A Federal Worker Was Fired for Filming DOGE. Now She’s Running for Congress

Alexis Goldstein had conscionable dropped her toddler disconnected astatine time attraction and was connected her mode backmost into the bureau erstwhile she ran into a radical of radical she had ne'er seen earlier attempting to entree instrumentality that appeared to beryllium from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). What ensued was a yearlong combat to prevention her occupation astatine the bureau from Elon Musk’s alleged Department of Government Efficiency.

It was February 2025, and DOGE was conducting a wholesale battle connected the US government. The operatives arrived astatine the CFPB connected February 6. Goldstein whipped retired her telephone and started documenting the intruders; they turned retired to beryllium members of DOGE, including Jordan Wick and Jeremy Lewin. CFPB enactment alleged that Goldstein violated bureau accusation information rules due to the fact that the pictures she took included machine screens. After a twelvemonth successful administrative permission limbo, she was fired this past February.

Like the US Agency for International Development (USAID), DOGE targeted the CFPB aboriginal on, attempting to terminate much than 1,400 of its 1,700 workers successful April 2025. Musk archetypal acknowledged his volition to destruct the tiny user extortion bureau successful November 2024, writing connected X “delete CFPB.”

Days aft her firing, Goldstein announced that she would tally successful a crowded contention for the US House of Representatives arsenic a Democrat successful Maryland's 6th legislature territory against incumbent April McClain Delaney. WIRED spoke to Goldstein astir her experiences successful the authorities and with DOGE—and however her acquisition arsenic a national idiosyncratic inspired her to tally for office.

This interrogation has been edited for magnitude and clarity.

WIRED: Can you locomotion maine done the concern that got you fired?

Alexis Goldstein: DOGE arrived astatine the CFPB, and I was on-site that time due to the fact that the national had been tabling successful the lobby each week, trying to amusement radical we were inactive determination for them. We had gotten connection that DOGE was astir apt coming that day. I had dropped my kid disconnected astatine time attraction and was pushing my stroller done the basement erstwhile I saw immoderate radical I had ne'er seen earlier who didn’t person CFPB badges but had a CFPB computer. I enactment my telephone successful the cupholder and started filming done the window, trying to beryllium subtle, but they saw maine and moved to a country that didn’t person a window.

So I went successful and introduced myself and asked who they were, due to the fact that we person each this grooming that says we are each liable for safeguarding the delicate information we have, whether it’s from consumers oregon the companies we regulate. I started filming and asking them their names and whether they’d had the due grooming to grip our delicate information. One of them ran retired of the country immediately. Another one, Jeremy Lewin, the feline that dismantled USAID who looks astir 18 years aged adjacent though he’s astir 30, ran into the corner, and they called information connected me. [Lewin and CFPB did not respond to a petition for comment.]

You were enactment connected administrative permission for a twelvemonth earlier being fired. What was that like, and erstwhile did you find retired you were fired?

Answering this is simply a small hard, due to the fact that they fired a 3rd of the CFPB the adjacent week. So I conscionable got fired with everybody else, past we got unfired, past we got fired again, past we got unfired. It wasn’t truly until astir May that I was successful limbo connected my admin permission specifically.

In immoderate ways, I wasn’t disquieted astir my ain situation. I was disquieted astir everybody’s. There was lone a tribunal bid keeping the CFPB open. At 1 constituent it went to the DC Circuit, and we were waiting for their decision. Every time that passed, radical would beryllium like, “We made it done different day!”