending cuts in the trillions to Congress.
O’Donnell said:
“We know that Donald Trump has given Elon Musk the domestic equivalent of the nuclear codes, the keys to the treasury of the United States of America. In the biggest, most important data breach in the history of the world, Elon Musk has gone where no political operative has ever gone before. He has gone where no treasury secretary has ever gone before. And that is to the innermost sanctum of the United States Treasury, where your money is collected and spent, where your name is collected, where your social security number is collected, where your baby’s social security number is collected on day one of your baby’s life. Most people working for the Treasury department don’t even know where that is. No one in politics, which very much includes every treasury secretary because they are appointed by politicians, has ever even shown an interest in trying to get at the actual payment mechanism.”
