The so-called Department of Government Efficiency is great branding. Who could be against a more efficient government? But “efficiency” obfuscates what’s really happening here.
Efficiency to what end? Elon Musk, President Trump and DOGE’s boosters have offered various objectives — cutting the deficit, eliminating fraud and abuse, creating a leaner and more responsive government. But DOGE’s actions in the past two months don’t seem to align with any of those goals.
Santi Ruiz is a senior editor at the Institute for Progress and the author and host of the “Statecraft” podcast and newsletter. He’s to my right politically and had higher hopes, at first, about DOGE’s efforts, but he’s now grappling with the reality of what it’s actually doing.
0:00 Introduction
1:42 Steel manning DOGE
11:10 Changing the source code of government
22:00 Dismantling U.S.A.I.D.
37:03 Symmetry
47:22 Russell Vought's ideology / unitary executive theory
1:07:44 What should Democrats learn from DOGE?
1:11:35 Book recommendations
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You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.