Vocal opposition to Elon Musk's DOGE cuts is a 'terrible' strategy, warns ex-Democrat advisor

Yahoo

19-02-2025

A former Democratic advisor sounded the alarm about the party's "terrible" strategy to vocally oppose Elon Musk's effort to cut wasteful government spending at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
"The Morning Meeting" co-host Dan Turrentine argued the Democrats' backlash to slashing fraudulent federal spending means they are "failing the common sense test" during "Jesse Watters Primetime."
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"Terrible," Turrentine responded when asked about the Democrats' strategy to vocally criticize Elon Musk's efforts.
He argued the party is ignoring that Musk's team is uncovering legitimate areas of wasteful spending, instead focusing on "process."
"The number one thing in politics is you want to respect people, listen to them and solve their problems. … We're failing the common sense test rather than saying, hey, some of what they're finding, anybody in their right mind would say, we should end it," said Turrentine.
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"Instead, we scream about everything, and so when we find stuff that, in our opinion, probably is worthy of a discussion, the average voter says, forget it. All you do is scream 'no' and 'they're crazy.'"
Democrats have heightened their opposition to rooting out waste, fraud and abuse — a move critics claim Democrats have championed themselves for decades.
As Musk pinpoints areas of questionable spending, including everything from overpriced coffee cups and soap dispensers to DEI, Democratic attorneys general have ignited a legal firestorm all while lawmakers have organized protests against the Trump-led initiative.
But even former aides to President Barack Obama admitted on an episode of "Pod Save America" they should have done "some of the stuff" President Donald Trump is doing with DOGE.
When discussing DOGE's initiatives to cut federal spending, the "Obama bros" admitted to "lamenting" their situation. Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter, implied he "didn't know" they could make government so efficient.
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"Honestly, some of this is pretty annoying because it's some of the stuff we should've done. We didn't know you could do some of this," Lovett said.
Jon Favreau, also a former Obama speechwriter, shared Lovett's frustration, admitting the Obama administration tried to cut through bureaucracy and create government efficiency, but "it's hard to do."
"We all know that government is slow. We all know government can be inefficient. We all know that the bureaucracy can be bloated. We all worked in the f---ing White House. We tried to reorganize the government. We tried to find efficiency. It's hard to do," Favreau said.
Meanwhile, Musk responded to the far-left criticism of DOGE and his effort to clamp down on wasteful federal spending as critics accuse him of usurping presidential powers and mocking him as "President Elon Musk."
"We must be over the target or doing something right," Musk told Fox News host Sean Hannity during an exclusive sit-down interview alongside Trump.
"They wouldn't be complaining so much if we weren't doing something useful... What we're really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president. And what we're finding is that there's an unelected bureaucracy — speaking of unelected, there's a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president and the Cabinet."
Fox News' Deirdre Heavey and Madeline Coggins contributed to this report. Original article source: Vocal opposition to Elon Musk's DOGE cuts is a 'terrible' strategy, warns ex-Democrat advisor