Brian Barrett: I simply this week was wanting again at a few of our earliest DOGE reporting and reminded of what a loopy couple of months that was. So simply as a reminder for people who have been slumbering via the primary half of the yr, A, I am jealous. I respect that.
Zoë Schiffer: I used to be simply going to say, good for you.
Brian Barrett: Division of Authorities Effectivity took place when Elon Musk and Donald Trump obtained collectively and principally Trump gave Elon Musk form of free rein to do no matter he needed, and I am not likely exaggerating right here, inside the federal authorities. So Musk allies took over numerous authorities companies, together with the Workplace of Personnel Administration, which is type of the human sources for the entire authorities, the Common Companies Administration, which is its tech IT division principally. And from there, form of fanned out throughout companies and have been accountable for lots of the chaos that we noticed on this early administration, large job cuts, large cuts to USAID, laws being slashed, not at all times for good, having everybody within the federal authorities, having to jot down an electronic mail with 5 factors of what they did that week and sending it to by no means be learn. DOGE did not find yourself doing what it got down to do.
The thought was to chop a trillion {dollars} from the finances, which you actually cannot do except you narrow into entitlement applications, which A, DOGE had no management over, and B, politically can be untenable. So Zoë, what did they do?
Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I believe the purpose ostensibly was to root out fraud and waste, to root out inefficiency.
Brian Barrett: And abuse, fraud, waste and abuse, I believe.
Zoë Schiffer: Fraud, waste and abuse. I used to be going to say it and I used to be like, I do not even know precisely what meaning,
