Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is using her perch atop Congress' new DOGE panel to cement her transformation from shunned GOP bomb-thrower to establishment figure.

Why it matters: Despite her reputation, Greene insists she wants to form a "serious" effort to support Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

• Greene met Thursday with Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), her Democratic counterpart on the DOGE-focused Oversight subcommittee, telling us the confab was "cordial."
• "I was explaining to her how the committee is going to work. I chose very serious-minded members," Greene said, adding she hopes the panel's Democrats will "be serious-minded as well."

👀 "Next week's hearing should be really good. I actually expect it to be pretty bipartisan," Greene told us.

• The hearing's title — "The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud" — suggests Republicans will use it to cheer on Musk's hack-and-slash efforts to reshape the federal government.
• Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), one of Greene's picks for the panel, acknowledged Greene's record as a firebrand — including inflammatory and offensive remarks and revolts against GOP leadership — but brushed it off.
• "She'll get criticism," said Burchett, but "if a guy did some of the stuff she did, nobody would even bat an eye. So, yeah, I think she will be just fine."

The other side: Stansbury said her meeting with Greene was "very nice" and predicted there "will be opportunities to do bipartisan work around good government."

• "Myself and the chair are cautiously optimistic," she said, though she warned that Democrats "are not going to take their foot off the pedal in terms of holding Trump and Elon Musk accountable."

Yes, but: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) — who has clashed with Greene at Oversight hearings — is more skeptical of the Georgia Republican's supposed evolution.

• "Marjorie, in my opinion, is Marjorie. And I don't think anyone's ever considered her to be serious," Crockett said.
• In a DOGE subcommittee organizational meeting and two Oversight Committee hearings so far this year, Greene has "not presented herself as serious," she said.
• Greene said of Crockett: "If she's serving on the DOGE committee, I hope she's serious about cutting spending, because the reality is we're $36 trillion in debt."

The bottom line: Both sides of the panel are stacked with some of Congress' most bombastic and ideologically radical members.

• Crockett predicted the first hearing "is going to be a sh**show" and that she doesn't "see anything productive coming out of it."
• "I anticipate full-on combat, because DOGE is clearly the devil right now," she said.

— Andrew Solender and Erin Doherty

With President Trump back in office, Republicans have moved swiftly to refashion the Oversight panel into a de facto arm of the administration.

• "We're definitely going to be adversarial to wasteful spending, which puts us right in line with President Trump and Elon Musk," said Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas).
• Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) put it this way: "The administration's done more in two weeks than [Biden] did in four years. ... What's there to investigate?"

Why it matters: The committee is often the home of a presidential administration's toughest scrutiny from Congress. It was a clearinghouse for all things anti-Biden, culminating in an impeachment inquiry.

• That pivot is a central point of tension between the panel's Democrats and Republicans.

Driving the news: Democrats tried Wednesday to subpoena Musk to testify about DOGE's hardball tactics, but Republicans blocked the move.

• Republicans also changed the panel's name from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform after Trump's election to reflect its new role.

What they're saying: Oversight ranking member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who introduced the motion to subpoena Musk, told us the Republicans' block "exposed the fact that they are not serious about any oversight for the next four years."

• Stansbury called it "indicative of the fact that they are giving Elon Musk carte blanche to do what he wants with federal agencies."

— Andrew Solender