'This has to stop': House Dem faces backlash for 'promoting physical violence' at DOGE protest

Mfume, who was elected to fill the seat of the late Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, added that DOGE stands for "the department of government evil."

Conservatives on social media were quick to criticize Mfume. They accused him of inciting violence and wondered aloud why more media outlets weren't picking up the comments. 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a Mfume spokesperson said, "Congressman Mfume was talking about going neighbor to neighbor and person to person to fight to win the hearts, minds, and souls of disaffected voters who didn't participate in the last election or who are turned off by the current process."

"He believes everybody needs to be engaged and you have to be able to fight where people are to talk with them and to get them engaged and bring them back to the fold."  

The spokesperson added that Mfume is "not opposed to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse."

"He is the Ranking Member of the United States House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations and that has been a focus of his bipartisan work alongside Subcommittee Chair Pete Sessions for the last two years. Congressman Mfume supports many things to make government run better, including ending cost overruns at the Department of Defense, tackling the underworld of fraud and improper payments associated with government spending, and establishing a scorecard within agencies which measures their ability to curb waste - he has worked with at least a dozen inspector generals on these issues."

"We have one simple message, which is: Elon Musk, keep your hands off our Social Security," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told the crowd in Baltimore. 

"Over the last 21 days, we have seen Elon Musk conducting illegal raids on federal agencies with his DOGE crew," the senator said. "This is a recipe for corruption by the DOGE boys."

Musk and other Republicans have argued that a significant amount of waste exists in the federal entitlement system and pushed back on the accusation that legitimate benefits will be taken away. 

Musk responded to Lee's post by saying, "Yeah, I can't emphasize this enough! The goal of auditing the Social Security Administration is to stop the extreme levels of fraud taking place, so that it remains solvent and protects the social security checks of honest Americans!"

Fox News Digital previously reported that, according to Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, SSA disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough "to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023."

Fox News Digital's Aubrie Spady contributed to this report