As Donald Trump and Elon Musk take a sledgehammer to the federal bureaucracy, Democrats are wrestling with how to mount their opposition. But on Capitol Hill, there’s at least one place where Democrats are ready for a fight: the newly minted DOGE Subcommittee.
“We’ve gotta fight the fire with fire,” Democratic member of the panel Rep. Robert Garcia told NOTUS. “We’re gonna view this as a bar fight.”
“There’s a lot of decorum in Congress, and that’s fine, but these people have no interest in decorum, and they have no interest in truth, and they have no interest in following the rules,” he said. “And so in that situation, you also have to match that energy.”
The DOGE Subcommittee — a tributary of the House Oversight Committee that, in theory, will work hand in glove with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — is studded with some of Congress’ biggest stars of both parties.
On the GOP side, the panel is led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who — just four years ago — was stripped of any committee assignment for supporting violent rhetoric against Democratic lawmakers. She’s accompanied by a slate of conservative Trump allies like Reps. Tim Burchett, Michael Cloud and Eric Burlison.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Melanie Stansbury is leading the squad of high-profile lawmakers, with Reps. Jasmine Crockett, Greg Casar and Garcia all at her side.
Lawmakers will square off for the first time on Wednesday during a public hearing titled “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud.” While both parties are serious about rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government — every committee member who spoke to NOTUS made that much clear — Democrats and Republicans have entirely different definitions of what that looks like.
As Republicans boast about choking off federal aid and gutting the U.S. International Development Agency in the name of slimming down a bloated federal bureaucracy, Democrats are crying foul that the GOP is taking legally questionable cheap shots at the most disadvantaged recipients of U.S. assistance.
While both parties say they want to find common ground, the idea that they will — at least as far as DOGE is concerned — looks increasingly dubious. Wednesday’s hearing will give Democrats perhaps their most official and public opportunity to make their case against the DOGE-ification of American government.
And, according to Crockett, “It’s gonna be a shit show.”
“I don’t anticipate that it’s going to be nice,” she said. “I anticipate full on combat because DOGE is clearly the devil right now, and it’s being led by an interesting person.”
Fresh off of their bruising November losses, Democratic strategists and voters are raging about the party’s dearth of leadership and direction. Amid the power vacuum, Democratic lawmakers seem to be choosing their own adventure.
Some lawmakers are feuding with Musk on X and staging protests at government buildings. Meanwhile, Sen. John Fetterman said he was open to Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. “own” Gaza. And plenty of Democratic senators have repeatedly voted to confirm Trump nominees.
As Democrats stumble around the dark, the members of DOGE think they can be a guiding light.
“We’re the resistance,” Stansbury said of the Democrats on her panel. “Period.”
The person the resistance will be resisting most directly is Greene. Democrats see her chairmanship as an ideal foil for their strategy. Oversight Democrats spent last term perfecting a definitively feisty tone ideal for generating made-for-TikTok moments.
There was “You look like a smurf.” “Looks like in the shitter to me.” “Receipts. Proof. A timeline. Screenshots.” And, perhaps most famous, when Crockett accused Greene of having a “bleach-blonde bad-built butch body.”
Crockett and the other Democrats on the DOGE panel are no strangers to confrontation, particularly with Greene, but they will have to balance landing their takedowns while also not letting their attacks devolve into a partisan name-calling contest.
Asked for his advice on how Democrats should handle the DOGE hearing, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Rep. Gerry Connolly, told NOTUS it was simple: “Don’t take the bait.”
“Stick to substantive, thoughtful arguments and propositions so that the public can see the contrast between responsible governance and the alternative,” he said.
Connolly’s message pulls straight from the Democratic playbook of 2017, when Democrats hoped that letting Trump be Trump would sink his administration. But as Democratic voters beg for bold defiance from their elected officials, Crockett seemed to think discipline won’t cut it against Musk’s disruption.
“It’s full-on combat,” Crockett said when NOTUS asked her about Connolly’s strategy. “I can’t allow for certain things to just fly. That’s just not who I am, and it’s not fair for the American people.”
If Connolly, a septuagenarian veteran of Democratic politics, and Crockett, a fresh-faced sophomore willing to shake up Congress, represent two ends of the resistance spectrum, Stansbury seems to find herself in the middle.
“We are preparing for a bipartisan agenda, should it come to fruition. But I will say that there is an immense amount of skepticism about why they’ve set this subcommittee up and should it come to pass,” she said. “We’re ready to fight Republicans.”
Stansbury met with Greene to sketch out the committee schedule last Thursday. Both women described the meeting as cordial and productive. Greene insisted to reporters that she’s committed to addressing “very bipartisan” issues and that she selected the members of her panel based on who was serious about the DOGE mission.
“I didn’t want drama,” she said.
“I hope they’ll be serious-minded as well,” Greene continued. “And I will say I have high hopes for that, because I think America needs to see each end of the two political parties come together on something that matters, and that’s their tax dollars.”
Of course, to those who have sparred with Greene, her role as a serious, organized subcommittee chair doesn’t exactly square with her reputation as a conspiracy-spewing MAGA caricature. When NOTUS asked Stansbury whether she thinks Greene is serious about working in a bipartisan fashion, she demurred, saying the question was better directed to the chairwoman.
Former Oversight Ranking Member Jamie Raskin — who was standing next to Stansbury — couldn’t help but chime in at the description of Greene as “serious.”
“Is there a new Congresswoman Greene?” Raskin asked.
Although Greene is a familiar liberal punching bag, she also has a massive following and high name recognition. There’s no one better, Oversight Chair James Comer told NOTUS, than Greene to draw attention to DOGE’s work.
“She’s high-profile, as is Elon Musk,” Comer told NOTUS. “And I think that helps amplify what you’re doing.”
Republican Rep. Cloud said Greene’s role as a disruptor on Capitol Hill and the “private sector” makes her an ideal subcommittee leader to partner with Musk.
“The objective is to understand that we’re confronting the status quo,” Cloud said. “Anyone who knows anything about her settling for the status quo is not in her vocabulary.”
But the version of Greene that shows up to run the committee very well may depend on what version of the Democrats show up on Wednesday. Republicans are paying close attention.
“From our perspective, the Dems have two choices now,” Cloud said. “One is they can continue to go along these diatribes that lost them an election, or they can join us in the bipartisan effort to rein in a federal government that’s metastasized beyond its purpose.”
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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.