Trump, Musk defend efforts to cut U.S. government workforce and spending – National [Video]

U.S. President Donald Trump made a rare appearance with Elon Musk, his most powerful adviser, in the Oval Office on Tuesday before signing an executive order to continue downsizing the federal workforce.

The Associated Press reviewed a White House fact sheet on the order, which is intended to advance Musk’s work slashing spending with his Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk said there are some good people in the federal bureaucracy but they need to be accountable and called it an “unelected” fourth branch.

“The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get,” he said. “That’s what democracy is all about.”

The White House barred an AP reporter from the Oval Office event due to the media organization’s guidelines to not follow Trump’s order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, the Associated Press said in a statement.

It was Musk’s first time taking questions …