In an angry tirade during an appearance on CNN News Central on Thursday, February 20, far-left Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) claimed that President Donald Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, is committing a “smash-and-grab robbery” of the government and will be investigated, facing possible jail time, over the matter.
As background, DOGE has been cutting costs as quickly as it has been able, doing everything from canceling hundreds of millions of dollars spent on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming to canceling unneeded, expensive leases the government was formerly paying for without a clear reason. That has so far saved billions of dollars.
Sen. Whitehouse’s comments on the matter came when the CNN News Central host, Sara Sidner, asked him if Democrats are “lost in the sauce” and unable to keep up with what DOGE, along with officials in the Trump Administration generally, are doing as they launch an all-out blitz on the bureaucracy in the early days of the new Trump Administration.
Sidner said, asking as much, “Let me ask you about Democrats. Are Democrats lost in the sauce here? Donald Trump is sucking up, obviously, as the president, all of the attention he is making quick moves. He is, you know, letting DOGE do its deeds inside of many different departments. What are democrats doing?”
Responding, Sen. Whitehouse told her that what DOGE is doing in fighting against the bureaucracy and reigning in out-of-control costs is the equivalent of a “smash-and-grab robbery,” saying, “Well, I would analogize this to a smash-and-grab robbery, all done for the benefit of providing tax breaks to billionaires at the end of the day, but in its tactics right now, essentially a smash-and-grab robbery.”
Continuing, he noted that speed is of the essence for DOGE, once again comparing it to a gang of robbers, as it needs to take advantage of the confusion of its adversaries. He said, “And speed is to your advantage when you’re the smash-and-grab robber. And doing as much destruction as you can quickly is to your advantage when you’re the smash-and-grab robber.”
That is when the woke senator got to the matter of the court system and how he views it as being what will rein in DOGE, saying that there is “evidence” of its illegality that will “mount” and lead to the situation changing to DOGE’s detriment. He said, “But over time, courts will look at this. Evidence will mount. He will need things from Congress, and the situation will change.”
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Concluding his angry tirade about the Trump Administration’s cost-cutting efforts supposedly being illegal, the woke senator then subtly threatened those working with and for DOGE with jail time, arguing that the courts would see their behavior as illegal and punish them for it. He said, “I think it’s particularly important to watch the courts, where he is losing case after case after case after case for the very precise reason that what he is doing is illegal.”
Watch Sen. Whitehouse sound off here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video