A flattering Washington Post profile of a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) exec who feels that he did a great service to the country by purging civil servants whom he believed did not provide “value” set off a tsunami of complaints from readers.
On Monday, the Post’s Elisabeth Dwoskin profiled 43-year-old Tyler Hassen, who is promoting his book, “Inside DOGE: The Real Story from a Senior Insider,” and claimed that despite all the criticism, he would “gladly” live through the period again.
According to Hassen, he and his compatriots have been unfairly maligned, telling the Post, “There’s this misconception that we all just went in there and didn’t really think about what we were doing. I spent 24/7 thinking about it, waking up at three in the morning thinking, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ … And I know I did.”
To establish his credibility, he pointed out, “he has spent his career hiring, firing, reorganizing and rescuing failing businesses” after acquiring an AB from Princeton.
According to the Post profile, “Hassen insists that DOGE was not cruel, a word that appears six times in the memoir, often in relation to laying off federal workers. The refrain can read as a plea for reconsideration of an effort he argues was poorly understood," with Hassan explaining in his book, “In the private sector, there’s an understood bargain. You’re hired to create value. If the value disappears, so does the job. It isn’t personal. It isn’t cruel. It’s the operating system of capitalism.”
Concluding his interview with the Post by claiming the DOGE bros were “some of the best and brightest we have in America,” and that he is “honored to be even a part of them,” the Washington Post’s readers begged to differ in the comments, over 1600 in seven hours, with Post acknowledging, “The comments express strong criticism of the DOGE initiative, highlighting its perceived failures and negative impacts. Many commenters argue that DOGE was misguided, causing harm to government functions, public services, and international aid programs, while failing to achieve its stated goals of reducing the deficit.”
Case in point: one reader criticized the Post under owner Jeff Bezos with: “This is astonishingly credulous interview of a self-promoting Musk-acolyte possessed of a single, tired idea: ‘Cutting the Deficit.’ He had no business being lofted into the federal files in search of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’ except in the mirror. The damage these people have done to our democratic system of government is incalculable, and they're proud of their vandalism. The Post should know better, except its ownership has become a cheerleader for this reckless destruction.”
“That was the squishiest softball interview I've ever read... We paid billions for people Not to work is one thing that came out of this.We lost a generation of well trained workforces and specialists. most of all, we showed we don't care about people and education and meaningful jobs thanks Bezos for your Vichy newspaper,” was a featured comment by the Post.
“They were cruel. We were there and witnessed it. He couldn't even last a year at the job. He deserves no credibility,” another stated.
One WaPo reader, dating back to 2019, wrote, “How is this good journalism when the article skipped over what it needed to, in order to present a totally positive picture? Just another example of how Bezos’ takeover ruined a highly respected newspaper.”
“He should be in jail, instead he’s selling a book,” Frank Fontana suggested.
Noting Hassen proudly mentioned his 4-year-old daughter multiple times in the interview, one commenter wrote, “Here’s hoping his daughter grows up to be thoroughly embarrassed by her delusional father.”
Added another, "It seems he just made it clear that no one should buy his book. Brilliant."