Last year, President Donald Trump was warned his rush for “government efficiency” could result in unprecedented mistakes. Now, former staffers of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have testified as part of a bombshell lawsuit against the department… And boy, are these depositions something else!
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We previously told you Trump faced scrutiny after ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) on his first day back in office. The president did more than just gut DEI offices, however. Hundreds of thousands of Americans– namely Black women– were laid off in addition to over 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants being terminated, according to NPR.
The massive funding cuts led the Modern Language Association (MLA), American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and American Historical Association (AHA) formally suing DOGE in 2025. They alleged the department’s discriminatory methods were used to filter through which grants and programs would be terminated.
This brings us to this week when the depositions from the case were made public. It’s important to note DOGE has been sued at least 11 times, often citing a lack of training and reckless terminations, NBC News reported. These glaring criticisms have taken a new light, however, after the depositions were released.
Perhaps the most shocking– and hilarious— moment came when one former DOGE employee couldn’t even define DEI.
“The details, I don’t remember it off the top of my head,” staffer Justin Fox admitted. “My understanding was exactly what was written in the EO [executive order]. Any time that we would look at a grant through the lens of complying with an executive order, we would just refer back to the EO and assess if this grant had relation to it.”
Fox is referencing Trump’s “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing” order, forcing all federal agencies to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the federal government, under whatever name they appear.”
The issue quickly rose once it was clear that Trump and DOGE were just flagging anything related to racial, gender and ethnic diversity for elimination, including several historic Black figures like Jackie Robinson and the Tuskegee Airmen being washed from government sites.
Still, DOGE staffers like Fox doubled down on the commitment to end all DEI. But don’t worry! Fox said he would often rely on ChatGPT to ensure DOGE was making the right decisions.
After a ChatGPT assessment of a civil rights film, he said, “A documentary is DEI if it explores historical events that significantly impacted Black civil rights… It is not for the benefit of humankind; it is focused on a specific group or a specific race, here, being Black.”
Another DOGE staffer, Nathan Cavanaugh, also testified that he and Fox were in charge of reviewing grants from the Biden Administration– despite having no academic or professional experience doing so.
One grant in question titled “Examining experiences of LGBTQ military service” was quickly flagged and eliminated under DOGE. After being asked why the project was targeted, Cavanaugh simply said, “Because it explicitly says LGBTQ.”
In truth, the program was meant to bridge the community gap between veterans and the rest of society through a focus on marginalized service members– including women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ and Black veterans.
Shockingly– or not so much– DOGE is facing even more scrutiny as an internal government watchdog agency and members of Congress continue an investigation into allegations that at least one DOGE staffer misused sensitive Social Security information.
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