The DOGE blame game

There are lots of theories about how DOGE is operating, but Republicans don't seem interested in learning the facts.

A sign at a Save Social Security event held in Miami on Friday.

I’m happy to back home in Savannah after a quick trip to Florida to check in on some events tied to Social Security. I performed my usual Sunday morning routine of watching Meet the Press to find Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) talking about what DOGE is doing inside the Social Security Administration (SSA). Curtis’ comments do not comport with the apparent reality of the situation.

I say apparent reality because it’s not entirely clear what the organizational structure of DOGE actually is. This morning, Curtis claimed that DOGE’s operations are being run by Musk, who is running decisions by Trump. This is just one of the explanations of how DOGE operates and who is actually responsible for its decisions. Here are a few others, which have been offered up in court filings, public statements and from sources inside the SSA.

• Elon Musk is not running DOGE at all. In one of the lawsuits I’m tracking, Amy Gleason testified that Musk “does not work for DOGE,” and that she is actually the acting administrator of the organization. This conflicts with WIRED’s reporting from inside the SSA that Gleason is a glorified paper-pusher.

• White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and President Trump himself are approving DOGE cuts. In another court filing, government lawyers say that all DOGE’s decisions are sent to Wiles and Trump for final approval. Do you believe that the president and his chief of staff are involved in minute decisions in every single cut DOGE has proposed across scores of government agencies?

• Hand-picked SSA staff is coordinating with DOGE on cuts. Another court filing maintains that government agencies like the SSA have “veto power” on any cuts proposed by DOGE. I’ve yet to see significant evidence that agency staff have successfully pushed back on DOGE cuts.

With all these conflicting explanations of who is actually in charge of making sweeping cuts to government agencies, Republicans have come up with oversimplified explanations of how all this works — when they’ve expressed any interest at all in understanding who is in charge of the fundamental changes being made to the federal government. The simplest explanation — and the one that increasingly appears to be the truth — is that Trump gave Musk carte blanche to do whatever he felt was necessary to cut government agencies. In turn, Musk gave his DOGE staff vast authority to do whatever they wanted within government agencies. There, DOGE has recruited and employed sympathetic officials like the SSA’s Leland Dudek to aid in these efforts.

While Sen. Curtis’ explanation of Musk and Trump being the final decision-makers when it comes to cuts that will affect millions of Americans may not be the entire truth, it is Musk and Trump who are ultimately responsible. At events across Florida in recent days, seniors seemed to understand this, and are demanding accountability over Musk and Trump’s gutting of the agency that helps them pay their bills. More on that in the coming days.

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