The first hearing of the Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee started normally enough on Wednesday.
Lawmakers took their seats in a drab committee room. They cordially welcomed each other to the panel’s inaugural meeting. And they signaled their openness to reaching across the aisle to cut waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
From that point on, however, there was hardly anything Republicans and Democrats agreed upon.
Lawmakers weren’t even through their opening statements when the hearing devolved into a partisan airing of grievances, a two-hour debate over which unelected bureaucrats should carry out the president’s agenda: career civil servants or Elon Musk.
“For anyone who has ever worked on these issues, you know that there is ample ground for bipartisan work to make the government work better for the American people and to ensure that it operates in a more efficient manner,” the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Melanie Stansbury, said.
But if there was ample ground for bipartisanship, there was no room for it near the end of Stansbury’s opening remarks.
“While we’re sitting here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government, shuttering federal agencies, firing federal workers, withholding funds vital to the safety and well-being of our communities and hacking our sensitive data systems,” Stansbury said.
That, in turn, kicked off a chorus of criticism from Democrats on the panel, with each lawmaker taking aim at Trump and Musk for dismantling the federal workforce and firing the inspector general of a number of agencies.
“If we want to be serious about it, let’s be serious about it, but the way not to do it is to fire the people charged with the remit of waste, fraud and abuse, namely, inspectors general,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, under which the DOGE panel sits. “A wrecking crew, a wrecking crane, a wrecking ball is not going to do it, and we’re not going to support that approach to waste, fraud and abuse of the federal government.”
The subcommittee, which operates separately from the Delivering on Government Efficiency Caucus — as well as Musk’s executive branch DOGE endeavor — is chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who the House stripped of committee assignments for her first two years in office.
On Wednesday, Greene was in no mood to hear what Democrats thought of her panel.
“DOGE became a major part of President Trump’s campaign and led to his overwhelming victory in November,” Greene said. “The legislative branch can’t sit on the sidelines in this subcommittee. We will fight the war on waste shoulder to shoulder with President Trump, Elon Musk and the DOGE team.”
Musk himself wasn’t in attendance. Oversight Democrats failed to subpoena him last week after some Democratic lawmakers failed to show up for a vote.
But Musk’s absence didn’t prevent him from taking center stage at the hearing — drawing the ire of Democrats and the endless praise of Republicans.
“Why is the administration so eager to allow Elon Musk and his hackers access to proprietary and private information in the treasury payment systems?” Stansbury asked. “Why are our colleagues across the aisle shielding them as they are clearly breaking the law?”
Other Democrats said they only joined the committee to “defend democracy” from the threat Trump and others pose to the country.
“My primary purpose in seeking appointment to this subcommittee is for the singular and sacred purpose to defend our democracy, which I believe is under attack in this country,” Rep. Stephen Lynch said. “If we’re going after waste, fraud and abuse, let’s start with abuse of power.”
Other Democrats, like Rep. Robert Garcia, made it clear exactly how seriously they expected their work to be taken.
“In the last Congress, Chair Greene literally showed a dick pic in our Oversight congressional hearing, so I thought I’d bring one as well,” Garcia said, before revealing a photo of Musk.
“Elon Musk is sending his unqualified DOGE staff to carry out this agenda across all these agencies, and in some cases actually teenage staffers. No accountability, no experience and problematic records. They’re trying to rob you, and they’re probably a minor,” Garcia said.
Only Garcia prolonged his pronunciation of minor — think: “mi-norrrrrr” — to mimic Kendrick Lamar’s diss track against Drake, which Lamar performed on Sunday during the Super Bowl halftime show.
It was that tone that Democrats brought to the hearing — mockery, derision, playfulness — which so angered Republicans.
For the GOP lawmakers in attendance, the hearing was no laughing matter.
“I find it sad that my colleagues across the aisle can’t take this seriously,” Rep. William Timmons said.
The hearing was supposed to be focused on “Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” but, in effect, it became a debate over Musk.
“He’s the richest man in the world because he succeeds at his endeavors,” Timmons said. “And that’s why President Trump has appointed him the head of this effort.”
“I would just ask my colleagues across the aisle to get out of the way if you don’t want to help. If you don’t want to help right the fiscal ship in this country, get out of the way,” Timmons continued. “You can kick and scream all the way, or you can get out of the way.”
Republican Rep. Brandon Gill also tore into Democrats for their Musk criticism, asking why Democrats hadn’t ever questioned Anthony Fauci’s work under Trump.
“If we’ve learned anything so far, it’s that Republicans want to cut waste, fraud and abuse from our federal government and save taxpayer dollars,” Gill said. “And Democrats want to grandstand and play politics.”
“Most of this hearing from the other side of the aisle is ‘Elon Musk, Elon Musk, Elon Musk,’” Gill added, asking where Democrats were when “their God, Anthony Fauci, was forcing vaccine and mask mandates on the American people?”
“The reality is that Elon Musk serves as an employee of the president,” Gill said.
Rep. Tim Burchett accused his colleagues of “defending waste abuse” in their criticism of Musk and Trump’s cuts.
“The gravy train for a lot of these folks, it’s been on biscuit wheels, and it’s about to run off the daggum tracks,” Burchett said.
Stansbury shot back that the Republican reconciliation proposal unveiled this morning would deliver tax cuts that largely benefit the ultrarich like Musk.
“That gravy train is not the federal workforce; it’s the billionaires,” Stansbury said. “Unfortunately, my colleagues right now are working on a reconciliation deal to cut Medicaid, to cut Medicare and use that money to give tax breaks to their billionaire buddies.”
“That is the gravy train that is actually going on here,” Stansbury said.
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Mark Alfred is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.