SALT LAKE CITY — Outside the federal building in downtown Salt Lake City on Wednesday, a group of people wanted to send a message to Washington.
They asked, "Musk or Us?"
"I want to see sanity," explained protester Lee Moss. "They're just whacking away at everything with a machete and not thinking about who really does what"
The group rallied at the corner of 100 South and State Street, upset over the approach taken by the Department of Government Efficiency team as they cut spending in the federal government.
"We're stopping the coup. This is a coup against our government, against democracy," claimed Barbara Joan Gale.
The group focused much of their anger on the involvement of Elon Musk.
"He has too much power over us without our permission," said Linda Griffen. "We are the power of the people, the government rules by the permission of the people and I am part of the people."
Trump cabinet appears unified as Elon Musk addresses government inefficiencies:
The citizens who rallied aren't the only ones concerned. During a town hall call with constituents this week, Rep. Blake Moore (Rep.) expressed his frustrations as co-chair of the DOGE caucus in the House, a position he said he's still excited to hold.
"There hasn't been much communication directly with us over the last, basically, three or four weeks, since it kind of kicked off after inauguration," Moore admitted. "I'll be very candid. I've been frustrated that we could be doing this far more collaboratively and we haven't."
Moore wants to see the government cut wasteful spending but in a careful way.
"I think the first major downfall or complication from what I've seen of DOGE right now, we don't need to be vilifying federal workers," he said. "These folks want to be part of the solution. Alienating them is not the right direction."
The way Moss sees it, the job requires precision
"I'm sure there's inefficiencies that can be worked on," he admitted. "They've been worked on in the past, but it needs to be done surgically, not haphazardly,"
