On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) wondered what the federal government is “doing as they find a new COVID virus in China and we’re not part of the World Health Organization?”
Co-host Boris Sanchez asked, “The argument from supporters of DOGE is that the federal government, as the president put it, is bloated and overgrown, that spending levels are unsustainable, that the country would go, de facto, bankrupt, as Elon Musk put it, without drastic changes to spending. Where do you think DOGE should focus then? Where should we see cuts?”
Dingell answered, “Look, I wouldn’t care — if we were to take a program and put together something and not just take a meat cleaver and chop everything. But what he is doing and the way he’s doing it — besides the fact that he’s got access to way [too much] personal data. We have no idea how it’s being used and how it may be used in the future. That’s to one side. But when you look at the programs, you look at the nuclear safety programs that people were fired and they had to be hired back. When you look, you were talking about the bird flu earlier. They have fired people at the CDC. We’re not tracking it. What are they doing as they find a new COVID virus in China and we’re not part of the World Health Organization? I could go department by department. Safety, — there are a ton of safety issues, from the number of near-plane crashes, to the ones that we have seen in recent weeks. Look, I’ll start with the Defense Department. I’m sure there’s lots of waste there, but let’s do it in a targeted, effective way, not a meat axe that’s hurting people every day.”
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