Republicans Are Starting to Panic About DOGE

Plus: Another Russian propagandist gets ready to join the Trump administration.

Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s tool for mass-firing government employees and shuttering independent agencies without consulting Congress, is setting up Republican lawmakers for political calamity by rapidly boosting unemployment and negating key services on their watch. And they’re starting to publicly concede their wariness of it.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told me he considers DOGE a real political risk, saying, “In some ways, it’s the same things you have to look out for if you go into a government shutdown.”

“Where you are ultimately going to see it is in a lot of citizen-facing issues—national parks or customer-service-type functions are going to be the first to suffer—and that could have an impact on peoples’ perceptions of whether or not it’s good or bad, regardless of whether something we should be looking at.

“So I think it can create some of—what I would call in the business world—some customer-service problems,” he added.

Tillis’s Republican colleagues in the House are going to be particularly vulnerable if large swaths of the federal workforce get permanently ripped away. As Tillis noted, this goes far beyond just creating giant pools of unemployment overnight. People across the country are angry, and that anger has come out at a handful of town halls lawmakers held in their home districts over the weekend.

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) faced a crowded and angry room of constituents last week, and it seems that the booing and hissing had an impact. McCormick said on a podcast Monday that he would be urging Musk and Trump to slow the pace of firings and cuts.

“I’m not against anything he’s doing, but I’m concerned,” McCormick said. “I’m concerned that maybe we’re moving a little bit too fast.”

While McCormick won his race handily in 2024, he seems at least somewhat concerned about what might happen the next time around. He is hardly the only Republican to experience this first round of constituent backlash to DOGE. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) faced a raucous town hall in which constituents showered him with boos. Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) faced a similar town hall experience. Unlike McCormick, however, he remained committed to DOGE’s efforts.

In Virginia, where Republicans have made significant gains both in Congress and the state executive in recent years, lawmakers are starting to panic.

Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has resorted to using the same kind of off-putting bureaucratese conservatives have criticized Democrats for applying to politically unfavorable actions. It’s certainly strange for Youngkin to refer to “separating from their employer” and “federal workforce realignment” when “you’re fired” is the president’s own catchphrase.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, running to replace the term-limited Youngkin, tried to calm constituents in a shaky, direct-to-phone video, during which she said, “I have been in your shoes, and I totally understand what it is to not know how the next paycheck is coming. . . . So I want to say this to you: that we see you.”

After reading through some resources on finding new employment in Virginia state government or the private sector, Earle-Sears said, “So, we’ve tried to find avenues on how to be helpful to you so that you can get back into the workforce.”

In Washington, congressional offices are under an unrelenting cannonade of phone calls, emails, and letters from aggrieved constituents. As my colleague Sam Stein and I previously reported, some lawmakers are handling this by two-facing their constituents. Others are bracing for their own tense public meetings and protests as Musk’s unilateral (and possibly illegal) cuts get worse. Others are making slight alterations in hopes of surviving the onslaught.

In early February, Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) was unapologetic in his support of DOGE when sending constituent letters from his office. “It is vitally important that every one of your taxpayer dollars is spent wisely and in the service of this nation and its people,” read one letter. “That’s what DOGE is all about.”

But more recently, Budd has emphasized his commitment to stopping DOGE’s worst excesses. “DOGE has been implemented to reduce waste, cut unnecessary spending, and streamline processes,” read a constituent letter sent from his office this past week and shared with The Bulwark. “Each of these goals can be reached without compromising privacy or data security, and I will continue to work with the Trump Administration to ensure that every American’s sensitive personal information remains protected.”

Assuming Republicans can hammer out a deal to avoid a government shutdown by March 14,¹ the next long recess period for lawmakers will begin the following week. Given the rapid pace of grassroots organizing against DOGE, it could be a rough week for Republicans—potentially, a rougher week than any of them have had since their attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the early months of the first Trump presidency.

Average Joe

Republican Joe Kent has been nominated to become the next director of the National Counterterrorism Center despite (or perhaps because of) a longstanding habit of amplifying Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

Kent is fresh off his second straight loss to Democratic Rep. Marie Gleusenkamp-Perez in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District. Like many conspiracy theory–curious Republicans rejected by voters, Kent has found a new lease on political life as an appointee in the Trump administration.

He now faces a Senate confirmation process. On the surface, he probably doesn’t need to get sweaty about it. So far, the upper chamber has happily confirmed TV show hosts, authoritarian sympathizers, anti-vaccine fanatics, and a Guy With an Enemies List to take up hugely consequential positions. I mean, what’s an interview with a Nazi sympathizer a few years ago going to matter when Republicans were rubbing shoulders over the weekend with Nazis at CPAC?

Kent, a former Green Beret and CIA operative–turned–Proud Boy associate, has a long history of opposing support for Ukraine in their now three-year long war against Russian invaders. But it goes deeper than the regular anti-Ukraine sentiment that is now standard in the GOP. Kent amplifies and even parrots the talking points of Russia’s propaganda about the war.

In one instance, Kent shared a clip of an appearance he did on Fox News. Because the clip was captured as a screen recording, it was possible to see the notifications Kent got on his phone while he was recording. Only one popped up: It was from Ukraine Watch, a Russian propaganda amplifier on Telegram. (If there’s any question about the channel’s independence, Russian representative Vassily Nebenzia once held up a QR code for Ukraine Watch during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.)

The Russian info op appears to be one of Kent’s favorite sources of information on Russia’s war. In early 2023, Ukraine Watch posted a Bloomberg article about the war; their caption took a pro-China stance. About an hour and a half later, Kent posted a link to the same story with a similar caption about the CCP, saying China is “poised to take us down w/out firing a shot.”

A review of various telegram posts and Kent’s X posts show he routinely mimics alerts from Ukraine Watch within minutes or hours of getting them, lifting text from the isolated foreign platform and repackaging it for his American audience to take them in without any skepticism or hesitation about the source.

Kent also seems to very much dislike Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whom he’s frequently criticized for holding more traditionally conservative foreign policy views. Kent has often lumped Graham in with the GOP’s most famous personae non gratae, such as former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

Perhaps Senate Republicans, currently recoiling over Trump’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, may take this opportunity to make a stand. But that seems unlikely. Kent is hardly an outlier in the new Trump administration. His primary qualification for the role to which he’s being appointed—unwavering loyalty to Trump above all, policy preferences be damned—is perfectly in line with the profiles of Trump’s other nominees and cabinet officials so far. And like the woman Kent will report to if confirmed, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, he has a penchant for credulously eating up and distributing propaganda from hostile foreign powers.

Pieces of flair

While waiting for the right lawmaker to pass by whom I can bother with questions about policy, I like to scope out politicians’ footwear. During House votes Monday evening, I noticed a unique combo: poking out under the pant cuffs of an otherwise normal suit, a dusty pair of mint green Crocs adorned with American flag Jibbitz™ was plodding by.²

I posted the photo on X and BlueSky without identifying the lawmaker to see if anyone could guess which one had decided to attire himself in this way. One user guessed correctly: It was Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).

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1. Does anyone know how to fix a broken record?

2. Jibbitz™ are the little rubber charms that Crocs wearers fix to the shoes’ ventilation holes as a means of self-expression.