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#MarcoRubio was incensed. Here he was in the #Cabinet Room of the White House, the Secy of #State, seated beside the president & listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world.

Seated diagonally opposite, #ElonMusk was letting #Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff.

You have fired “nobody,” Musk told Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Musk’s #DOGE.

#MarcoRubio had been privately furious w/ #Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under #Rubio’s control: the #USAID. But, in the extraordinary #cabinet meeting in front of #Trump & around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Rubio got his grievances off his chest.

#Musk was not being truthful, #Rubio said. What about the >1,500 #State Dept ofcls who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they count as #layoffs? He asked, sarcastically, whether Musk wanted him to rehire all those people so he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his plans for reorganizing the State Dept.

Musk was unimpressed. He told Rubio he was “good on TV,” w/the clear subtext being that he was not good for much else.

Throughout all of this, #Trump sat back in his chair, arms folded, as if he were watching a tennis match.

After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time, Trump finally intervened to defend #Rubio as doing a “great job.” Rubio has a lot to deal with, he said. “He is very busy, he is always traveling & on TV, & he has an agency to run. So everyone just needs to work together.”

@Nonilex Hope so, but "appeared" to rein him in is pretty much the situation.