Jeffries: DOGE Caucus ‘not a serious effort’ with Greene in charge

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) scoffed at the idea of Democrats joining the newly formed House subcommittee on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) during a Wednesday evening appearance on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut.”

While Jeffries did not rule out Democrats joining the House subcommittee, he made clear that the party did not consider it to be a “serious effort.”

“We’ll have that internal discussion,” he told host Joy Reid. “But as I understand it, the person charged with executing this vision is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Are you kidding me? This is not a serious effort when you put Marjorie Taylor Greene in charge,” Jeffries emphasized. 

“It speaks for itself.”

Greene will chair a subpanel of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee focused on implementing the vision of DOGE, an advisory group led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy aimed at government reform and spending cuts.

Jeffries will lead Democratic opposition efforts to Trump’s agenda in the upcoming Congress, in which both the House and Senate will be controlled by Republicans.

Most Democrats are critical of DOGE, but some such as Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.) said he would support its efforts to cut defense spending.

“When it comes to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse and opening the 5 primes to more competition, there are Democrats on [House Armed Services Committee] who will work with @elonmusk and @DOGE,” Khanna wrote on X, the social media platform Musk owns.

Greene has been working with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to usher Musk and Ramaswamy into the Capitol for meetings with GOP members ahead of the next legislative cycle with the goal of slashing $2 trillion in spending, which would cut the federal budget by nearly a third.