Author Michael Lewis discusses federal employees who resisted the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a Guardian podcast released Nov. 2, drawing on his book about the initiative’s early period.
The Guardian’s Today in Focus episode, presented by Nosheen Iqbal, was released at 10 p.m. ET Nov. 1 (03:00 UTC Nov. 2). The Guardian describes the book’s subjects as civil servants who opposed Elon Musk’s DOGE effort to dismantle the U.S. government.
W.W. Norton says Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State profiles six public servants and covers DOGE’s early period. The publisher’s examples include work protecting tax data, enforcing rules, finding ways to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighborhoods and researching cystic fibrosis. The six-person figure refers to the book; the Guardian lists the episode as an interview with Lewis about it.
President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order framed DOGE’s task as updating federal technology and software to improve efficiency and productivity. It gave the existing United States Digital Service a new name: the United States DOGE Service (USDS). The order separately established the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization.
The order directed every agency to create a DOGE team with at least four employees. It also instructed agencies to make unclassified records and information systems available to the service, within applicable law and data-protection requirements.
The order scheduled the temporary organization’s termination for July 4, 2026. It said that date alone would not remove or revise the directive’s other authorities or provisions.
In a separate PBS NewsHour interview on Oct. 12, Lewis described the civil service as a “great undiscovered gold mine” and called it “incredibly important.”
