President Trump on Friday promised to make permanent the cuts identified by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.
Conservatives have scoffed at Mr. Trump sending Congress a package of $9.4 billion in permanent cuts to federal spending, despite DOGE slashing $157 billion from the current accounts.
“We’re totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent,” Mr. Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office, adding that “most of it is going to come later.”
Mr. Trump praised Mr. Musk, who stood next to him in the Oval Office, bidding him farewell as a special government employee in the White House.
Mr. Trump recapped a list of spending cuts that DOGE found and which Congress will soon be considering, including in the $9.4 billion rescissions package that cuts foreign aid, NPR and PBS.
The White House is expected to send 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,” Mr. Trump said.
He also mentioned a $45 million cut of taxpayer dollars spent on diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma.
“In Burma, does anyone know about Burma?” Mr Trump asked before he continued to list more spending cuts found by DOGE.
More of the cuts are included in the “big, beautiful bill” the House recently passed and which the Senate will take up next week.
“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.”
