Musk Connections: Unknown
Other Corporate Connections: Business Analyst at General Dynamics
Previous Work: Trump 1.0 White House; Trump 2024 Campaign
DOGE Deployments: Unknown
- Reporting from Fortune has identified Joanna Wischer as a “staffer” within Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative.
- Wischer held multiple positions in the first Trump administration and worked on his 2024 reelection campaign.
PRIOR TO DOGE, WISCHER HELD POLICY ANALYST POSITIONS IN THE TRUMP 1.0 WHITE HOUSE AND 2024 CAMPAIGN
- According to Wischer’s LinkedIn profile, she was a White House policy analyst from October 2019 to January 2021 and had “policy/speechwriting” role(s) for Trump’s 2024 campaign since August 2023.
- A September 2024 interview referred to Wischer as a former “senior policy analyst in the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy under President Trump” who worked on “advancing [the] ‘Buy American, Hire American’ initiative” a current “policy analyst on the Donald Trump For President 2024 Campaign covering economics, border security, the weaponized justice system, and more.”
- In another interview that same month, Wischer said she worked with Peter Navarro, a senior trade advisor during Trump’s first term.
- According to Wischer’s LinkedIn profile, she also worked as a “staff assistant” in the State Department for six months in 2019.
IN INTERVIEWS, WISCHER HAS MADE A NUMBER OF BIZARRE CLAIMS INCLUDING:
- That Peter Navarro was imprisoned “because Joe Biden and Kamala put him there for standing up to the deep state.”
- Navarro served a four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack. Navarro refused to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee. In December 2024, Trump rehired Navarro as a “senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.”
- And that the 2023 United Auto Workers strikes were caused by “the Green New Deal forcing these companies to produce electric vehicles and forcing people to buy vehicles that they can’t afford.”
- In reality, auto workers demanded better working conditions, including increased wages, an end to the two-tier employment system, a four-day work week, and more time off.
- The industry-backed excuse that electric vehicles production kept auto manufacturers from meeting worker demands was debunked at the time by our own Chris Lewis:
- “The idea that these multibillion dollar corporations can not afford an overdue pay bump and retirement benefits is ludicrous. I get it, the transition to electric vehicles is costly. Last year, it cost just short of $61 thousand to manufacture one. However, there are some indisputable facts: firstly, Ford took a $9.2 billion loan to aid in the manufacturing cost. In fact, the Administration has designated $15.5 billion to ‘retool’ factories, $2 billion in grants, and up to $10 billion in loans to support conversion projects. Secondly, while sales of electric vehicles were a bit sluggish in the second quarter, GM and Ford saw a huge bump in sales (and that goes alongside the fact that, again, Stellantis is now rivaling Tesla’s EV sales). These incredible numbers are a testament to American industrial policy and never could have been reached without the hard work of UAW workers.”