Ayanna Pressley To Comptroller General Gene Dodaro: 'Do You Know How The Term DOGE Came About?'

2 days ago

During a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) spoke about the origins of Elon Musk's DOGE.

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Transcript

00:00Ms. Presley. Thank you. Thank you to the Comptroller General for being here today.

00:06I'm grateful for your service and you are a great reminder of the ways in

00:12which government does benefit people every day, but they're often unaware.

00:16Congress has a duty to ensure that government operates efficiently,

00:20effectively, and in the public interest. For any elected official, constituent

00:25services are our bread and butter. I know long before I was an elected

00:30official, I worked as a constituent services advocate, a Social Security

00:34liaison advocating for our most vulnerable. If your grandfather can't get

00:39an appointment at the VA or if your mom is stuck on hold with the Social

00:43Security Administration for hours, you should be angry and we should be fixing

00:48it. But instead of fixing it, the Trump administration has turned over the keys

00:52to an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, through the so-called Department of

00:56Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Mr. Dodaro, can you define, just so we're operating

01:01with the same understanding and comprehension here, can you define

01:04government efficiency? Well, efficiency is getting the best possible outcome with

01:10the least amount of resources. Right. It's not about slashing budgets for the sake

01:16of headlines while weakening the very services that keep people safe, fed, and

01:20housed. True efficiency is about making government work better for the people,

01:24protecting their rights, strengthening essential services, and ensuring tax

01:27dollars go to the public good, not private profits. By that standard, DOGE

01:34isn't here to serve anyone other than Elon Musk. But let's take a step back.

01:38History is important. Mr. Dodaro, do you know how the term DOGE came about? Not

01:45particularly. Well, it came from an internet meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog

01:50that went viral on Reddit, and that meme led to the creation of DOGE coin, a joke

01:57cryptocurrency. Eventually, it caught the attention of none other than Elon Musk. In

02:012019, more than five years ago, Elon Musk started tweeting about DOGE, making jokes

02:07and using the cryptocurrency for profit. He was not interested in government

02:11efficiency. He only cared about making money. That's why the actual creator of

02:16DOGE coin said that Elon, quote, was and always will be a grifter, unquote. Mr.

02:24Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this article titled,

02:27DOGE coin co-creator calls Elon Musk a grifter who had trouble running basic

02:34code. Without objection. It's ordered. Talk about didn't earn it. So here we are in 2025,

02:43and Elon Musk is still using DOGE to make money. This time, instead of pumping up a joke

02:48currency for his own profits, he's using a meme inspired agency to launch a hostile

02:53takeover of the federal government. DOGE has recklessly fired FAA employees and attacked

02:59the agency, all while Musk's own aerospace business benefits from regulatory rollbacks.

03:05Make it make sense. DOGE dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog agency

03:12that returned $21 billion to victims of fraud when he heard it was planning to investigate

03:21his company. And just last week, in a moment of stunning incompetence, the administration

03:26frantically tried to unfire hundreds of employees they had to let go the day before.

03:31Why? Because those employees were overseeing our nuclear stockpile. Those employees were

03:38managing the bird flu outbreak. Those employees were providing not nice to have, but essential

03:45must have services that all of our constituents rely on. Mr. Dodaro, do firing workers and then

03:53trying to unfire them sound like government efficiency to you? It's not a best practice.

04:01Sure it doesn't to me. What kind of efficiency makes people hungrier? What kind of efficiency

04:07makes people poor? What kind of efficiency makes people less safe? If Trump and Musk truly wanted

04:13to make government better, then they would turn to the actual efficiency experts at the

04:18Government Accountability Office. But this was never about efficiency. Just like the DOGE meme,

04:25the lives of hardworking families are a joke to them. I won't stand for it. I know my colleagues

04:32won't either, and we'll continue to fight for a government rooted in real efficiency,

04:36one that works for everyone, not just for billionaires. I yield back.

04:42Chair now recognizes Ms. Tlaib.

04:46Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much. I know it's really incredibly

Ayanna Pressley To Comptroller General Gene Dodaro: 'Do You Know How The Term DOGE Came About?'

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