Gay Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), a member of the House Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee, says he has “zero interest” in working with the subcommittee’s chairperson, anti-LGBTQ+ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Though Greene, in her opening remarks to the subcommittee on Wednesday, urged members to avoid “political theater and partisan attacks,” Garcia instead reminded the room that Greene once displayed a “d*ck pic” in the legislative chamber, and he then displayed another tongue-in-cheek version.

Garcia said that, even though the subcommittee ostensibly exists to help President Donald Trump’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut wasteful government spending, he and his six Democratic colleagues joined the 14-person subcommittee to oppose DOGE’s leader Elon Musk. Musk’s gutting of government agencies’ staffs and congressionally-approved spending have been challenged in court as illegal and unconstitutional.

Related

Gay Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent may have helped create a constitutional crisis
Bessent gave transphobic billionaire Elon Musk access to one of the most sensitive – and important – computer systems in the federal government.

“I have zero interest in working with Marjorie Taylor Greene, our chairwoman, on this committee or the House Republicans on this committee with anything as it relates to DOGE,” Garcia told MSNBC on Wednesday morning. “What we’re there to do is to fight, to push back on the lies, to bring attention to what’s going on right now at our agencies, and to make sure that people know that we are going to fight every single day to ensure that we get Elon Musk out of our private information.”

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

His comment referenced the fact that Musk and his DOGE underlings accessed sensitive and private financial information about hundreds of millions of Americans after infiltrating the Department of the Treasury last week. Last Saturday, federal judge Paul Engelmayer issued an emergency demanding that DOGE’s access to the data be revoked and any collected data be deleted from DOGE’s storage.

During the subcommittee’s first meeting, Garcia reminded members of when, in July 2023, Greene displayed photographs showing the genitals of Hunter Biden, then-President Joe Biden’s son.

“I find it ironic, of course, that our chairwoman, Congresswoman Greene, is in charge of running this committee,” he said. “Now, in the last Congress, Chairwoman Greene literally showed a d*ck pic in our oversight congressional hearing, so I thought I’d bring one as well.”

Garcia then displayed an image of Musk wearing a tuxedo — drawing laughter from some members — and referred to him as “President Elon Musk.”

“He’s also the world’s richest man,” Garcia said. “He was the biggest political donor in the last election. He has billions of dollars in conflicts of interest, and we know he is also leading a power grab also abided by and encouraged by Donald Trump and of course, the Chairwoman, congresswoman Greene.”

Garcia then outlined DOGE’s “demolition plan” to destroy the Departments of Education, Labor, the National Institutes of Health, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Social Security Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In all cases, Musk has either made comments about his intention to target these agencies or has already deployed DOGE underlings to begin forcing out workers and disrupting the agencies’ work.

Numerous lawsuits have been filed against Musk and DOGE for unlawfully attempting to freeze agencies’ funding and circumventing the required congressional process to do so. Trump has already defied a federal court order to un-freeze federal funding for various agencies.

“Elon Musk is sending his unqualified DOGE staff to carry out this agenda across all of these agencies. And in some cases actually teenage staffers. No accountability, no experience, and problematic records,” Garcia said.

Later in the hearing, ranking member Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said. “While we’re sitting here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government, shuttering federal agencies, firing federal workers, withholding funds vital to the safety and well-being of our communities, and hacking our sensitive data systems.” She then welcomed Musk to testify under oath before the committee. 

Meanwhile, House Republicans unveiled their preliminary plan for the budget to fund Trump’s agenda. Their plan called for a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit, the maximum amount of money the US federal government can borrow, The Hill reported. The plan would aid Trump’s promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, an expansion of fossil fuel production, and an extension of the Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts which largely benefitted wealthy Americans.

House Republicans claim the deficit will be offset by DOGE’s cut in government spending, but House Democrats accused them of financial hypocrisy.

“The Republican majority is proposing $2 trillion in spending cuts that include significant decreases to Medicaid, to the ACA [ObamaCare], food assistance, student loans, and sustainable energy programs — cuts that will make it harder on working families to afford college, to access health care and to put food on the table,” Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) said.

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) added, “This is the same [Republican] crew that, when Democrats were in charge, cried crocodile tears about deficits and debt. But then once they’re in office, they blow up the debt far more than any Democratic president or Democratic Congress has.”

“And why? Is it to help the middle class? Is it to help working Americans in my neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia?” he continued. “No. It’s to give massive tax cuts to millionaires and to elite corporations.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.