Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency formally came into existence less than 24 hours ago, and it's already got a fair bit of turmoil.
To start with, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are no longer co-leaders of DOGE. Before Donald Trump was even sworn in, Ramaswamy announced that he was resigning, so that he can mount a bid for the governorship of Ohio.
Surely there is nobody on Earth who actually believes that's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. First of all, it does not take 2 years to mount a proper run for governor of Ohio. Even presidential campaigns tend to take only 14-18 months. Second, whatever campaigning or fundraising Ramaswamy might do in the next 6 months cannot possibly be as useful to him as it would be if he could say "Before I ran for governor, I was able to help cut $[X] billion in wasteful federal spending. I can do the same for Ohio."
So what actually happened here? The fundamental problem is that Ramaswamy alienated both Musk and Trump. In baseball, it's three strikes and you're out. In DOGEball, by contrast, you only get two strikes. All three of those men fancy themselves to be "alpha males," or whatever the hot new right-wing term for that concept is. So, it was not likely that Washington would be big enough for the three of them, at least not for long. And the final straw, apparently, was the public dustup over H-1B visas, where Ramaswamy loudly took the "con" position, while Musk took the "pro" position. As a result of that, Musk decided that his co-DOGEy had to go, and put the matter to Trump. Unfortunately for Ramaswamy, he's not the one who has $400 billion in net worth, along with a wide-reaching social media platform.
All of this said, we suspect Ramaswamy isn't terribly unhappy that he's been shown the door. He is one of the most obnoxious people alive, but he's not stupid. And he is surely capable of figuring out that DOGE is fighting an uphill battle. And by uphill, we really mean "climbing Mount Everest without shoes, socks, oxygen, or a Sherpa to assist." The odds are high that the effort will fail spectacularly. And if it does, well, better for an aspiring governor to not end up with that particular egg on his face.
Not that we think that Ramaswamy's gubernatorial bid is likely to work out. He has no political experience, and not only is he obnoxious, he has a bad habit of going off half-cocked. He's going to be up against a number of rivals, several who have already won statewide in Ohio. And given yesterday's somewhat nasty divorce, he cannot count on the support of MAGAworld. There's been no polling yet, not even of hypothetical matchups, but we certainly wouldn't want to place any money on him.
Meanwhile, beyond the infighting, there was some more bad news for DOGE yesterday. Just minutes after Trump was inaugurated, and before he'd even signed the executive order making DOGE official, the lawsuits began to fly. The first of those, and the one that appears to be most substantial, is courtesy of the activist group National Security Counselors. The argument made (which is echoed in two of the other suits) is that the creation of DOGE violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), because the Trump administration did not follow the proper rules in terms of staffing, public comment, etc.
In short, just in case you had any doubt, there is going to be a LOT of legal wrangling in the world of politics in the next 4 years. Thank goodness we now have a contributor who is a lawyer. (Z)