B (3:22)

He also said memorably that he would like to see the vast core of civil workers traumatized. I found that really stuck with me. It seems so cruel.

C (3:34)

Yes. There's also Scott Langmach, who was previously at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who is now at the Office of Management and Budget working as the director of Deregulation AI. And his LinkedIn says he's using custom AI applications to accelerate the elimination of excess regulations constraining American businesses.

B (3:58)

You mentioned this guy, Sam Korkos, who is a DOGE operative and also the chief Information officer of the Treasury. Employees are now being tested to prove their worth. This sort of started with Karkos.

C (4:16)

What we understand from our reporting is that Karkos has asked for all members of the IRS teams that work in IT and on tech stuff to be tested with a tool that's frequently used in hiring for tech companies. They have a limited time to complete certain assessments. They have to do it with their camera on. They are testing on particular coding languages. And while they're being told that this won't affect their pay, it's really hard to see much daylight between this and the methods that a lot of tech companies use to either hire people or weed people out. And even what we saw from DOGECO very early on in the administration, where they were sending out emails asking people to say what they had worked on. Yeah.

B (5:09)

What did you do the last week? That kind of questionnaire that Musk sent out?

C (5:13)

Yes.

B (5:14)

I guess the question is, though, what does that mean for the IRS and more broadly for the rest of us?

C (5:20)

You know, initially we saw DOGE sort of spread out across the federal government, but there seems to be an emphasis on particular agencies. So IRS is one of those. We see that with Social Security as well. There was a large team from DOGE there, and there was talk of implementing certain projects there to try and make Social Security data more accessible across the government. We saw the publication a couple of weeks ago of what's known as a system of records notice, which is what the government has to put out to say we're going to be sharing data in a way that is new for the public to understand. And we saw a system of records notice go out for Social Security data to be shared with DHS for immigration enforcement.

B (6:06)

This is really important. When you talked about it, moving from kind of a civil service model to a tech model, you know, what gets lost? This is a violation of what Social Security told these people. They were reassured they wouldn't have that information shared.

C (6:28)

So here's the thing. So this is an update. Consider it like your government version of your Terms of Service update. And in terms of the sharing of that data many, many experts have flagged, that can be rife with problems. Social Security data, for instance, was never collected for the purpose of confirming citizenship. And that means that it may not be up to date and it may not be fit for that purpose. So, for instance, when you are an immigrant here, for instance, on a green card, you would be assigned a Social Security number, because it's really just a way to keep a record in the system and to allow you to pay taxes. And when you naturalize, if you naturalize from that green card status, your Social Security number doesn't change. But the last interaction that Social Security might have had with you is as a immigrant with a green card, they are not going to update your status to citizen because it doesn't matter. It doesn't change your Social Security number. So that kind of data in the Social Security administration, if it were, say, ported over for the use of immigration enforcement, would likely be inaccurate. And that's incredibly concerning.

B (7:42)

What is Musk's relationship to Doge nowadays?

C (7:45)

In a recent interview with Joe Rogan, Elon Musk said that Doge is continuing, but that because he's no longer part of it, there's less scrutiny.

B (7:54)

Doge is still underway. It's less publicized. It's less publicized, and they don't have, like, a clear person to attack anymore.

C (8:03)

Musk himself sort of acknowledges this, that what Doge was doing and the goals of the Trump administration are not necessarily at odds, even if he himself had a seeming falling out with President Trump and is no longer in charge of the initiative. It's just taken a different form. What we've seen over the past couple of months is that Musk has really seemed to warm back up to Trump. We saw them together at Charlie Kirk's funeral. Musk attended the dinner with Mohammed bin Salman in November. So while Musk is not necessarily directly affiliated or directing Doge anymore, obviously it would not surprise me if he was still in personal contact with some of these people. For instance, Anthony Armstrong, who was part of Doge, is now the CFO at Xai Musk's AI Company. The New York Times reported that there was going to be a large Doge gathering in Austin. Austin, obviously, is where Musk has one of his homes and is his primary residence. For many of his litigation purposes, I think the idea that he is completely severed from Doge would be foolish. But in terms of how much influence he's necessarily having in their priorities or in the work they're doing, that's unclear.

B (9:25)

When you look at our government now, where do you see Doge's mark most apparent?

C (9:34)

So I lived abroad for several years. I used to work in international development. And I think, to me, where I see Doge's fingerprint so clearly is in the suffering that has occurred in already really fragile places because of the lack of our presence.

B (9:52)

Brooke Nichols and her team at Boston University have estimated that 600,000 people have died as a result of the US aid funding cuts.

C (10:05)

Yeah, I see it most acutely there. And I think for those of us in the US the wave is still yet to hit. I think we got a taste of it in November when SNAP benefits were restricted. But we have yet to see the full scale of what these kinds of cuts and reductions in government services are actually going to wreak.

B (10:32)

How does it feel to see all these news stories about the death of Doge? Why do you think outlets have been so eager to embrace the idea? Hmm.

C (10:43)

I don't necessarily know why there's a hunger for that narrative. I do know that, for instance, in one of the stories, there was confirmation from OPM saying Doge doesn't really exist, but it doesn't need to if you've hired those people into actual government roles or found somewhere else for them to be in government. The executive order created the US Doge Service temporary organization that would run through July 4, 2026. So the idea that, like Doge as we knew it at the beginning had a time limit was always on the table. But that doesn't mean that the people who are a part of it and the agenda that it was executing goes away.

B (11:28)

Let me ask you about Wired. You guys have broken so many of the biggest stories about Doge. I'm wondering how your reporting has evolved since the task force. Has shape shifted the way we've been discussing? Is it harder to track?

C (11:47)

Oh, yeah, I think it is much harder.

B (11:49)

And is that by design?

C (11:51)

Yes. But the thing that gave us the advantage at the beginning is, frankly, that we were. I think my colleagues and I were asked this a lot, was, how did you know? How did you know? And the answer was, like, Musk tweeted about it. They had podcast interviews about it. They talked about what they wanted to do. And so, for instance, one of the big things that they sort of came in with was this assumption that Social Security data was being paid out to all these fake people, that there were all these people abusing the system. And so what did they do? They went into Social Security. They immediately started looking for those things, because that was something they'd already started talking about publicly. And we saw them claim that people who were 150 years old were receiving Social Security benefits. And my colleague David reported that was not the case.

B (12:38)

Yeah, that was a huge story. They didn't understand how these things were being marked numerically.

C (12:46)

Exactly.

B (12:47)

And so, yeah, it was really dumb of them, but it was incredibly sharp of you guys. You got on it so fast.

C (12:54)

I mean, obviously, my colleagues are incredibly brilliant. I love working with them. We work our butts off. But the reality is, so much of it starts from just listening to what they're saying and then believing them. And I think we've seen that again and again with both the way that DOGE operated. We've seen it with Trump's approach to immigration, and they can't always do everything they want to do, but it's a very short line between what they're talking about and execution.

B (13:27)

So we talked about Russell Vogt. I mentioned that he famously said he wanted to put federal workers in trauma. About 300,000 federal employees have lost their jobs, been put on leave or chosen to leave since DOGE began its work. You've been in touch with a lot of them, and you contributed to an oral history of sorts for Wired Doge, as told by federal workers. What did you learn?

C (13:58)

Actually, the one that stuck out the most for me was someone at the Social Security Administration who deals with actual Social Security benefits holders. And that person described how when there was this panic around fraud, this person told me they were flooded with phone calls from panicked seniors who were terrified of losing their benefits and were scared that they would lose their Social Security. And these federal workers are simultaneously being told that their jobs don't matter, and then they're hearing elderly Americans SOB on the phone with them because some young engineers and a billionaire don't fully understand the data they're looking at. I think that's the one that stuck out to me the most.

B (14:56)

There are so many painful stories, anguished stories, but I was really heartened by the one from that FEMA employee. The Federal Emergency Management Agency. Do you know that one? I was wondering if you could read that, because our podcast lets us curse.

C (15:17)

Okay. And I have to pull that one up. It says, I'm the type of person where if you push me, I'll push back. I don't like to live in a mindset of despair and negativity. When these people do this shit, it just lights my fire. It makes me more fucking mad. This used to be the best job I ever had, the best environment I've ever had, the best culture I've ever had, and they fucking ruined it. I will never, ever forget how much they ruined it. I'm like, fuck these people. They can't get me scared. I will not give them what they want. I will not just leave. I'm going to make it as difficult as possible for these fuckheads.

B (15:52)

How did that make you feel?

C (15:54)

I have been consistently bowled over by the bravery of people who will probably be invisible.

C (16:06)

There are a lot of people who have been in these roles for a vast majority of their career who have given up private sector opportunities, who really believe in government, even if they're frustrated by it, even if every last one of them would agree that it could be more efficient and better.

C (16:27)

There are a lot of people who have spoken to us at great personal risk, at very hard moments in their lives, and that has been incredibly brave of them.

B (16:45)

Vittoria Elliott is a reporter at Wired covering platforms and power.

C (16:51)

This was great. I really appreciate your time.

B (16:53)

I really appreciate yours, Vittoria.

B (16:58)

Thanks for listening to the on the Media Midweek podcast. Tune into the big show on Friday to hear all about the new Pentagon press corps featuring right wing fear monger Laura Loomer and former Congressman Matt Gaetz. Yeah, thanks for listening. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

A (17:28)

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