FIRST ON FOX: Democratic lawmakers joined protesters outside what they described as “ground zero” for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to oppose recent spending cuts by the newly formed cost-cutting department.
Protesters, some of whom say they were laid off from their federal jobs during DOGE cuts, gathered outside the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Tuesday ahead of President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.
Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and representatives Don Beyer, D-Va.; Kweisi Mfume, D-Md.; Glenn Ivey, D-Md.; and Johnny Olszewski Jr., D-Md., attended the protest, and some revealed they would not be attending Trump’s speech later that evening.
“This is ground zero. This is where Elon Musk and DOGE have taken up shop,” Olszewski said at the protest.
“It’s where the fight is really happening,” the congressman added. This is an agency that is supposed to have a workforce that reflects the diversity of our country and is supposed to be based on merit, and we’re not seeing that. In fact, we’re seeing the opposite.”
Protesters held signs that said “Evict DOGE from OPM now,” “Federal employees are taxpayers too,” and “We all deserve better.”
Mfume, speaking at the event, claimed the cost-cutting initiative was “anti-American.”
“Even if you worked for a snake, a snake would tell you we’re getting ready to take your job,” Mfume said, before saying he needed to “calm myself” when talking about Musk.
“Every event like this is a small step in the right direction,” Beyer said.
DOGE INITIAL FINDINGS ON DEFENSE DEPARTMENT DEI SPENDING COULD SAVE $80M, AGENCY SAYS
One attendee, Cecilia, said she was sent an email “overnight” saying she had a few hours to “pack up and leave.”
“I worked here. I dedicated over 16 years of federal work in this place, and I was part of an entire department that was dismantled,” the woman said.
The White House told Fox News Digital the protests would not deter the administration’s cost-cutting efforts.
“Protests will not deter President Trump and Elon Musk from delivering on the promise to establish DOGE and make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers across the country,” Harrison Fields, special assistant to the president and principal deputy press secretary, told Fox News Digital in a statement.
While some Democrats skipped the president’s joint address in protest of the administration’s actions, Trump used the speech to highlight DOGE’s work to cut costs.
“I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency,” Trump said before highlighting areas where “wasteful spending” had been cut.
“Under the Trump administration, all of these scams — and there are far worse — but I didn’t think it was appropriate to talk about them,” the president said.
“They’re so bad. Many more have been found out and exposed and swiftly terminated by a group of very intelligent, mostly young people headed up by Elon, and we appreciate it. We found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.”
