Trump Pitches Wall Street on Tariffs, Tax Cuts and Elon Musk

In a speech to the Economic Club of New York, former President Donald Trump on Thursday promised to create a government efficiency commission if he’s elected to another term, embracing an idea proposed to him by billionaire Elon Musk. Trump said Musk would lead the panel, which would be “tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms” that would cut waste, fraud and abuse.

“We need to do it. Can’t go on the way we are now,” the Republican presidential nominee said, drawing applause from the audience, which included Wall Street titans, business and economic leaders and former members of the Trump administration.

Trump claimed the commission’s first order of business would be to develop an action plan to “totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” which he said would save “trillions of dollars.”

His meandering remarks were littered with a series of false, misleading and sometimes baffling comments along with lofty promises. He again attacked Vice President Kamala Harris as a “radical” and a “Marxist,” and he again painted a dark picture of current and future conditions in the country under Democratic leadership. He called the United States a nation in decline with an economy in crisis. He warned that migrants are “taking the jobs of Hispanic Americans, African Americans.”