Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA) warned MSNBC's Symone Sanders that people need to pay more attention to what tech billionaire Elon Musk and his allies are doing under the hood to federal programs under their Department of Government Efficiency task force.
This came during a panel discussion of the Republicans forcibly removing Rep. Al Green (D-TX) from Trump's address to Congress when he loudly proclaimed Trump had no "mandate" to cut Medicaid, which House Republicans have laid out in their budget by directing hundreds of billions in cuts likely to come from the health care program.
"First of all, I know Al Green, and he's a kind and decent man," said Riggleman, who was ousted from his seat by Virginia Republicans after officiating a same-sex wedding and went on to advise the House January 6 Committee. "You know, regardless of who's on the other side of the aisle with Al, he always treated me with such respect. It was hard to see that happen to Al."
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The former congressman then pivoted to the issue Green was trying to warn about in his outburst.
"When you're talking about Medicaid, you know, Al is sort of correct," Riggleman continued. "You know, a lot of times in the January 6th Committee, we were looking at the primary actors. It was the secondary actors that were causing most of the problem, and they didn't practice operational security. And when you look at Elon Musk for DOGE and what Al Green is talking about, who is actually supposed to be the DOGE leader is Amy Gleason, who worked for ... supposedly a consultancy that helps with rural health care. She also had her own company. And what's what Al is talking about. And maybe, you know, you need analysts to look at this in the media, is who is actually running DOGE. What are the cuts they are making, and why do they think there's a mandate to cut Medicaid? And who is that actually benefiting?"
"I think we have to follow the money thing here," he added. "There needs to be a lot of action, you know, about individuals looking at DOGE, looking at Medicaid and the people that are actually doing the work, the second-tier people that are doing the work, where are they actually doing it? I hope the media takes a good look at that also."
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