The pair traveled to California after reportedly trying to pressure a top government official to open the water pump

Summary

DOGE staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang tried pressuring the Bureau of Reclamation to open a California water pump to aid Los Angeles during January’s wildfires, though the system couldn’t reach the city.

When denied, they flew there to do it themselves but failed due to maintenance and access restrictions.

Critics called DOGE a “slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

Trump later ordered dam releases, flooding farmland. Critics called DOGE’s actions reckless and uninformed.

  • Yoga@lemmy.caEnglish
    41·
    18 hours ago

    First, the power was off due to planned maintenance. Second, Shang wasn’t an official federal employee yet, meaning he couldn’t access the pump. Hassen couldn’t do it either, CNN reports, because he had to fly back before the power would be restored.

    “They didn’t get their photo op,” an unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told CNN, adding it represented “what DOGE has been this entire time — this slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

    lol that’s amazing levels of incompetence.

    • IamAnonymous@lemmy.world
      7·
      6 hours ago

      Who paid for the flights? American tax dollars or Elon, because it was poorly planned and inefficient which goes against the ideology of DOGE