Many Republicans remain convinced that their colleagues’ opposition to DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts will backfire politically.
M idway through congressional Democrats’ anti–Elon Musk press conference outside the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday afternoon, the sun began shining and Senator Richard Blumenthal found himself a new metaphor.
“Just like the sun coming out, we’re going to shine that sun because it’s the best disinfectant on what Musk and his minions are doing — President Musk,” the Connecticut senator quickly corrected himself, “because we are not going to stand for this kind of betrayal” of “our veterans.”
As Democrats tell it, President Donald Trump, “unelected, unaccountable billionaire” Elon Musk, and their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “henchmen” are taking a sledgehammer to the VA by laying off probationary workers, instituting a hiring freeze, and cleaning house at the department’s office of the inspector general.
In one sense, there’s a clever public relations angle in depicting Republicans as the anti–veteran services party. “These are the same politicians and billionaires who never miss a photo op with veterans,” Representative Mark Takano (D., Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, yelled at Thursday’s crowd. “But now they are trying to destroy the very system our veterans rely on. They’re treating our nation’s veterans and VA employees like disposable parts instead of the essential caregivers that they are!”
But the problem for congressional Democrats is that this sunshine-as-disinfectant argument is exactly what Republicans are presenting to the American people in cutting alleged waste, fraud, and abuse in taxpayer-funded federal agencies.
Many Republicans in Washington are convinced that their colleagues’ reflexive opposition to DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts will backfire politically, especially now that early polls and swing-voter focus groups suggest that Americans are largely on board with the mission.
“Everyone who runs a household, anybody who runs a business knows that every once in a while, you’ve got to look at your budget” and “make necessary cuts,” says Representative Carlos Giménez (R., Fla.). If you don’t do that, he says, then you’re not running a very good business. “What makes the federal government any different?”
In the White House, some staffers see congressional Democrats’ obsession with Musk as a new strategy to tar Trump by association. Over the years, the talking point goes, Democrats have tried and failed to imprison Trump, paint him as a Russian asset, and even kick him off the 2024 presidential ballot in multiple states. After the 2024 election saw that strategy run out of gas, Democrats have now turned to Trump’s “special government employee” sidekick, Elon Musk.
As one White House official told National Review: “They have tried everything with Donald Trump. So, I guess they’re moving on to attack someone else.”
Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost (D., Fla.) is convinced that DOGE’s mission represents the “opposite” of what Trump pledged on the campaign trail. “He said he was going to fight for working people. He said they were going to usher in transparency,” Frost tells National Review. “There’s no transparency, no one knows what Musk is doing. It’s all behind closed doors with a few random guys.”
Demoralized by their brutal 2024 election loss, Democrats are still struggling to present clear, consistent, and persuasive anti-Trump talking points that resonate with swing and working-class voters across the country. Over the past three weeks in Washington, the party’s anti-Trump pushback has included efforts to fiercely protest the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) federal buyout offer, rail against the administration’s decision to dismantle USAID, and hold a rare overnight session on the Senate floor to protest the nomination of Russ Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
To Republicans, Democrats’ fixation on the inside baseball politics of federal agencies speaks to the party’s fundamental misunderstanding of the average middle-American swing voter’s everyday priorities. “An issue the Democrat Party has is that they’re so Beltway-heavy. They’re here, and all their friends work here, and all their groups are here,” added the White House official. “How many people even know what OMB and OPM and USAID are?”
Now, three weeks into Trump’s second presidency, disagreements among Democrats are likely to continue over how aggressively to push back against the White House’s flood-the-zone strategy. Many progressive grassroots organizations are pressuring lawmakers to push back against every Trump policy change, cabinet nominee, and department policy change, while some elected Democrats counter that the party needs to take a more targeted approach.
For progressives, the “B” word will remain the party’s messaging through line.
“House Democrats have started to become clearer and clearer and more and more unified around the message that we shouldn’t have billionaires shutting down services that Americans need and threatening cuts to vital programs so that they can enrich themselves through billionaire tax breaks,” says Representative Greg Casar (D., Texas), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.