The DOGE Committee’s First Listening to Was All About Elon Musk

• The Home’s DOGE committee held a listening to on Wednesday about improper funds and fraud.
• In actuality, it was all about Elon Musk.
• Democrats used the listening to to highlight Musk and DOGE’s latest antics within the govt department.

The official cause for Wednesday’s listening to, convened in a cramped, pastel-walled room within the second ground of a labyrinthine Home workplace constructing, was to look at improper funds and fraud.

In apply, it was largely about Elon Musk.

Over the course of two hours, the Home Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Authorities Effectivity met for the primary time in opposition to the backdrop of a DOGE-led blitz throughout the federal authorities that is spurred quite a few lawsuits and ignited Democratic resistance.

“We won’t simply sit right here at the moment and fake like all the things is regular, and that that is simply one other listening to on authorities effectivity,” mentioned Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the highest Democrat on the committee. “Whereas we’re sitting right here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal authorities.”

The Home’s DOGE subcommittee was established to assist the Musk-led “Division of Authorities Effectivity” within the govt department. Whereas some Democrats have expressed an eagerness to work with Musk, these lawmakers did not find yourself on this committee. As a substitute, the occasion chosen a few of its most ostentatious brawlers to prosecute the case in opposition to Musk.

For Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the committee’s chairwoman, it was a high-stakes second. 4 years in the past, a bipartisan majority of the Home voted to bar the Georgia Republican from serving on any committee for everything of her first time period, owing to her historical past of violent and conspiratorial rhetoric. Now, she’s chairing some of the high-profile committees within the Home.

As she led the listening to, Greene largely eschewed the theatrics for which she’s identified, utilizing her opening remarks to supply a comparatively boilerplate disquisition on the nationwide debt.

“This isn’t a Democrat drawback. This isn’t a Republican drawback. That is an American drawback,” Greene mentioned. “We, as Republicans and Democrats, can nonetheless maintain tightly to our beliefs, however we’re going to need to let go of funding them in an effort to save our sinking ship.”

Democrats on the committee took a decidedly completely different strategy, utilizing the discussion board to assault Musk, DOGE, the machinations of the billionaire businessman’s younger lieutenants, his potential conflicts of pursuits, and President Donald Trump’s latest firing of inspectors normal throughout the federal authorities. Stansbury even invited Musk to testify earlier than the committee, alluding to his eagerness to “have interaction with members of Congress on social media.”

Essentially the most dramatic second of the listening to got here when Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California, referring to Greene’s show of nude images of Hunter Biden throughout a 2023 listening to, unveiled what he referred to as a “dick decide” — a posterboard plastered with Musk’s face.

“This isn’t about working with the richest man on the planet,” Garcia mentioned. “This committee desires to empower the richest particular person on the planet to harm folks.”

Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas grilled witnesses on Trump’s latest firing of inspectors normal, the unbiased officers at companies all through the federal government whose jobs embody investigating waste and fraud.

“If this committee have been critical about rooting out waste from our federal authorities, then at the moment’s entire listening to can be about how Musk and Donald Trump are firing the unbiased watchdogs who’ve accomplished this work for many years,” Casar mentioned.

Each side of the dais largely agreed on the substance of the listening to: that improper funds and fraud within the federal authorities are price addressing. However as with most congressional hearings, the testimony and questioning have been largely for the cameras, and Greene discovered herself within the uncommon place of bemoaning that Democrats had determined to “make a political theater of the entire thing.”

“In the event that they need to make this a spot to create partisan assaults and future marketing campaign adverts, they’re actually going to be on the shedding aspect of the difficulty,” Greene informed reporters.

Towards the tip of the listening to, Republican Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas bemoaned the course that the proceedings had taken.

“All we have heard about for many of this listening to on the opposite aspect of the aisle is Elon Musk, Elon Musk, Elon Musk,” Gill mentioned.