A Democratic governor criticized the Social Security Administration staffer known as “Big Balls” for his work in DOGE—and the right isn’t happy about it.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker mentioned Edward Coristine—the teenager who was allegedly beaten during an attempted carjacking earlier this month—at a Democratic gathering in his home state.
“Our federal workers don’t deserve to have some 19-year-old DOGE bro called ‘Big Balls’ destroy their careers,” said Pritzker, a frequent target of President Donald Trump.
ADVERTISEMENT
Coristine has been made even more of a revered figure on the right after the alleged early-morning beating in Washington, D.C.—one which spurred the president to deploy National Guard to the capital, as well as assume control of the district’s police force and assign FBI agents to fight crime.
That sentiment was reflected Wednesday in their response to Pritzer’s comment.
“Sick,” griped MAGA mouthpiece Benny Johnson, even though the governor was talking strictly about Coristine’s work in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has taken a hatchet to the federal government.
The Republican National Committee’s Research arm similarly took issue with the “fatcat,“ calling his remark ”disgusting."
Meanwhile, lawyer and National Conservatism Conference Committee member Will Chamberlain fumed that “Big Balls has more courage in his pinky than this morbidly obese billionaire has in his entire corpulent body.”
Coristine, to whom the White House suggested it may award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, once worked in the State Department in addition to his role in DOGE. He was identified as one of Elon Musk’s go-to men for having federal workers explain whey they should not be let go.
Coristine resigned from DOGE in June, and has since been working as a special government employee in the Social Security Administration. There, “his work will be focused on improving the functionality of the Social Security website and advancing our mission of delivering more efficient service to the American people,” an agency spokesperson told The New York Times at the time.
