Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Scott Jennings Tells David Axelrod Dems’ Strategy Of Defending Every Federal Worker Doomed To Fail

(Screenshot/CNN)

Republican strategist Scott Jennings said on Tuesday Democrats’ efforts to defend federal workers were a “sob story that is not going to play” among American voters.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which President Donald Trump established by rebranding the United States Digital Service in a Jan. 20 executive order, has conducted mass layoffs and has identified roughly $105 billion in savings, according to its website. Jennings reminded former Obama administration official David Axelrod that Democrats didn’t show compassion for laid-off energy workers or people fired for not taking the vaccine for COVID-19 shortly before Trump addressed a joint session of Congress.

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“Guess what? Republicans love it. And I will just say, I think the Democrats —” Jennings said before Axelrod interrupted by saying, “Guess what? The country’s bigger than just Republican.”

“I know. Well, he’s got over a 50% approval rating and your party’s got 21%. So he’s doing okay. I think — I think making — dying on this hill of defending every single federal worker, that the idea that we can’t ever shrink the size of government because this sob story or that sob story that is not going to play with the American people,” Jennings responded. “Democrats gave no care whatsoever to the 10,000 people who lost their jobs when the big pipeline was cancelled by Joe Biden, or the people who lost their businesses in the Covid shutdowns that went on and on and on, or the firefighters or the military that lost their jobs because they wouldn’t get the Covid vaccine. No care for that.”

Democratic members of Congress joined protests outside the headquarters of the USAID and the Treasury Department on Feb. 4 after  DOGE Chairman Elon Musk announced plans to close down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

DOGE’s actions to reduce the size and scope of the federal government have been challenged in court, with a federal judge recently blocking a memo sent to federal agencies instructing them to dismiss thousands of probationary workers, but other courts have allowed DOGE to carry out its activities.

Trump’s address was marred by Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas being ejected from the House Chamber in the Capitol building after heckling Trump during the speech.