Katie Drummond: Just, accessible to the public, as opposed to Doge, despite the claims that Musk and even President Trump have made, that it is a maximum transparent group who does this work. We do not know much about what they do, what they find and the changes they bring, short of journalists like you and so many of your cable colleagues and other press organizations obtaining this information and publishing it. Now, I want to safeguard a little because at the heart of all this is this notion of fraud, waste, financial abuse. This is something that Elon Musk said on several occasions was widespread, omnipresent between government agencies that there are fraudulent expenses, excessive waste occurs. There is an abuse of financial power, a financial authority on the part of these agencies. Now, from what you have pointed out in the past few months and in your role, how does this claim valid to start?
Vittoria Elliott: There was a report from the Government Accountability Office which covered the years 2018 to 2022, and which revealed that there are in fact more than $ 200 billion in waste, fraud or abuse that occur. It’s like this is not this, but in the context of a federal budget of 7 billions of dollars, this is not what breaks. I do not think that anyone, democrat or republican, a fan of Doge or not, would say that, hey, it is a problem that we must solve. This is a very precious thing. But one of the listeners I spoke to, he said, Doge could examine the current IGS recommendations. They could examine the current exceptional surveys. They could resume this work if they are really dedicated to that because there are in fact systems, and there are in fact reports on this subject. But from what the listeners I spoke to said, they said that it doesn’t really seem to be what Doge does. And one of the other things they have said is that many listeners would probably be really happy to help them, to provide advice. They would be happy to work with them, they would be happy to bring young talents to their teams to make the audit system more robust. But Doge is really a little compartmentalized, it does not seem that they are really interested.
Katie Drummond: RIGHT. Now, speaking of Doge and listeners to whom you spoke for this story, they certainly did not have some kind words to say about the way Doge takes place. Tell us a little more about their impressions of Doge and their comments on what is happening under the auspices of this idea that Musk and Doge essentially verify the federal government. What do real listeners think?
Vittoria Elliott: Yes, to give a little context, first, a regular audit, which implies as five different stages, so there are five stages for an audit. One is the place where you plan it, you sit down, you say: “This is what we look at, this is the type of information we will have to follow.” In a way, you will map the stakeholders, who will have to interview, because often they go to programs or systems that they may not fully understand. So it’s almost a little ethnographic. You have to enter, you have to interview people, you have to be: “What is your work? What is it connected? What does this mean in your system?” You must make this basic understanding of knowledge of the program or the agency. Then you do the work in the field, that is to say that you go out, you talk to people. In the case, for example, of the hurricane, they actually sent listeners, I believe, to Puerto Rico to see what was going on. You go to systems, you do this kind of human on the work of the soil. Once you have done this, they gathered all this information in a report, they do this analysis in a way. They speak to agencies, they say as: “Hey, these are the problems we have found. You have the opportunity to correct them. These are our recommendations.” And then they submit this to the agencies, to the congress, then they can follow up. They come back and say to themselves: “Hey, we recommended this thing. Have you solved this problem?” There is a level of responsibility to try to repair this thing. So there is a very clear understanding within the government of the best practice of this, and all these people do this. It takes six to 18 months.
