Former aides to President Barack Obama are “lamenting” the fact they did not implement at least “some of” the federal government reforms spearheaded by President Donald J. Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) themselves. “Honestly, some of this is pretty annoying because it’s some of the stuff we should’ve done,” said former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett on the Pod Save America podcast, admitting: “We didn’t know you could do some of this.”
Co-host and fellow ex-Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau appeared to concur, saying, “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 f***ing the White House. We tried to reorganize the government. We tried to find efficiency. It’s hard to do.”
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday requiring federal agencies to collaborate with DOGE, led by tech mogul Elon Musk, in its efforts to downsize the federal government. Recent initiatives by DOGE have included significant budget cuts across various sectors, including a near-total shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and trimming over $100 million in funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs within the Department of Education.
Democrats have brought various lawfare cases against President Trump and DOGE for their cost-cutting efforts. Musk has observed, “The louder that any given politician yells about cutting government waste, the more corrupt they are.”
Some judges are indulging the Democrat-led lawfare campaign, such as U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer, who is bizarrely attempting to block DOGE and potentially even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from accessing the Treasury Department’s federal payments system. Consequently, Congressman Eli Crane (R-AZ) is preparing articles of impeachment against Engelmayer for abusing his judicial authority.