What Is DOGE’s Real Goal?

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency is great branding. Who could be against a more efficient government? But “efficiency” obfuscates what’s really happening here. Efficiency to what end? Elon Musk, President Trump and DOGE’s boosters have offered various objectives — cutting the deficit, eliminating fraud and abuse, creating a leaner and more responsive government. But DOGE’s actions in the past two months don’t seem to align with any of those goals. Santi Ruiz is the senior editor at the Institute for Progress and the author and host of the “Statecraft” podcast and newsletter. He’s to my right politically and had higher hopes, at first, about DOGE’s efforts, but he’s now grappling with the reality of what it’s actually doing. This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: “50 Thoughts on DOGE” by Santí Ruiz “How to Defend Presidential Authority” by Santí Ruiz “The Anti-D.E.I. Crusader Who Wants to Dismantle the Department of Education” by Ross Douthat Book Recommendations: Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin Back from the Brink by Peter Moskos Power And Responsibility by Romano Guardini Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Switch and Board Podcast Studio, Ryan Bourne, Rohan Grey, Don Moynihan, Quinn Slobodian and Jennifer Pahlka.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. When Doge was first announced after Donald Trump won the election,
0:35.7	I knew a lot of people who thought it was a way to get Elon Musk and Vivek Ramoswamy
0:39.9	out of the Trump administration's hair.
0:42.2	It's an old tradition in Washington.
0:43.8	You have people who help you in the election, help you in the campaign,
0:47.1	but you don't want him in the White House, so you give him a blue ribbon commission somewhere
0:50.2	where you'll never hear from them again.
0:52.5	Not how it worked out. The first person Doge
0:55.3	purged was Vivek Ramoswamy. It became Elon Musk's operation. But in becoming Elon Musk's
1:00.9	operation, it became central to how Donald Trump is trying to and actually remaking the federal government.
1:09.2	But I got to tell you, I hate the name Doche, the Department of Government
1:13.1	Efficiency. Not that it's not good branding, it is, but it obfuscates what's really happening here.
1:18.5	Efficiency towards what? There is no such thing really as efficiency. Efficiency has to be in service of a
1:24.2	goal. And you hear a lot of goals. Maybe it's here to make the government
1:28.1	leaner, lower headcount. Maybe it's here to save money. Maybe it's sort of make the government more
1:32.3	responsive. What is it actually doing? What can we see after two months of its hack and slash
1:39.1	operation through the federal government? And what does that suggest about where Donald Trump's term is going?
1:45.5	One of the people who's been writing on Doge and thinking about it with the most clarity in my view of Santi Ruiz.
1:50.9	He is at the Institute for Progress. He's the author of the statecraft newsletter and the host of its podcast.
1:56.9	He's somebody who thinks very deeply and often about how do you build a capable state?
2:01.9	I mean, he's somebody to my right,
2:02.9	so he has been much more open to the idea
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

Generated transcripts are the property of New York Times Opinion and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.