'Stunt for photo op': 2 DOGE employees 'flew to California' to 'turn on' water pumps 'themselves'
FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk looks on during the day of a meeting with House Republicans to discuss the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 5, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura/File Photo
CNN climate reporter Ella Nilsen on Sunday delivered a stunning report on President Donald Trump’s January effort to “turn on the water” in southern California as the state battled historic wildfires in the region.
As Nilsen noted, “in the first weeks of the Trump administration, the president falsely claimed there were major water shortages during the Los Angeles wildfires.”
“Trump was laser focused on releasing more California water, but the water he directed to be released never made it to L.A.,” Nilsen added.
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Indeed, on January 28, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) congratulated the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation “for more than doubling the Federally pumped water flowing toward Southern California in [less than] 72 hours.”
Accompanying that tweet is a photo of at least one member of the DOGE team — Tyler Hassen.
Nilsen on Sunday detailed the backstory of that DOGE photo.
“We now know that two representatives from DOGE repeatedly pressured the acting head of a federal agency that manages dams to open water pumps at a federal facility in central California — even though that facility couldn't physically do so because of planned maintenance,” Nilsen reported.
“The two DOGE agents said they had an order from the president to do this, even though one of them was not actually a government employee at the time,” she continued.
According to the reporter, “when the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation did not relent, the DOGE agents flew to California with the goal of turning the pumps on themselves in what people familiar with the incident characterized as a stunt for a photo op.”
Nilsen said the DOGE agents “seemed fixated on getting a photograph of themselves turning these pumps on,” according to “people familiar with the incident.”
The reporter added, "One person familiar told me, quote, ‘They didn't get their photo op.'"
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As Nilsen noted, questions posed to the White House and DOGE — “including who paid for flights for the two DOGE agents to go to California” — went unanswered.
Watch the report below or at this link.
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