Where this was said
Why DOGE Was Doomed: Government Is Not a Business
At 35:22 · chapter starts 32:40
Scaramucci opens his DOGE autopsy with a sharp analogy: it was like a mouse standing in front of a bullet train of entrenched government spending. Musk came in with 'Potomac fever' — the billionaire's delusion that business genius transfers seamlessly to government — and quickly retreated from the third rails of entitlements and defence spending. [1] — Anthony Scaramucci "The structural reason DOGE failed: mandatory entitlements and defence spending are untouchable politically, and without pay-as-you-go guard…" 32:30 What remained was politically motivated cutting: DEI programmes, USAID, anything that could be filed under 'wokery'. Kay argues this was always the real agenda: Elon Musk had one goal, Stephen Miller had another, and Miller's goal won. DOGE's closure gets the 'holy trinity of lies' treatment from Scaramucci: Trump also promised to end forever wars and release the Epstein files, and delivered on neither. The budget context is damning — Trump spent $8.1 trillion in his first term and now accounts for 28.1% of the entire 250-year US budget deficit, making the efficiency rhetoric ring completely hollow.
Katty Kay argues DOGE had two separate agendas: Elon Musk's genuine (if naive) efficiency drive, and Stephen Miller's political agenda to gut diversity programmes and international development. The latter succeeded. The former failed completely.
DOGE closed on July 4th, 2026. Its own website claimed $215 billion in savings — a disputed fraction of the $2 trillion promised. Scaramucci calls it the third leg of Trump's 'holy trinity of lies': ending wars, releasing Epstein files, and making government efficient. None delivered.
Scaramucci stated that Trump spent $8.1 trillion during his first presidential term, undermining the credibility of his second-term DOGE efficiency drive.
Scaramucci claimed Trump, across six years as president, accounts for 28.1% of the United States' entire 250-year budget deficit.
The US government ran a $240 billion budget surplus in 2000, the product of Clinton-era pay-as-you-go fiscal guardrails.
DOGE cut malaria and Ebola research grants as part of its international-development purge. Now the State Department is trying to rebuild exactly those programmes after realising they protect Americans too. The cost of rehiring will be double the original budget, Katty Kay's daughter witnessed this firsthand.
