A DOGE subcommittee member couldn’t help but groan and close his eyes after being questioned about the extent of Elon Musk’s influence by CNN Newsroom’s Pamela Brown.

The discussion, seen Monday, centered around the Tesla’s boss control of the newly created agency and his access to sensitive data – leaving Brown to regurgitate several liberal talking points in the form of a questions at Tennessee’s Tim Burchett.

In doing so, Brown – set to soon helm a new show with Wolf Blitzer – asked her guest about a court filing that had published earlier in the day, which billed Musk not as DOGE’s boss, but as a ‘senior adviser to the president.’

Echoing concern seen from others throughout the day, Brown posed a loaded statement-style question to the Republican rep, leading him to shut his eyes as if to indicate boredom.

Seemingly wary of for what was to come – and seemingly already subject to it in days before – Burchett smirked and grimaced through Brown’s rant.

As he did, the Republican repeatedly sought to put the matter to bed with facts, but was only met with vitriol and the same series of questions in response. He appeared frustrated as a result.

Fed-up from the get-go, he pointed out what appeared to be the host’s strategy, while lampooning it and the mainstream media’s reaction to Musk’s appointment.

The clash culminated with Burchett slamming CNN’s waning ratings, as he did when interviewed by an outgoing Jim Acosta a few weeks ago. 

‘Elon Musk is not overseeing DOGE. Did you know that?’ Brown asked at a point, to which Burchett – after his series of expressions – coolly countered: ‘President Trump is overseeing DOGE.’

‘I think there’s a lot of Americans who are supportive of this effort to clear out government waste,’ Brown at this point conceded, before again bringing up the widely heard points she had evidently been trying to hit home.   

‘What information do you actually have on what DOGE is doing with that data?’ she asked, growing increasingly animated as she reiterated concerns pertaining to Musk’s access to records within agencies like the IRS.  

‘What are your questions? What do you want to know?’ she asked, as Burchett appeared as if he had already been subject to the same song and dance earlier in the day.

‘Well, first of all, Elon Musk, when he owned PayPal, they never had a breach of security,’ Burchett first set out on explaining.

‘The IRS is a nightmare, ma’am,’ he added. ‘You have folks that still haven’t gone back to work three or four years after COVID.

‘As a United States congressman, I can write a letter of concern over a constituent of mine having problems with the IRS, and it takes up to six months for me to get a response.’

Putting particular emphasis on the word me after Brown had honed in on his role as a member of the House’s Oversight and Accountability in addition to his place within DOGE.

Not satisfied with his answer, Brown again looked to find some common ground – this time by speaking over Burchett midsentence.

‘Look, I’m not saying there’s no problems with government agencies,’ she began, before being talked over by Burchett this time around.

Amid some heated crosstalk, Burchett could be heard telling the host: ‘You ask me a question… you ask me a question…’ – to which insisted: ‘But you’re not answering it.’

Burchett, seemingly fed up with Brown’s line of questioning, eventually got a word in edgewise, bringing up how ‘the IRS has hundreds of different groups that have access to this stuff’ for years, if not decades.

‘Yet no one has complained about that,’ Burchett said, with a tone suggesting there was ‘nothing to see here.’

Brown, ignoring the congressman’s calls, cited the well-known ‘checks and balances” system that’s existed in the US since the 1700s.

Brown argued how the Founding Fathers had implemented the guidance for a reason,  and how ‘it’s highly unusual for politicos to have access to that system.’

‘Do you not have questions about what they’re doing with the data, why they want access to private tax information from Americans?’ she asked Burchett again, while again reminding him of his own place in Congress. 

‘Do you not have those questions? As a member of the Oversight Committee?’ she asked. 

The congressman – just weeks after clashing with Acosta during what one of the anchor’s final broadcasts – quipped in response: ‘Humans will make mistakes, ma’am. 

‘But, currently, these are bloated programs,’ he continued, before being interrupted again. You have no-show employees that are angry that they’re having to go back to work.’

Brown, at this point, interjected: ‘No one is disagreeing that there’s bloat and waste…’

‘Well, then why are y’all not exposing it?’ Burchett this time interrupted.

He elaborated: The only reason you have questions is if you’re doing something crooked and you’re going to see a lot of congressmen with red faces when they follow this paper trail back to members of congress, ma’am. 

‘And that’s the bottom line.’    

‘Hundreds of different people have access to this,’ Burchett went on, seemingly getting into stride. ‘And yet no one raised one peep about it. 

‘Now Elon Musk gets a hold of it, and he’s going to do something. He’s going to make some changes that need to be made,’ the congressman continued. ‘And you all are pitching a fit. It’s the same old line, man. You attack the message carrier.’

Not willing to back down, Brown continued to echo concerns aired in recent days by talking heads on networks ranging from MSNBC to Substacks operated by the likes of now-independent journalists such as Acosta.   

‘Not pitching a fit at all – a lot of people think it’s a good thing to weed out waste, but there are fair questions to be asking, congressman, about these unelected people going in and having access to private information from America,’ she said.

‘How can you not be asking those questions? Those are very fair questions.’

Burchett, seemingly eager at a chance to rip into the interviewer, immediately remarked, ‘Hold on for a second!’ as he honed in on some obvious oversights. 

‘How many people at the IRS are elected? How many of those are elected?’ he said, briefly leaving Brown at a loss. 

‘Ma’am, this is okay. You’re proving my point. You’ve got all these people, and… this is a very porous agency. We know that.’ 

When asked about DOGE’s ‘young staffers’ and whether they were up to the task of draining the proverbial swam, Burchett shot back that he, as a DOGE committee member, was doing his due diligence , before comparing the young Americans to those who fought in World War II.

‘I’m not hearing them from you,’ Brown said.  

‘Look at these,’ he said, gesturing to a series of ceremonial firearms lined up behind him.

‘Those Japanese rifles that, guess what? My dad was 20-21 years old when he killed the people that carried that. 

‘You all don’t question the fact when, you know, these 20-22 year old people are the ones that fight our dadgum wars, but yet…’

‘There’s a difference between members of the greatest generation going to foreign service, risking their life to serve our country, and young staffers going in with their computers and trying to get access to personal data,’ Brown interrupted.

‘There is a big difference.’

At this point, Brown aired her intent to ‘follow up’ with what she framed as ‘an important question, leaving Burchett to say ‘You won’t answer your own questions, ma’am.’

Continuing to make her case, Brown singled out various cuts that had already been made she viewed as ‘clumsy’ rather than ‘methodical.’

‘Again, you’re upset about you’re attacking the message here, not the results,’ Burchett retorted. ‘You talk about nuclear secrets. 

‘You had a person who was in charge of nuclear secrets, a man who dressed up as a woman who would go into the airport and steal women’s luggage was overseeing those nuclear secrets under the Biden administration,’ he added.

The comment came in reference to the 2022 scandal surrounding nonbinary former Energy Department official Sam Brinton, who was charged in two separate instances of stealing suitcases at US airports.

‘And I never heard you say a peep about that again. Ma’am,’ the Southern conservative sniped.  

‘I don’t know anything about that. I’ll be transparent,’ Brown went on to claim.  

‘Elon Musk… Yeah?’ Burchett joked, again seizing an opening. ‘Well, you need to look it up. He’s he’s a he’s it’s all over the internet. It’s all over.’

Brown, at this point, attempted to get her message across, after being met with a stonewall in the form of Burchett for more than two minutes.

‘The question is, you know, some of these mistakes are really high stakes firing, accidentally firing people overseeing nuclear weapons. Do you see that point?’

The congressman, in turn, replied: ‘Humans will make mistakes, ma’am. But currently these are bloated programs. You have no show employees that are angry that they’re having to go back to work…”

Brown, for the third time, said at this point: ‘No one is disagreeing that there’s bloat and waste –’

‘Well, then why are y’all not exposing it?’ Burchett said, before eventually – as he did after being met with an incensed Acosta in late January – panning CNN’s waning ratings.