Democrat Frost slams DOGE: Billionaires 'cosplaying as government officials' 

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) criticized President-elect Trump’s choices to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) committee, saying it’s "two billionaires who are cosplaying as government officials.” 

“Let's be honest about DOGE and this whole thing, it's a joke,” he said on MSNBC on Thursday evening, noting DOGE is “not an actual department of this government.”

Trump tapped tech billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the advisory body – a decision that has spurred much controversy. 

DOGE was created with the objective to “slash wasteful spending” and help restructure the government. Trump has also said that it will “provide advice and guidance” from outside of government. Several legislators from both sides of the aisle have already joined the related caucus, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is already set to chair a subcommittee also related to DOGE and its efforts. 

“I’m all for making our government more efficient, but we have to look at the proposition here,” said Frost, who was reelected last month for a second House term. “The proposition of these two guys is that to make the government more efficient we gotta fire a bunch of people and take away a bunch of funding.

“And that lack of nuance and actually providing real oversight on how we can make the government work in a better way shows me firsthand that they are not coming at this on the right foot and not coming at it from the right place.”  

Musk and Ramaswamy joined legislators on Capitol Hill Republicans about DOGE on Thursday, where they heard suggestions on how to cut spending and government waste. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that the Thursday meetings would not immediately lead to specific plans.