President Donald Trump pledged on Friday to make permanent the spending cuts identified by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Despite DOGE having already slashed $157 billion from current federal accounts, some conservatives have criticized Trump for sending Congress a package containing only $9.4 billion in proposed permanent spending reductions.
“We’re totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent,” Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office. He added that “most of it is going to come later.”
Standing beside Elon Musk in the Oval Office, President Trump praised him during a farewell appearance marking the end of Musk’s role as a special government employee in the White House.
Trump outlined several spending cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), many of which will be included in a $9.4 billion rescissions package headed to Congress. The proposed cuts target areas such as foreign aid, NPR, and PBS.
The White House is expected to formally submit the package to Congress next week.
“They canceled $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education, and that was just a small section of the Department of Education, $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City. And the landlord never made the kind of money that he made in the last short period of time,” Trump told reporters.
He also highlighted a $45 million cut to taxpayer-funded diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma.
“In Burma, does anyone know about Burma?” Trump asked before providing more details about DOGE’s findings.
Additional cuts are included in the “big, beautiful bill” recently passed by the House, which is set to be considered by the Senate next week, the Washington Times reported.
“We want to get our great, big, beautiful bill finished and done,” the president said. “We put some of this into the bill, but most of it’s going to come later. … It’s hundreds of billions of dollars.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson is warning that a handful of Senate Republicans may “tank” Trump’s bill by stripping out key measures from that are directly important to the president’s agenda.
During an interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” Johnson also warned that the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate may take out the measure in the House-passed bill that restricts activist judges from issuing nationwide injunctions on every single case.
Johnson also slammed a false talking point from Democrats that the legislation will take Medicaid away from people.
“We have not cut Medicaid, and we have not cut SNAP. What we’re doing, Margaret, is working on fraud, waste and abuse. And everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that that’s a responsibility of Congress. Just in — in Medicaid, for example, you’ve got 1.4 million illegal aliens receiving those benefits. That is not what Medicaid is intended for. It’s intended for vulnerable populations, for young, single, pregnant women and the elderly and the disabled and people who desperately need those resources. Right now, they’re being drained by fraud, waste and abuse,” Johnson told anchor Margaret Brennan.
“You’ve got about 4.8 million people on Medicaid right now nationwide who are able-bodied workers, young men, for example, who are not working, who are taking advantage of the system. If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system. You’re cheating the system. And no one in the country believes that that’s right,” Johnson added.
“So there’s a — there’s a moral component to what we’re doing. And when you make young men work, it’s good for them, it’s good for their dignity,” Johnson continued.
“What we’re talking about, again, is able-bodied workers, many of whom are refusing to work because they’re gaming the system. And when we make them work, it’ll be better for everybody, a win-win-win for all,” he added, noting the requirement is only 20 hours per week.