Joe Scarborough Mocks Elon Musk Claim DOGE Cuts Are ‘Measured’: ‘This Is The Guy That Had The Chainsaw!’

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough mocked Elon Musk’s claim that cuts implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were “measured.”

Musk sat down with Fox News’ Special Report host Bret Baier on Thursday with other DOGE aides to address criticism of the mass federal job layoffs and major cuts across multiple agencies and programs that have defined their approach so far. During the interview the billionaire Trump ally was keen to assure Americans that the actions taken by DOGE were done

“I do agree we actually want to be careful in the cuts. We want to measure twice, if not thrice, and cut once. That is our approach,” Musk told Baier.

He added that although DOGE critics “may characterize it as shooting from the hip” the work was “anything but that.”

At the opening of MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday, Scarborough made clear he was not buying it and openly mocked Musk, who famously brandished a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. The host began:

I mean, they’re going, you know, measure twice, cut once. This is the guy that had the chainsaw, you know? I mean, the biggest complaint that I think most people had early on was [that] – even [among those] that believed there was waste, fraud and abuse in the government – was it was just so indiscriminate. And they were getting rid of people that were trying to stop the bird flu from becoming a pandemic, helping with nuclear safety. You go down the list.

This is certainly a positive development, if this is where they’re going, but to act like that, this has been some well thought out, measured approach is just not believable.

As discussion progressed, Scarborough reflected on the idea that Musk was unsuccessfully trying to bring corporate experience to Washington.

“Elon Musk has an approach that’s always worked for him: just go into a company, you know, and break it, rebuild it in his image,” the host said “And some CEOs do it that way — Jack Welch would fire 10%, you know, of what he considered to be the bottom performers.”

He continued: “I’m not comparing their approaches, but what works in government – and I learned this my first day in Washington, DC – is not what works in corporations. And it’s why CEOs, time and time again, swagger into this city and, after six months, throw up their arms and go home.”

Watch above on MSNBC.