Congress
Capitol Hill’s DOGE-era power players
Republican lawmakers are racing to embrace Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s push to chop up the federal government — even if their actual authority is still murky and the effort poses a potential threat to congressional power.
While President-elect Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) won’t formally get started until January, the team behind the office has already been meeting with GOP lawmakers, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Ideas that Musk and Ramaswamy are floating include cutting regulations, reducing the size of the federal workforce and mounting a legal bid to bypass Congress on spending cuts.
What has emerged from the early DOGE-Capitol Hill discussions is a growing number of Republicans eager to work with the office, including not only MAGA favorites like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, but also incoming Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chair Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa. Ernst, a one-time Trump critic who has recently huddled at Mar-a-Lago, is spearheading a dedicated DOGE caucus.
Many of those Republicans have previously pushed to cut spending, making DOGE an opportunity to bear hug one of Trump’s first big initiatives and also advance their own long-held goals.
One group of outliers appear to be appropriations committee leaders, the senior lawmakers who control Congress’ power of the purse and would nominally be crucial to executing any DOGE recommendations. They face a potential challenge to their power, with Musk and Ramaswamy floating the possibility of circumventing Congress in their bid to slash the federal bureaucracy. Further complicating things is the fact that DOGE, though created by Trump, won’t be a formal part of the government and is poised to act in a pure advisory fashion.
What follows is a run-down of how Republican House members and senators are jockeying for influence in the DOGE era.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.)
Less than four years ago, 11 Republicans joined with Democrats to remove Greene from congressional committees over a series of incendiary comments and actions. This January, she’ll be leading the new House Oversight subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, which is being tasked with helping Musk and Ramaswamy at DOGE.
It will give one of Trump’s loudest allies on Capitol Hill an official perch where she can coordinate with the administration, drive her own policy ideas and pressure recalcitrant GOP colleagues. Greene said in a statement that her subcommittee will “work hand in hand with President Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the entire DOGE team.” House Oversight Chair James Comer of Kentucky said in an interview that Greene would be a “good match” with Musk and Ramaswamy given her previous experience as a small business owner.
Greene’s ascendance comes as Speaker Mike Johnson pushes for her to be a more active player in the GOP conference, which could work to his benefit as he tries to shore up support for keeping his gavel in January.
Greene’s subcommittee is expected to target “wasteful spending,” come up with ideas for reorganizing federal agencies and identify ways to “eliminate bureaucratic red tape,” said a person granted anonymity to discuss the panel’s plans.
Greene is lobbing a more direct warning, saying the subcommittee would help “expose people who need to be FIRED.”
Comer said the Oversight Committee’s jurisdiction of the federal workforce would be a big area of overlap with Trump’s DOGE team. Musk and Ramaswamy indicated in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this month that they would try to get around protections that make it harder to fire federal employees. They are also considering pushing for a five-day return to office as a way to thin the federal workforce.
Comer and Greene have already met with Trump’s incoming DOGE team, including Ramaswamy, according to a person briefed on the discussion, who added that the Trump officials are “supportive of the Oversight Committee’s endeavor and are already working together.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)
Ernst is making an early bid to position herself as a lead Senate DOGE ally, where large swaths of Trump’s agenda still face pockets of GOP opposition and a Democratic filibuster.
Ernst is leading a new DOGE caucus and outlining trillions in potential spending cuts or savings, arguing that DOGE’s mission is in line with her long-running “Squeal Awards” that target government waste. The House has its own DOGE caucus, spearheaded by Reps. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas).
Ernst’s move to align herself closely with DOGE, and by extension Trump and his allies, comes after she lost the race for Senate GOP conference chair earlier this month to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
Ernst met with Ramaswamy late last week at Mar-a-Lago, where she pitched him on ways to curb federal spending. Ramaswamy publicly thanked Ernst and said that DOGE officials “look forward to partnering with the Senate to downsize government.” Ernst then posted a photo on social media from over the weekend with Trump and Musk, saying she met with the incoming president to discuss his Cabinet.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
In the Senate, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will have the largest area of overlap with DOGE. Paul, a libertarian-leaning, small government Republican, will be its chair.
Paul has long been a gadfly for leadership and often pushes efforts to cut spending, which have routinely gotten votes on the Senate floor but been rejected by even some of his GOP colleagues.
Paul during a recent Fox News interview, said that he was “all in” on helping DOGE, adding that “we’ve already forwarded them 2,000 pages of waste that can be cut.” He’s also pledged to give advice to Trump’s DOGE team about using recissions to clawback already approved government funding, which would require congressional signoff.
Cagey appropriators
Republican lawmakers who are responsible for crafting and spearheading funding legislation aren’t totally shutting the door on DOGE as it encroaches on their turf.
Musk and Ramaswamy are floating the possibility of circumventing Congress on steep cuts by mounting a legal challenge against the Impoundment Control Act, which places limits on a president’s ability to unilaterally withhold funding. They believe the Supreme Court, which has three justices nominated by Trump, would be favorable to them.
Key appropriators aren’t embracing that plan, but aren’t yet fighting back. Instead, in interviews with Blue Light News, Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and other members of the panel said they are waiting to see the details of what Trump is proposing and how realistic the plans from his allies are.
“I am not concerned at all,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a member of the Appropriations Committee. “I learned a long time ago, stay calm, we’ll deal with all these issues as they come. Look, what are we even talking about? Is this something real?”
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — With just five days to go until the primary election in New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a stark warning to members of Congress who believe “incumbency is a substitute for action”: Watch out.
“People often ask me what I think of the state of the Democratic Party,” Mamdani said to the crowd at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn as he boosted his endorsed congressional candidates. “This slate here today is our answer. The Democratic Party must change.”
The democratic socialist framed Tuesday’s election as much more than what that means for New York, though. In recounting how people also ask him about the 2028 presidential election, he put it bluntly: “It starts now. It starts on Tuesday.”
“For far too long, our party has seen its job as managing decline instead of delivering material change for working people,” Mamdani said. “That old way of thinking will lose on Tuesday. And frankly, it will lose in South Carolina and New Hampshire. It will fall short of 270 electoral votes, because the party of the past will not be what leads us into the future.”
Mamdani, joined by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, urged his supporters to show up for his endorsed candidates “the way you showed up for me.” They include former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s challenging two-term Rep. Dan Goldman; state Assemblymember Claire Valdez, who’s vying for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat; and community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier, who’s trying to unseat five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Mamdani’s endorsed slate of legislative candidates were at the rally, too.
The rally featured standard stump speeches from the candidates, highlighting the need to support working class New Yorkers and immigrants. Speakers called out the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel group that has loomed over many of these primaries — despite no evident spending from its independent expenditure arm. Sanders also emphasized his call to ban super PACs, which have reshaped primaries across the city.
Taking place just hours after the massive ticker-tape parade celebrating the Knicks’ historic championship, there were also Knicks references galore.
“I hate to break it to you, but OG Anunoby is not here to save the day,” said Mamdani, who was wearing a Knicks jersey under his suit. “The only hands we can count on are ours.”
Sanders, who is wildly popular in New York, previously endorsed Valdez and Lander. Both Valdez and Avila Chevalier are members of the Democratic Socialists of America and are backed by the city chapter in their bids. Sanders had not officially endorsed Avila Chevalier prior to the rally.
“Why are progressives and socialist candidates winning elections all across this country?” Sanders asked. “The answer in my view is not complicated. The working class of America understands that our current economic system is rigged, that it is designed to benefit the wealthy and the powerful.”
Polling has shown Lander with a lead over Goldman, and a tight race for Velázquez’s seat. Public polling is scarce in the Espaillat race, but recent internal surveys suggest Avila Chevalier is posing a real challenge to the incumbent. Mamdani endorsed her just weeks ago, much later than Lander and Valdez, but his engagement in the race has significantly elevated its profile.
“Six months ago, they told us this race was over before it started,” Avila Chevalier said at the rally. “They told us Adriano was untouchable, that he was an institution, that you don’t run against someone like him and win. That this district was his, and that we should wait our turn. And they said it with such confidence, like the outcome had already been written. Look around. Look at what we’ve built.”
Mamdani’s decision to get involved in congressional races is stress-testing how the new mayor navigates relations with powerful, well-respected party figures — many of whom he’s on the opposite side of.
Mamdani’s endorsement is expected to be a significant asset for his picks; he had dominant performances across these districts in last year’s mayoral primary. And that shine doesn’t seem to have dulled. Recent polling has shown that Mamdani has high approval ratings.
Goldman did not support Mamdani during last year’s mayoral primary or the general election, as Lander has often pointed out. Espaillat backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the primary, but supported Mamdani in the general election. Valdez’s opponents, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and city Council Member Julie Won, both supported Mamdani in the primary.
The mayor has been active on the trail for his congressional candidates of choice in the closing stretch of the campaign. And he touted them all in an advertisement that ran during the first game of the Knicks’ finals run.
Still, Lander has tried to keep some distance. When asked at a recent press conference why he would appear in that ad with Avila Chevalier, who attended a pro-Palestinian rally the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in 2023 — the same rally Lander said he left the DSA over — he said it was an “opportunity to show New Yorkers that politics can be a team sport.” He also clarified that he has not endorsed candidates in any other congressional primaries.
Avila Chevalier told reporters that she went to that rally to “stand against” Israel engaging in “a response that is often disproportionate and creates a greater loss of life.” She added that she has “condemned Hamas” and does “not believe that celebrating the loss of anybody’s life is OK.”
Kings Theatre isn’t located in any of the districts these congressional hopefuls are trying to represent — though it neighbors the seats that Lander and Valdez have their eyes on.
It’s especially far from Espaillat’s district, which includes parts of upper Manhattan and the Bronx.
While handing out campaign literature to people walking out of the subway in Hamilton Heights, Blue Light News asked Espaillat if he had thoughts about Avila Chevalier appearing at the rally.
“I’m rallying right here in my district with my constituents — not in Brooklyn,” he replied.
Jason Beeferman contributed to this report.
Retirement groups are calling on Congress to investigate Meta over a wave of social media scams targeting older Americans.
In a letter sent Thursday to House Homeland Security Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the groups alleged Meta has been slow to take down fraudulent ads, leaving seniors vulnerable to financial loss. The letter, shared exclusively with POLITICO, was signed by the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Postal Workers Union Retirees and the American Federation of Teachers, among others.
“Fraudulent Medicare ads have proliferated on Meta platforms and too many seniors are getting scammed while Meta profits,” said Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans. “We are calling on Congress to investigate how these scams are allowed to spread, what Meta knew about them, and why stronger protections are not in place. Seniors should not be left vulnerable while scammers and tech companies cash in.”
The letter’s demands follow a report published last month by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit advocacy group, which alleged that Meta has profited by leaving up fraudulent ads, many of which target Medicare recipients.
“Scammers are determined criminals who use increasingly sophisticated tactics to defraud people and evade detection,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement. “We aggressively fight scams on and off our platforms because they’re not good for us or the people and businesses that rely on our services and for years we’ve been one of law enforcement’s strongest partners in the fight against this type of online crime — identifying criminals, disrupting their crimes and helping bring them to justice.”
Stone pointed to several examples of Meta’s efforts to combat scams on its platform, including a recent collaboration with U.S. and Thai law enforcement to disrupt online scams.
It’s not the first time Meta has faced scrutiny over the scams: Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) urged the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission to open an investigation into the company in November after Reuters reported that Meta in internal documents projected 10 percent of its 2024 revenue would come from fraudulent ads. And in February, a group of bipartisan lawmakers pressed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over its plans to prevent and combat fraud on its platforms.
Reps. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) and Lou Correa (D-Calif.) also introduced bipartisan legislation earlier this year to combat predatory scam ads.
Congress is expected to send a landmark, bipartisan housing affordability bill to President Donald Trump’s desk by the end of next week as the Senate and House schedule action on the legislation in the coming days.
The Senate has teed up the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act for final passage on Monday, after completing all its necessary procedural votes this week.
The legislation will then move on to the House where GOP leadership plans to open debate on Wednesday, with a vote expected as early as the same day, according to six people familiar with the vote granted anonymity to discuss plans.
House leadership plans to suspend the rules, requiring a two-thirds majority vote, to speed up the bill’s path to Trump’s desk. Final passage could be pushed to Thursday depending on timing, the people said.
The housing bill aims to tackle housing affordability and boost homeownership and supply ahead of a midterm election dominated by cost-of-living concerns.
The four lawmakers leading the negotiations over the legislation — Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.), ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — came to an agreement Tuesday afternoon after months of back and forth on the bill’s contents.
The housing affordability legislation, which the White House supports, contains a provision limiting the role of large institutional investors in the single-family housing market, which was a key condition for Trump to sign the bill.
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