At least one Republican lawmaker on Wednesday publicly called for Elon Musk to be more careful in his slapdash efforts to gut the federal government—just days after facing dozens of furious constituents who berated him at a town hall over the recent chaos Musk has created.
Ahead of a meeting between the billionaire and House Republicans Wednesday night, Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick pleaded with Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to “take a half-step back.”
McCormick told CNN’s Manu Raju at the Capitol that “if he just takes a half-step back, we’ll do something that I think can be compassionate and at the same time something that’s impactful when it comes to saving America’s money that’s hard earned and hard spent.”
“What do you mean ‘half-step back?’” Raju followed up.
“He’s admitted to things. He’s said, ‘Look, we‘ve done some things wrong, but we’re learning,’” McCormick said.
The plea came just days after the congressman faced a sea of angry constituents at a town hall event in Georgia, where the line of attendees reportedly stretched around the block.
McCormick’s staff “seemed caught off guard” by the sheer force of the pushback, according to reports. Crowd members shouted “We’re pissed” and “Don’t bend over,” among other jeers.
The Georgia representative tried in vain to defuse tensions, saying: “If you all are just going to yell at me, that’s not going to be an effective comment.”
“If you stop yelling, I will answer,” McCormick said at another point.
For his part, Musk did not seem concerned by the large number of mistakes DOGE has made so far. In his meeting with House Republicans Wednesday, the billionaire repeated his mantra that DOGE “can’t bat a thousand all the time,” Politico reported.
Among the panel’s mistakes were “accidentally” cutting Ebola prevention while gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development, accidentally publishing classified information on its website, firing then rehiring bird flu experts amid a devastating worldwide outbreak of the disease, and making a stunning number of errors on the website created to track its cuts.
DOGE also fired, then rehired a 25-year-old engineer who made racist remarks online.
Despite this, few congressional Republicans have come forward to criticize Musk and DOGE, at least publicly.
On CNN, Raju noted that members of the House and Senate both expressed to Musk on Wednesday that they should have more of a say in how the cuts are carried out.
During a meeting with senators earlier in the day, Musk tried to curry favor by giving out his personal cellphone number—an apparent sign of his willingness to hear from them, Raju added.
“They wanted to increase communication, but there‘s also a push among the Republican senators to actually have votes on those cuts that are coming by DOGE,” he explained. “And we‘re told that Elon Musk was open to that idea of actually having a vote in the Senate.”
