If you’re worried about Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) seemingly increasing power to dismantle the structure of the Federal government and access your personal information, you’re not alone. Representative Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), a member of the House Oversight Committee on DOGE, has been making the rounds and speaking out about the mysterious agency created by President Donald Trump.
In an exclusive interview with The Root, Rep. Crockett shared her concerns about what could happen if Musk and his team’s power continues to go unchecked.
When asked about Elon Musk and DOGE’s role in President Trump’s administration, Crockett didn’t mince words.
“First of all, it’s not a real thing. Department of Education, real. USAID, real. Department of Veteran Affairs, real. These are real places and buildings and there’s legislation that created them,” she said. “And then you have a guy that walked in and was like, ‘I’m just going to create this out of thin air.’”
You may remember that President Trump went on an Executive Order signing spree on his first day in office (but we understand if you’d rather forget). One of the first orders he signed established DOGE with Musk at the head to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse within the government and save the country money.
But in the days since, we’ve learned that most of Musk’s DOGE hires have been young people with no experience working in government.
Though Trump sold the public on DOGE by saying he was just renaming the U.S. Digital Service – an agency created in 2014 to “deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design” – that was just a way to get around obtaining Congressional approval because the mission is not the same, Crockett said.
“It’s more than a change of the name, the mission is completely different. And Elon [Musk] is not an official full-time government employee. There is no office. And these kids just go into these agencies and plant themselves,” she said. “One was sleeping in the office at one of the agencies with his young baby mama or something. It was ridiculous.”
Crockett says she’s concerned that no one, including the subcommittee she sits on, has been able to get real answers from anyone on the DOGE team about what they’re doing.
“The subcommittee was created by the Republicans to give Marjorie [Taylor Greene (R-GA)] a perch so she can seem serious. But we had a hearing and nobody from DOGE was there,” she said. “What we’re seeing right now is that they are exceeding the authority that any single person has, including the President of the United States.”
In a February 18 interview with MSNBC, Crockett says she applauds those at the Department of Justice and other agencies who have had the courage to stand up to Trump and Musk and resign out of protest, but she is concerned that the only people left will be those who are more than willing to do Trump’s bidding.
“Hats off to each and every person who literally said ‘I have some ethics about myself and therefore, I’m just going to resign,’” she said. “The scary part about this is that only his lackeys will be left running our governmental agencies, whatever is left of those governmental agencies.”