Speaker 1: To restore competence and effectiveness to our federal government, my administration will establish the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency.

Speaker 2: President Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short, officially established earlier this week after a first-day executive order. The new entity, which plans to try to slash billions in government spending, will operate as part of the executive branch, and they will have a congressional arm, the House Subcommittee on DOGE. My next guest, Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, has been named the top Democrat on that committee. She tells Axios she'll, quote, fight back against efforts to dismantle federal agencies to take away critical programs like Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare, and will fight back against the dismantling of environmental programs. The man tapped to lead DOGE, Elon Musk, has shared little so far about his intentions for those programs.

Speaker 1: Elon, is Social Security and Medicare, is it off the table? Is it off the table?

Speaker 2: Do you have any concerns about your top? And joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico. Congresswoman, thanks for being here. That's great to be here. I want to talk a little bit about this subcommittee and how you think it is actually going to work. We have seen in the initial kind of onslaught of executive orders, right, in this first week, that a huge focus for President Trump is the federal workforce and trying to make impacts there. You have started to talk to some of your Republican counterparts on this subcommittee. What's your understanding of what they're going to try to do?

Speaker 1: Well, at this point, we don't know what exactly they're up to, but my sense is it's not good, whatever it's going to be. You know, immediately after the election in November, the very first committee hearing that the Oversight Committee had was on DEI initiatives. And here we are this week, Donald Trump, of course, put on leave all of the federal employees who work on diversity initiatives. We believe that they're going to use the DOJ subcommittee to eviscerate the federal workforce. We think they're going to go after federal departments, agency heads. We think they're going to go after the retirement benefits and use it also to restructure the government as a way to be essentially a personal piggy bank for Elon Musk. I mean, I think none of us really understand why Elon Musk is even interested in restructuring the government, except for that he has billions of dollars in federal contracts. And I think it's notable that up until the inauguration, he was operating his arm of DOJ out of SpaceX, which is the company that he has billions of dollars in front of the federal government with.

Speaker 2: Congresswoman, you mentioned retirement benefits and other ways to eviscerate the federal workforce. What's your understanding? A lot of these employees are protected by unions. Is it possible for Republicans in Congress to take away federal retirement benefits?

Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the entire Schedule F executive order that was signed by President Trump on Monday is designed to take away the protections that federal employees actually have. So our unions have told us that actually there is much less to fight back on in the way that the Schedule F order has been structured. But Congress essentially is the arm of our government that passes laws that regulates everything from your benefits to how the federal workforce is structured. And so that's why there is a congressional arm. So this is intended to provide the congressional heft, if you will. Now, I think it's notable that they put Marjorie Taylor Greene in charge of it on the Republican side. So you have to ask, how serious are they? Or is this really a political stunt just to generate interest amongst their base in the nefarious stuff that they're about to do?

Speaker 2: Let me ask you about Elon Musk as well, because obviously, I mean, you mentioned SpaceX. He has all sorts of interests. He's also came in in the last 24 hours for criticism from the Anti-Defamation League because he seemed to be joking about the Holocaust. And they wrote about, they put this up on Musk's platform, making inappropriate, highly offensive jokes that trivialize the Holocaust, serve to minimize the evil and inhumanity of Nazi crimes, denigrate the suffering of both victims and survivors, and insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Shoah. And that's, of course, Jonathan Greenblatt as their leader. And he says, Elon Musk, the Holocaust is not a joke. Are there going to be any recriminations for this from Republicans in Congress?

Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think we have seen time and time again that Republicans do not hold members of their own allies accountable for their actions. I mean, look, they put Donald Trump back in the White House. But if you actually look at the tweet that Elon Musk put out yesterday, I mean, it's shocking. When I saw it, I just, I couldn't believe it. But on the other hand, in addition to supporting Donald Trump, he's been endorsing and supporting these ultra right-wing fascist Nazi, pseudo-Nazi government entities across the world, including in Germany itself, where it's very clear even the arm gesture that he made in the inauguration ceremony that the German government says that is a Nazi salute. So I mean, I don't see my Republican colleagues turning their backs on him unless it becomes politically toxic for them. But they've clearly mobilized and allied themselves with the far right. And so there seems to be a level of comfort amongst my Republican colleagues that is frightening. And I think this is the kind of stuff that we warn the American people on as we were heading into this election and we're seeing it play out now. All right, Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, thanks very much for spending some time with us this morning. I appreciate it. Thank you.