Holly Otterbein, Ben Johansen, Sophia Cai, and Irie Sentner
04/22/25
(Politico West Wing Playbook) BOOGEYMAN MUSK: This winter, before Musk took a blowtorch to the U.S. Agency for International Development or helped lay off tens of thousands of federal workers, Democrats were struggling to figure out what to do about DOGE.
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Senate Democrats in late January scheduled a private meeting with strategists who made the case for a range of approaches, according to two people familiar with the discussion granted anonymity to speak openly.
The advocates’ differing messages illustrated the party’s lack of decisiveness at the time. JENNIFER PAHLKA, a senior fellow at the centrist think tank Niskanen Center, said Democrats ought to champion their own government reform to avoid getting stuck defending the status quo. TIFFANY MULLER, president of liberal group End Citizens United, argued for going hard against Musk personally, by painting him as a corrupt oligarch.