JD Vance breaks his silence on Elon Musk’s mass government firings, admits DOGE head made some ‘mistakes’
WASHINGTON, DC: Vice President JD Vance appears to be walking a fine line when it comes to Elon Musk’s mass firings of federal employees.
While Musk has been on a mission to slash the federal workforce in President Donald Trump’s second term, Vance is striking a different tone—acknowledging that mistakes have been made while still backing the overall mission.
In a Friday interview with NBC News, Vance didn’t shy away from Musk’s aggressive approach. “Elon himself has said that sometimes you do something, you make a mistake, and then you undo the mistake. I’m accepting of mistakes," he said.
So, while Musk has made some bold moves, Vance isn’t about to throw the billionaire under the bus. Instead, he emphasized the need for course correction.
“I also think you have to quickly correct those mistakes. But I’m also very aware of the fact that there are a lot of good people who work in the government—a lot of people who are doing a very good job. And we want to try to preserve as much of what works in government as possible while eliminating what doesn’t work," he added.
Vance’s remarks stand in contrast to Musk’s take-no-prisoners approach, which has seen thousands of government employees lose their jobs in just seven weeks. Lawsuits are piling up, and even judges are pushing back. Musk has painted several federal employees as “fraudsters” who can’t be trusted to do their jobs.
JD Vance vs Elon Musk
When pressed about Elon Musk’s scorched-earth view of federal workers, Vance didn’t completely reject the premise, but he did leave room for nuance.
“I think some people clearly are collecting a check and not doing a job. Now, how many people is that? I don’t know, in a 3 million-strong federal workforce, whether it’s a few thousand or much larger than that," he explained.
That’s a far cry from Musk’s condemnation, but it’s also not exactly a ringing defense of federal workers. Meanwhile, Vance’s tempered stance seems to contradict Trump’s own blunt assessment of the government’s workforce.
Just last week, Trump had limited sympathy for the tens of thousands of employees who’ve been laid off. “I feel very badly, but many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work," the president remarked.
But despite the slightly different rhetoric, Vance made it clear he’s still aligned with Trump and Musk’s overall mission. “However big the problem is, it is a problem when people are living off the generosity of the American taxpayer in a civil service job and not doing the people’s business," he insisted.
"That doesn’t distract or detract from the fact that you do have a lot of great civil servants who are doing important work," Vance continued. "But I think most of those great civil servants would say we want to be empowered to do our job. We don’t want the person who doesn’t show up five days a week to make it harder for us to do what we need to do.”
JD Vance on protesters, boos, and life as VP
Of course, JD Vance isn’t just dealing with bureaucratic shake-ups—he’s also facing some serious heat from the public.
Lately, pro-Ukraine protesters have taken their frustrations straight to his doorstep (literally), and his recent appearance at the newly reformed Kennedy Center wasn’t exactly met with a standing ovation.
Vance, however, seems unbothered.
“The thing at the Kennedy Center I thought was funny. The thing by my house I thought was kind of annoying," he commented, adding, "I think you just kind of take the good with the bad. I kind of just see it as, depending on your perspective, a feature or a bug of this new life.”
