OPM Director Kupor Tells Benny Johnson He Wants More Coristine-Type Hires

OPM Director Scott Kupor, in a Monday interview with Benny Johnson, said “I wanna see people like ‘Big Balls,’ or Ed, as we call him colloquially” and called Edward Coristine “a great example”: “He dropped out of college. He never had substantive work experience before coming to DOGE.” Nextgov reported the words; the entry date, Monday, September 14, comes from Armitage’s piece, which agrees with Nextgov’s “Monday” and with Kupor’s first college-tour stop on Sept. 15. The recording itself has not been located or listened to, so the quotes are secondary-sourced, and Nextgov’s first quote contains an ellipsis.

Nextgov described Coristine as a former DOGE staffer who currently works for an administration initiative to improve the functionality of agency websites. That is the National Design Studio effort whose America.gov launch followed, where Trump named Coristine lead engineer; see 2026-09-29–national-design-studio-hello-america-event-launches-america-gov-trump-names-coristine-lead-engineer-thanks-arnell-musk. Coristine’s earlier record: 2025-01-20–coristine-appointed-doge-despite-security-risks and 2022-06-01–coristine-fired-path-network-data-leak.