Speaking with Fox News Channel host Brett Baier in an epic interview about what the Department of Government Efficiency is doing and how it has been operating, DOGE head Elon Musk noted that there is a particular law that lets DOGE go after waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending without dealing directly with Congress. That is highly helpful, as it is a major time saver that lets it avoid the political, partisan fights for which Congress is known.
Such is what Elon explained to Baier, and thus the country, in his interview on Baier’s “Special Report” program that aired on Thursday, March 27. Commenting on the state of things and from where DOGE’s authority comes, Elon noted that money has to be spent “correctly,” and thus it is consistent with the law and with DOGE’s powers respective to Congress to cut wasteful and fraudulent spending.
Elon’s comments on the matter came when Baier asked him if Congress is involved, and if so to what extent, with how DOGE slashes wasteful and fraudulent spending it discovers across the federal budget. The FNC host asked, “[T]he process still involves Congress, right, at some level?”
Replying, the DOGE head explained that, while DOGE tries to keep members of Congress as informed as it can reasonably do, really the law already provides that money should not be spent in a wasteful manner, and so DOGE doesn’t need the permission of Congress. Beginning, he explained, “We try to keep Congress as informed as possible.”
Continuing, he added, on the topic of Congress from where DOGE gets its authority to act as it is, “But the law does say that money needs to be spent correctly. It should not be spent fraudulently or wastefully. It’s not contrary to Congress to avoid waste and fraud. It is consistent with the law and consistent with Congress.”
Elon then told Baier that he has even seen some bipartisanship from Congress on the matter of supporting DOGE and its work, though generally it is Republicans who support what he is doing. He said, “And we’ve seen, actually, great support, at least from the Republican side of the House, and, occasionally, some Democrats, too. It’s nice to see people cross the aisle once in a while.”
Building on that, and insinuating why he doesn’t tend toward wanting to ask Congress for permission, Elon explained that members of Congress are unduly hostile to what he is doing despite having no reason to be in disagreement with DOGE’s spending cuts, which are quite reasonable cuts.
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Making that point, Elon explained, “But, usually, when they attack DOGE, they never attack any of the specifics. So, they’ll say what we’re doing is somehow unconstitutional or illegal or whatever. We’re, like, ‘Well, which line of the cost savings do you disagree with?’ And they can’t point to any.”
Concluding, Elon noted that everything DOGE cuts is listed on the DOGE website and explained on the DOGE X handle, adding a great deal of transparency to what the department is doing. He said, “And we list them all on doge.gov and the DOGE handle on X. And you’ll see just outrageous things, one outrageous thing after another.”
Watch him here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video