A (former) DOGE employee goes rogue

Politico

2 days ago

Presented by
Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump's unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond.
Send tips | Subscribe | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben
The White House is trying to get to the bottom of an incident involving a former Veterans Affairs employee who used their position to target a prominent critic of ELON MUSK, according to a White House official and a second person familiar with the matter granted anonymity to speak freely.
JAMES FISHBACK, the anti-DEI investor who recently launched FSD PAC — a super PAC aimed at blunting Musk's political ambitions — received a direct message on X from the official DOGE Veterans Affairs account.
'James - we need to talk. Your recent behavior has crossed some serious lines. That's why we rejected your DOGE application in the first place. Let's step your game up. This is embarrassing,' read the message sent Saturday, reviewed by POLITICO.
Fishback said he never applied to work at DOGE. Fishback advised VIVEK RAMASWAMY on DOGE while Ramaswamy was still involved, and conceived of the 'DOGE dividend check' plan, which President DONALD TRUMP and Musk both embraced.
The person who sent the message no longer works for the VA, a White House official said, adding that the White House is confident that everyone working in the administration is on the same page. If that is found not to be the case, the official said, repercussions will follow.
'The president's mission is to make sure the goal of cutting waste, fraud and abuse is successful and continues,' said White House spokesperson HARRISON FIELDS. 'The American people elected him to be a better steward of taxpayer dollars, and every agency and department is working seamlessly to execute the president's campaign promise.'
This is the only known example of a Musk loyalist going rogue and acting at odds with Trump's and the GOP's agenda, but the incident comes at a delicate moment as the administration is grappling with how to manage DOGE's influence now that Musk has turned into a Trump adversary.
The White House's Presidential Personnel Office has made loyalty a cornerstone of its hiring strategy, scouring social media accounts and grilling applicants about their Trump bona fides. But DOGE hires, selected through a separate Musk-led process, didn't undergo the same level of scrutiny, according to a Trump official familiar with the process granted anonymity to describe the process.
Musk announced last week that he is forming a new political party, the America Party, with plans to pour financial resources into two or three Senate races and as many as 10 House contests. 'Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people,' Musk said Friday.
Trump fired back over the weekend.
'Saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails,' essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,' he posted on Truth Social. Trump has also threatened to turn DOGE against Musk, though it is unclear how much loyalty he has from the network of employees who signed up to work for the tech mogul.
The DOGE VA account that messaged Fishback has no public posts aside from a single reply in February, when it engaged an X user about improving veterans' health care. The message questioned whether opening new VA hospitals was the right solution but acknowledged that more could be done to serve veterans despite the VA being the nation's largest health system.
Read more here.
MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at [e-mail].
Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe!
POTUS PUZZLER
Which president got elbowed in the face playing basketball while in office, requiring 12 stitches?
(Answer at bottom.)
Agenda Setting
DEVASTATION IN TEXAS: The devastating floods in Texas this weekend have raised fresh concerns about the Trump administration's cuts to federal agencies tasked with responding to extreme weather events, POLITICO's E&E News' CHELSEA HARVEY reports. Though TOM FAHY, legislative director at the union that represents National Weather Service employees, said that vacancies at the two Texas offices serving the flooded communities did not cause any problems during the floods, he urged the administration to reconsider its planned funding cuts.
'We can't predict where the next severe storm or high-impact weather event will take place,' Fahy said. 'Therefore, we have to ask that the administration reconsider their decision to suspend the funding for the warning coordination meteorologists.'
White House press secretary KAROLINE LEAVITT pushed back on the idea that federal funding cuts resulted in delayed communication about the floods, and that all the offices were fully staffed. 'These offices were well staffed,' Leavitt said during today's press briefing. 'In fact, one of the offices was actually overstaffed. They had more people than they need[ed]. Any claim to the contrary is completely false and it's just sad that people are pushing these lies.'
FATE OF FEMA: Leavitt today also opened the door to salvaging the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Trump has suggested should be phased out, Irie reports.
'The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,' Leavitt said, when asked if Trump was reconsidering his plan to wind down the agency. 'Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.'
Knives Out
INVESTIGATION REQUESTED: Senate Minority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER urged Commerce Department Inspector General RODERICK ANDERSON in a letter today to conduct a probe into whether staffing cuts at NWS, which is housed under Commerce, 'contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property' during the floods, according to a copy of the letter obtained by POLITICO.
'[W]e must do everything possible to provide answers as to why the community was not alerted sooner that dangerously high floodwaters were imminent,' Schumer wrote.
WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT
EXODUS AT THE VA: The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced that it's on track to reduce the department's staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of the fiscal year. 'While VA had been considering a department-wide RIF to reduce staff levels by up to 15%, employee reductions through the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements and normal attrition have eliminated the need for that RIF,' the VA announced in a press release today.
The department lost about 17,000 employees in the first six months of the year, and expects an additional 12,000 employees to exit between now and September 'through normal attrition, voluntary early retirement … or the deferred resignation program.'
Earlier this year, VA Secretary DOUG COLLINS floated the idea of cutting more than 80,000 employees. But after many voluntary departures, the number is expected to be less than half that.
In the Courts
SEE YOU IN COURT: A coalition of doctors' groups led by the American Academy of Pediatrics filed a lawsuit today against HHS Secretary ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., arguing that his May announcement that the federal government will no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy pregnant people and children violated longstanding norms governing U.S. immunization policy, our LAUREN GARDNER reports.
Kennedy's 'Secretarial Directive' documenting his move to cut the vaccine from the CDC's immunization schedule did not cite an emergency or specific circumstantial changes to support the move, the organizations says, and 'is contrary to the wealth of data and peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines' for those groups.
What We're Reading
How Elon Musk's Third Party Gamble Could Succeed (POLITICO's Alexander Burns)
Trump admin asks staff to report cases of bias due to DEI directives (POLITICO's Danny Nguyen)
Elon Musk Is Running Out of Road in China (WSJ's Raffaele Huang, Lingling Wei and Yoko Kubota)
From Food Aid to Dog Chow? How Trump's Cuts Hurt Kansas Farmers (NYT's Elizabeth Williamson)
POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER
In 2010, former President BARACK OBAMA was playing a full-court pickup game at Fort McNair and got inadvertently elbowed in the face by RAY DECEREGA, who was then serving as director of programs at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Decerega said Obama was 'both a tough competitor and a good sport.'
According to then-White House press secretary ROBERT GIBBS, Obama received 12 stitches from the White House Medical Unit.