{"id":20790,"date":"2025-02-07T21:40:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T21:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=20790"},"modified":"2025-02-07T21:40:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T21:40:05","slug":"trump-says-elon-musks-doge-team-doing-a-great-job-will-look-at-slashing-pentagon-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=20790","title":{"rendered":"Trump says Elon Musk\u2019s DOGE team \u2018doing a great job,\u2019 will look at slashing Pentagon spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump said Friday that Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative will look at the Defense Department\u2019s massive budget after making significant cuts at other federal agencies \u2014\u00a0most notably the US Agency for International Development<\/a>\u00a0(USAID) \u2014 while charging that critics of the effort \u201cdon\u2019t love our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPentagon, Education, just about everything. We\u2019re going to go through everything,\u201d Trump said at a joint White House press conference with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so bad, with what we just went through \u2014 with this horrible situation we just went through, and I guess 97% of the people have been dismissed,\u201d Trump said, referring to\u00a0massive headcount reductions at USAID that were due to take effect at 11:59 p.m. Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very, very unfortunate. You\u2019re not going to find anything like that, but you\u2019re going to find a lot. And I\u2019ve instructed him to go check out Education, to check out the Pentagon, which is the military. And you know, sadly, you\u2019ll find some things that are pretty bad,\u201d the president went on.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Trump\"4<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
President Trump said Friday that Elon Musk will investigate Pentagon spending to look for waste.AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/div>\n

The Pentagon has the largest amount of federal discretionary spending \u2014 and an infamous history of overpayments, such as spending\u00a0$10,000 on toilet seat covers\u00a0<\/a>for Air Force cargo planes, an outlay which was ended in 2018 after it became public.<\/p>\n

Trump added, in reference to the sweeping USAID grant and staffing cuts: \u201cI don\u2019t think proportionally you\u2019re going to see anything like we just saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s DOGE initiative has seen a group of young staffers poring over spending at agencies, with the world\u2019s richest man spotlighting many cases of alleged waste on X, which he owns.<\/p>\n

Trump said in the Oval Office earlier Friday that USAID\u2019s spending was mostly \u201ccorrupt or ridiculous\u201d and added that \u201cthe whole thing is a fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Musk4<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Musk has made steep cuts in other departments while leading a cost-cutting initiative.AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Trump4<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Trump called Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who protested looming Education Department cuts this week, a \u201clowlife.\u201dAP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cElon is doing a great job. He\u2019s finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste,\u201d the president said before offering new insights into how Musk\u2019s roving and murky cost-cutting initiative is working.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell him to go here or there and he does it,\u201d Trump explained. \u201cHe\u2019s got a very capable group of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll ask questions and they\u2019ll see immediately, if somebody gets tongue-tied, that they\u2019re either crooked or don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Tucker4<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Tucker Carlson was also seen wearing the hat alongside Trump and Musk at the White House.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The president repeated that: \u201cI will pick out a target and I\u2019ll say, \u2018Go in.\u2019 There could be areas that we don\u2019t, but I think everything\u2019s fertile. You know, we\u2019re a government. We have to be open.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a reporter\u2019s question, Trump repeated his regular insistence that \u201cSocial Security will not be touched,\u201d but noted that illegal immigrants would be cut off if found to be receiving benefits.<\/p>\n

Democrats have railed against Musk\u2019s initiative \u2014 with lawmakers protesting outside the Education Department Friday afternoon after reports swirled that it would be next to be pared down.<\/p>\n

Asked about the protest, Trump groused: \u201cI see Maxine Waters, a low-life, I see all these people, they don\u2019t love our country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump said Friday that Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative will look at the Defense Department\u2019s massive budget after making significant cuts at … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20792,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20790\/revisions\/20792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}