meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The Rise And Fall of DOGE

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Obama, News, Wnyc, Washington, Barack, President, Lizza, Wickenden

4.23.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The New Yorker staff writer Benjamin Wallace-Wells joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the decline of DOGE, what Elon Musk’s exit from the White House means for its work, and the initiative’s legacy in the long run. Plus, the assassination of the Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and the growing trend of impersonating law enforcement.

This week’s reading:


To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected].

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, Ben. Thanks so much for being here.

0:08.9

It's so good to be with you, Tyler.

0:11.0

You just finished reporting a long behind-the-scenes story on the rise and fall of Doge.

0:16.3

But I'd like to talk to you about the current status of Doge, given that Elon Musk has departed and has also had this major falling out with Trump.

0:25.1

Who's running the show now?

0:26.7

And is it right to think that Doge might be kind of done?

0:29.2

Or is it still operating with full force?

0:32.0

I think Zombie State has been the moniker that I've landed on over the last few days.

0:37.5

It's not just that Musk has gone, a bunch of its deputies, including Stephen Davis,

0:41.7

the guy who ran it on a kind of day-to-day basis. They've signaled they're out the door, too.

0:46.9

So I think it helps to sort of take a step back and look at what this thing was.

0:53.0

And unlike a conventional agency or initiative of the executive branch, Doge was really unstructured.

1:02.5

You had Elon Musk in the White House.

1:06.3

You had Steve Davis trying to, you know, air traffic controls and planes.

1:11.6

And then you had a bunch of teams of embeds, three to five people, at a whole bunch of

1:18.1

agencies around the federal government.

1:20.6

And when I talked to those engineers, the people who worked on those embed teams, they

1:26.3

were assigned to, you know,

1:27.9

in this case, the Veterans Administration or other agencies around government, Social Security

1:32.8

Administration. They say this very little information flow. They had a very high-level set

1:39.1

of instructions about what they were supposed to do, search for inefficient grants, and then

1:43.1

they were sort of let loose.

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 6 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.