Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on Thursday questioned why Democrats are taking DOGE seriously.
"Having watched Trump during his first term, when nothing was real, right? When everything was a feint or a fake, it was never infrastructure week, right? He was never serious, after Parkland, about doing gun control. Why do we, all of a sudden, decide to take this government efficiency task force seriously?" Murphy told The New Republic's "The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent" podcast.
"Like, why are we acting as if this is legitimate?" he asked.
President-elect Donald Trump in November named Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as leaders of a new "Department of Government Efficiency" — which is not, despite the name, a government agency.
Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy would work from outside the government to offer the White House "advice and guidance" and would partner with the Office of Management and Budget to "drive large scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before."
He added the move would shock government systems.
Murphy said DOGE is "not a department" and "it's being run by two billionaires, people who have no idea how important basic government services like Medicaid, Social Security, veterans benefits are to regular people."
"But, there are a lot of Democrats, you know, openly saying, 'I [want to] work with them … I want to sit down with this group,' giving the appearance that this is something other than either just a TV show or an effort by the billionaire class to privatize government to benefit themselves," Murphy added.