Sometimes, it does indeed appear that the “cruelty is the point.”
Conservative news hosts and MAGA influencers are currently mocking a witness who testified at Wednesday’s DOGE subcommittee hearing simply because he is blind, calling it the “theatre of the absurd” and it makes sense he doesn’t “see any widespread abuse or waste from government spending” because he “is literally unable to see anything.”
During the first Delivering on Government Efficiency hearing in the House, which is chaired by far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the Democrats on the subcommittee invited Project on Government Oversight director of government affairs Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette as their witness.
Hedtler-Gaudette, a well-regarded nonpartisan watchdog on government waste and corruption, criticized the Trump administration for eliminating inspectors general and Elon Musk’s meme-based government efficiency agency over Musk’s business-related conflicts of interest and lack of experience.
“These facts, as well as already-emergent legal challenges, make it unlikely that DOGE will provide the check against waste, fraud and abuse that its proponents hope for,” he said in his opening statement. However, he did add that there are “concrete and actionable solutions” to the problems of government inefficiency, corruption and abuse.
“It seems to me that if an administration were serious about wanting to root out waste, fraud and abuse, they would support and resource whistleblowers and inspectors general, they would not demonize them, and they would certainly not fire them en masse in an unlawful midnight purge,” he also stated during the hearing.
Wearing sunglasses throughout the hearing, Hedtler-Gaudette repeatedly made mention of his blindness, such as noting he was unable to see the indicator when Greene pointed out that he had gone over his allotted time.
It didn’t take long, though, for MAGA supporters to point and laugh at Hedtler-Gaudette for his visual impairment while claiming it was the reason he was supposedly saying he hadn’t found extensive government fraud.
“The Democrats’ star speaker, Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of Government Affairs at the NGO ‘Project On Government Oversight’ (POGO), says he can’t see any widespread abuse or waste from government spending,” right-wing provocateur Ian Miles Cheong tweeted alongside a clip of the watchdog. “He is also blind, and is literally unable to see anything. The perfect witness.”
Cheong also noted that POGO had received funding from Open Society Foundations, a nonprofit organization founded by liberal philanthropist George Soros, a longtime bogeyman for the hard right. The social media personality’s posts were soon picked up by Not the Bee, a subsidiary of conservative humor site The Babylon Bee that describes itself as featuring “absurd and hilarious (but real) news that seems like it should definitely be satire.”
In an article headlined “Blind director of watchdog group funded by George Soros testifies that he does not see widespread evidence of government waste,” the site embedded Cheong’s tweet and wrote that “it’s just a little on the nose” that the “Democrats called an “expert” to say he sees no widespread government waste … and he’s blind?”
However, in the short video that Cheong shared, Hedtler-Gaudette never said that he hadn’t seen any widespread abuse or fraud from government spending. Instead, he merely pointed out that waste, fraud and abuse are all different from each other, adding: “It is just simply not the case that improper payments are only a function of bad people doing bad things with bad intent.”
Still, that didn’t stop the mockery that came Hedtler-Gaudette’s way from conservatives on social media and right-wing cable news. “Real news beat our @TheBabylonBee writers to the punch once again.” Babylon Bee editor-in-chief Kyle Mann wrote, sharing the Not the Bee piece.
“This has become a Theatre of the Absurd,” another X user posted. “This is Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the Director of Government Affairs at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), an NGO founded in 1981. I for one believe Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette when he says that he doesn’t see any widespread malicious waste related to government spending.”
Other right-wing social media accounts called it “peak irony” that it was “the blind leading the blind,” adding that “you can’t make this up.”
Newsmax host Bob Brooks, meanwhile, also attacked the government watchdog during his primetime broadcast on Wednesday night.
“There was a DOGE hearing at the House today, and Democrats, their star witness was this guy, Dylan Gaudette, the director of government affairs for the Project on Government Oversight,” he said. “I’m going to state the obvious. You notice he was wearing sunglasses. Not to be insensitive, but that guy is blind. Does that not complicate oversight? Just a fair question. He has been on the job for almost six years, no wonder he is a Democrat witness.”
While much of MAGA Twitter was gleefully mocking Hedtler-Gaudette over his blindness, some conservative journalists rallied to his defense.
“Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette is one of the better watchdogs in the Washington DC nonprofit world and has always been super helpful whenever I’ve reached out to him for help on a story,” Washington Fee Beacon investigative reporter Andrew Kerr noted. “He’s one of the rare few that isn’t afraid to scrutinize pols on the right AND left.”
Kerr also pointed out that POGO “is one of the better watchdog organizations” and has regularly been quoted by conservative media outlets, adding that it “doesn’t make them automatically bad” just because it receives some funding from Soros.
Gabe Kaminsky, an investigative journalist for the Washington Examiner, agreed with Kerr and said Hedtler-Gaudette “is willing to punch Left or Right if he thinks transparency/ethics is a concern,” noting that he’d quoted the watchdog several times.
