Here’s how Trump can answer Musk’s demands - and how Kansas’ Jerry Moran can help | Opinion

Let’s say you’re just an average Joe (or Jane, maybe). Just like most of us.

And let’s say you get an email from one of the higher-ups in your company asking you to list five things you did last week, and to cc your manager to boot.

I don’t know about you, but I’d start getting a little nervous. Maybe think about updating my résumé?

Of course, that’s exactly what happened to thousands (millions?) of federal workers last weekend, courtesy of Mr. Elon Musk. And it arrived on Saturday. That’s not even a workday for most of the recipients.

For me, the whole thing would be worrisome. As a retiree now with senior citizen status, I sometimes have trouble remembering what I did yesterday, let alone last week.

But I’m in the clear because I don’t have to answer to a boss anymore. That’s unless you count the wife. She’s a pretty severe taskmaster. Just as a test, I asked her how she would rate “afternoon nap” on my list of accomplishments.

“Well, it would probably rank higher than your claim about doing the dishes,” she said. The wife, she’s good at sarcasm.

Musk’s email recipients, however, don’t have the luxury of not answering, at least according to the DOGE big dog himself. Answer promptly or face termination, he says. We just hope that means firing, not the firing squad.

And I can’t help wondering what some of our elected representatives would do if they were tasked with coming up with an I-did-this-or-that list. After all, they’re federal employees too, aren’t they?

In the case of Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, also a federal employee, his constituents are clearly concerned. About 1,200 people tuned into a virtual town hall last Saturday as 32 speakers addressed various concerns of Kansans, many about the lack of resistance by Republicans to federal cuts undertaken by President Donald Trump and Musk. Cancer patients, veterans, health care workers, farmers and others expressed their anxiety about the perceived chaos in Washington.

Moran serves on the important Senate Intelligence Committee, and is chair of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He did not vote against confirming any of Trump’s Cabinet appointees, including a yes to both Trump loyalist Kash Patel as FBI chief and to Tulsi Gabbard — who met secretly with Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad in 2017 — as director of national intelligence. Maybe if the senator speaks more with the people he represents in a series of town halls set to begin next month, Moran will be convinced to stand up for what’s sensible, fair and right.

And what about Trump? As a federal worker, he might have received the request for a list too. Did the president get busy tallying up his accomplishments? Especially since Musk’s email cautioned: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

I think we can rule the resignation part out. But, taking some liberties here, the president’s list could look like this:

• Called President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine a dictator.
• Refused to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a dictator.
• Had his team hold high-level talks with Russia about the Ukraine war, but didn’t invite Ukraine.
• Fired thousands of federal workers, ostensibly as a cost-cutting measure.
• Tried to rehire a fired Department of Agriculture bird flu team and some nuclear workers, apparently after realizing that bird flu and nuclear accidents are bad things for the U.S.
• Blocked Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the AP persists in calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico.
• Fired the well-regarded chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with several other distinguished and long-serving senior officers, including the judge advocates general of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
• Endorsed a right-wing podcaster as deputy director of the FBI, backing up Patel. Neither has ever served in the FBI.
• Had his team side with Russia(!) in a United Nations resolution on Ukraine.
• Moved to end New York City’s traffic congestion pricing system, which charges vehicles entering the city in certain areas. “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,“ Trump wrote on social media in his typical all-caps style. “Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”
  
  

So that’s more than five, Mr. King — er, Mr. Trump. I’m sure you can find others if you really want to list them. But these certainly should satisfy Mr. Musk.

P.S. Don’t forget to cc your boss. That would be the American people.