• Republicans are pushing to enact DOGE cuts via "rescission."
• That's a procedure under which Congress approves spending cuts made by the president.
• It wouldn't be easy, especially with the GOP's slim majorities in the House and Senate.

If you're following DOGE, you may have begun to hear an unfamiliar word: Rescission.

That's the name for the type of bill that a growing number of GOP lawmakers, eager to assert control over Elon Musk's machinations in the executive branch, are hoping that President Donald Trump will send to Congress. It allows the president, if he can get a bare majority of both the House and Senate to agree, to rescind unspent funds that Congress already approved.

Ask Republicans about it, and they'll tell you that it's about "codifying" DOGE's efforts and ensuring that a future Democratic president can't just roll everything back.

"We don't want a repeat of 2021, where another administration comes in, reverses everything on energy, spending, the whole nine," Republican Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama told BI. "If we don't codify some of this stuff, then it's extremely likely that somebody down the road would reverse that."

There's another key reason they're pushing for rescissions, however: Much of the spending cuts that Musk and the Trump administration have been making may be illegal under the Impoundment Control Act, or ICA, a Nixon-era law that Trump has vowed to challenge in court.

The ICA allows for rescission votes, which makes the proposition attractive to lawmakers like Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who told BI last month that it would be "messier" for Trump to challenge the law.

"It will likely be challenged in court, and it'll go through a lot of different court deliberations 'til we finally get to what the conclusion is," Paul said. "Rescission won't be challenged in any way, and it's a much cleaner way of doing it."

That doesn't mean enacting DOGE cuts through rescissions would be a simple matter.

Things could get messy really quickly

Republicans already have a lot to do, legislatively, over the next several weeks and months.

Government funding runs out at the end of next week, and there are serious concerns that a shutdown could happen. Then there's the matter of passing a reconciliation bill, which could include significant cuts to Medicaid while enacting new tax cuts.

Rescissions would be yet another party-line legislative priority for Republicans — one that could fail, as it did when Trump tried to get Congress to rescind $15 billion in 2018.

Assuming Democrats unanimously oppose rescissions, given the party's broad opposition to DOGE, Republicans can currently only afford to lose one vote in the House and four votes in the Senate.

With a growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill pushing back on DOGE cuts that have affected their states, there's reason to believe some of them aren't willing to vote to make them permanent.

"You know, we all want to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse, "Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, told BI. "But we have to do it with compassion. We have to be smart about it."

If Republicans aren't able to pass rescissions, it's unclear what happens next, with courts still ruling on the legality of the firing of federal workers and Trump's freezing of federal funds.

And that's not even considering DOGE's shuttering of agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, both of which were created by Congress.

"All that does is cut spending," Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said of rescissions. "It doesn't really codify policy."

• GOP senators got a hold of Elon Musk's cell phone number this week.
• They don't want to talk about it.
• Having a direct line to Musk is a hot commodity in the age of DOGE.

Republican senators just got their hands on Elon Musk's cell phone number, giving them a direct line to the man who's been reshaping the federal bureaucracy at President Donald Trump's behest.

Many of them don't want to talk about it.

"I'm not gonna answer that question, okay? What's your next one?" Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said. "I don't think it's anyone's business."

Business Insider approached half a dozen Republican senators at the Capitol on Thursday to ask them if they've had any text conversations with Musk, or whether they anticipate doing so in the future. Only one — Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina — confirmed CNN's reporting that Musk gave out his number during a lunch with most Senate Republicans on Wednesday.

"I haven't texted with him. I don't have a need to do that," Tillis told BI, adding that if DOGE is "going into any areas where we're looking at potential job impacts or other impacts, I know I can give him a call."

Having the power to call up Musk is a precious commodity in the age of DOGE, with the promise of influencing the man who's been working with a team of lieutenants to shutter whole agencies, access sensitive systems, and choke off streams of federal funding — all without the formal input of Congress. At times, his power has seemed to exceed that of Cabinet secretaries and rival that of Trump himself.

Perhaps that's why some GOP senators don't want to even acknowledge whether they were offered his number.

"I'm not getting into all that. If you have a policy question, I'm happy to answer that," Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told BI. "That's all I got for you. Sorry."

"I'm not gonna confirm or deny that," Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri told BI. "I've met with him twice in the last two weeks. He's been very accessible."

There's also an awareness of the power that Musk — not just the de facto head of DOGE, but the owner of what may be the world's most important communication platform, X — holds relative to them. And some of them don't hide their own sense of awe at the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

Sen. Ted Cruz did not confirm or deny that Musk gave out his number on Wednesday. But the Texas Republican said he's had Musk's number for years and that he's a "good friend." When asked what the billionaire businessman is like over text, Cruz launched into a two-and-a-half minute-long disquisition about Musk's brilliance and business acumen.

"If you assume that intelligence is distributed on a bell curve there are roughly 8 billion people on Planet Earth, somebody has to be at the bleeding edge of the bell curve, and his name is Elon," Cruz said. "I have been blessed to know many really smart people. I've never met anyone remotely like Elon Musk."

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — who said his own hypothetical text communication with Musk would "remain private" — said that he and his colleagues were being coy about having Musk's number because they're "sensitive about people having access" and the potential for "abuse."

Then he also offered some unsolicited praise for Musk.

"I think he's a remarkable individual. He's probably one of the more brilliant, accomplished, effective human beings ever to walk the face of the Earth," Johnson said, adding that he's "very appreciative of the fact that he's willing to devote his very expensive time" to DOGE.

Wednesday's lunch with GOP senators was just one of several meetings that Musk has had with congressional Republicans in the last two weeks. Later that day, he met with a larger group of House Republicans, plus a smaller meeting with the Republicans on the DOGE subcommittee. That's on top of a meeting last Thursday with the Senate DOGE Caucus and a meeting on Tuesday night with House Speaker Mike Johnson.

It comes as some Republicans grow anxious about the lack of congressional input over DOGE's spending decisions, with some urging the White House to send federal spending cuts to Congress in the form of a "recission" bill, as required under the Impoundment Control Act. Sen. Johnson told BI he wanted to see votes on recissions "every few weeks."

For now, it appears that Musk is only giving out his cellphone number to senators. Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, told BI that Musk didn't read out his number during his meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday night.

"I probably would have been writing it down if he did," Harris said, even as he insisted that he didn't feel slighted. "He's readily available, he's a day-to-day person who's dedicated to bringing the Trump agenda to fruition. So I'm perfectly happy with that. I don't need a phone number."

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, a Republican DOGE subcommittee member, told BI that he's "not going to comment" on whether he had Musk's number. But he also said he wouldn't be texting him.

"I'm not going to be one of those that bothers him," Burchett said.

• Trump called on Congress to scrap the "horrible" $52 billion CHIPS Act on Tuesday.
• It's not likely to happen. There's little GOP appetite to repeal it, and Democrats like the law.
• Plus, much of the 2022 bill has already been set in motion.

President Donald Trump casually told Congress on Tuesday to scrap a $52 billion bipartisan law designed to supercharge the American semiconductor manufacturing industry.

"Your CHIPS Act is a horrible, horrible thing," Trump said during a joint address to Congress on Tuesday night. "You should get rid of the CHIP Act, and whatever's left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt, or any other reason you want to."

That landed with a thud among the Republicans who backed the sweeping legislation two and half years ago.

"I have to admit, I was surprised," Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, the Republican co-author of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, told reporters on Wednesday morning. "It's been one of the greatest successes of our time."

The bill included $39 billion in subsidies for chip manufacturing in the US, plus $13.2 billion for semiconductor research and workforce development. The goal of the legislation was to make the US less reliant on chips manufactured in Taiwan, create US manufacturing jobs, and bolster competition with China — something that was especially important for national security-minded Republicans.

It passed both chambers on a bipartisan basis, garnering the enthusiastic support of then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, plus the support of 16 other GOP senators and virtually all Democrats.

Trump specifically criticized the subsidies, saying that he prefers to bring chip manufacturing to America via tariffs. "They take our money and they don't spend it," the president said.

Just because Trump is asking Congress to repeal the law doesn't mean it will happen — even though Republicans control both chambers and broadly support the president's agenda.

'I'd like to see what he's going to replace it with'

It would take not just unanimous GOP support, but the support of several Democratic senators, to get a repeal bill through the Senate.

For one, Democrats are unlikely to go for it.

"People are already feeling the positive impacts and new economic energy in their towns in every corner of America, from Ohio to Arizona," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. "I do not think the president will find much support in Congress for weakening this legislation."

"I don't know what the hell he's on," Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, whose home state of Arizona is home to a TSMC plant built with CHIPS Act funding, told BI of Trump.

Even among Republicans, there's a hesitancy to indulge Trump's latest demand.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas defended the bill, saying it "made it possible" for Trump to announce an additional investment by TSMC earlier this week.

Other GOP senators who voted for the CHIPS Act said they want to see more details from Trump before they back repealing the bill.

"I'd like to see what he's going to replace it with," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters. "I want to bring chip manufacturing here, but if he's got a different way to do it, I'm open-minded."

"If there's a consensus on addressing that problem in a better way, I'm open to suggestions," Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi told BI. "It was the first I'd heard of that proposal."

It's also the case that the part of the CHIPS Act that Trump opposes has already been set in motion over the last few years. Young told reporters that the "chips portion" of the bill "has mostly been implemented," and that he's reached out to the White House to get more clarity on Trump's position.

Before leaving office, the Biden administration allocated more than $33 billion in subsidies to 32 semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers.

To date, 20 companies have secured legally binding agreements, which collectively account for roughly 85% of the total allocated subsidies, Bloomberg reported. However, only about 11% of the allocated subsidies have been doled out so far: Funds are dispersed as companies hit certain benchmarks detailed in the agreements.

In November, a Commerce Department spokesperson told BI that the funding associated with a binding agreement could not be rescinded unless the company failed to comply with the terms of the deal. Absent that, they said rescinding funding would require an act of Congress.

"My expectation is that the administration will continue to support this supply chain resiliency and national security initiative," Young said. "If it needs to transform into a different model over a period of time, I'm certainly open to that."

Gallego argued that Trump's comments could still have an impact on the semiconductor industry, even if legislative repeal doesn't happen.

"If you are a business that's trying to relocate, or ramp up chip supplies in the United States, and you think that there's not going to be money for the CHIPS Act, you may not even start engaging, and you might start looking at other countries," the Arizona Democrat said.

• Rep. Al Green heckled Trump's joint address on Tuesday night.
• The Texas Democrat was eventually booted on the orders of Speaker Mike Johnson.
• Green later told reporters it was "worth it."

For the first time in recent memory, a lawmaker was thrown out of the House chamber during a president's address to a joint session of Congress.

It began mere minutes into President Donald Trump's speech on Tuesday night, when the president spoke about the "mandate" that he'd earned by virtue of his victory in the 2024 election.

Rep. Al Green, a Texas Democrat known for making theatrical gestures, stood up and began heckling Trump, telling him that he had "no mandate" to make cuts to Medicaid.

Democrats have accused Trump and Republicans of pushing for cuts to the program, which serves lower-income Americans, by virtue of a budget resolution that passed the House last week.

Green's heckling was immediately met with shouting from the Republican side of the aisle, with GOP lawmakers telling the Texas Democrat to sit down and shut up. But Green persisted, eventually leading House Speaker Mike Johnson to direct the House Sergeant at Arms to escort the congressman out of the chamber.

"It's worth it to let people know that there are some people who are going to stand up" to Trump, Green told reporters outside the chamber. He added that he was unsure if he'd face any formal punishment.

The Texas Democrat announced last month that he would introduce articles of impeachment against Trump, despite a lack of support from the recent of his caucus.

He made a similar move during the president's first term in office, even forcing three different votes on his impeachment resolution in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Republican lawmakers such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado frequently heckled former President Joe Biden's State of the Union addresses, but they were never removed from the chamber.

• Trump delivered a nearly-two hour address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday.
• He used the moment to celebrate tariffs and the DOGE office's efforts to cut spending.
• The address was at times raucous, with Democratic lawmakers loudly protesting Trump's remarks.

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump made history, delivering the longest presidential address on record to Congress.

Over the course of nearly two hours, Trump touched on a variety of topics, including DOGE, tariffs, tech companies, tax policy, and more.

It wasn't without interruption or protest. A few minutes into Trump's speech, Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas began heckling the president over Medicaid, leading House Speaker Mike Johnson to order security forces to escort the congressman out of the chamber. Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the DOGE subcommittee, held a sign declaring, "This is not normal" as Trump walked past her. Other House Democrats displayed signs declaring that "Musk Steals," and dozens left the chamber before the speech ended.

Here are the major takeaways from Trump's speech.

Trump praised Elon Musk — and made it harder to dodge legal questions

Elon Musk had a prime seat for Trump's address. Trump lavished praise on the de facto White House DOGE office leader. His exact phrasing will likely create headaches for the Justice Department.

"I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, perhaps you've heard of it," Trump said, "which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight."

A top White House official recently said in federal court that Musk was neither the DOGE office administrator nor an employee of the group. Instead, the White House has said that Musk is a senior advisor to the president. Instead of Musk, the White House has said Amy Gleason, a veteran US Digital Service employee, is leading the DOGE office as interim administrator.

If Musk is truly the DOGE office's leader, it could open him up to more questions about the extent of his role and the potential conflicts of interest he may have given that Tesla and SpaceX have received billions in federal contracts. As a special government employee, Musk has filed a financial disclosure but it is not required to release it publicly.

Democrats have repeatedly criticized Musk. Some of them held up small signs Tuesday night that said, "Musk steals" while Trump spoke. Others pointed to the world's richest man in jest after Trump declared during his address, "the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over."

Trump is ready for a trade war, no matter what 'little' adjustments might come

Wall Street is still absorbing the first round of Trump's tariffs. On Tuesday, Trump indicated he's ready to impose tariffs on several other nations, including India, South Korea, Brazil, and the European Union.

"On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada, have you heard of them?" Trump said during his speech to Congress. "And countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them. It's very unfair."

Trump's current tariffs are linked to the White House's frustration with China, Canada, and Mexico's respective handling of the fentanyl crisis. Trump said he will impose additional tariffs on April 2 on agricultural products and other goods to reset global trade.

Earlier Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the US was not in a "trade war but a drug war." Hours before Trump's speech, Lutnick sounded optimistic that the US could reach a tariffs compromise with at least its neighbors. Trump's comments are a reminder that trade will be omnipresent through the president's final term.

The White House has, at times, conceded that Americans might face the effects of tariffs. Trump has long falsely claimed that only foreign nations pay tariffs, but during his address, he said that American farmers — often the target of retaliatory tariffs — might face temporary pain.

"It may be a little bit of an adjustment period," Trump said in his speech Tuesday night.

Big Tech receives big shout-outs after playing nice with Trump

In his speech, Trump name-checked Apple, Oracle, and Softbank for their investments in the US. His comments show that Silicon Valley's playbook to get right with the White House is working.

The president mentioned Apple CEO Tim Cook by name, the type of shout-out that lawmakers and cabinet secretaries used to fight over in major presidential addresses. Cook recently met with Trump at the White House. Soon after, Apple said it would invest $500 billion in the US.

"Tim Cook called me, he said, 'I cannot spend it fast enough,'" Trump said Tuesday night.

This is a notable change from Trump's first term, when the president and Republicans were frequently frustrated with Big Tech. The GOP regularly criticized Meta and other social media companies during the Biden administration. Now, even Mark Zuckerberg is praising Trump.

It isn't all good news for tech. Apple has a lot at stake in a US trade war. Foreign countries, especially China, have also shown that they will put tech in the ringer to retaliate against the White House. Trump is also threatening a bipartisan semiconductor bill that was one of President Joe Biden's biggest achievements.

"Your Chips act is a horrible, horrible thing," Trump said in his speech. "We give hundreds of billions of dollars and it doesn't mean a thing."

MAGA-fest destiny is coming for Greenland

Trump's protectionist trade policies aren't the only return to a bygone American era. He has laid out an expansionist worldview that hearkens back to the manifest destiny of 19th century.

During his speech, Trump reiterated his view that he wants the US to take Greenland, a self-governing territory under control of Denmark. Greenlanders and Danes have repeatedly said Greenland is not for sale.

It didn't stop Trump from promising he'll get the island "one way or another." In the past, Trump has refused to rule out taking Greeland by force.

"We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we're working with everybody involved to try and get it," Trump said during his speech Tuesday. "But we need it really for international world security. And I think we're going to get it one way or the other. We're going to get it. We will keep you safe. We will make you rich."

• Republicans have been facing outcry at town hall meetings from constituents over DOGE cuts.
• Now, some Republicans are signaling that they're doing away with in-person town halls.
• Some Democrats are already capitalizing on the moment, pledging to hold events in red districts.

If your member of Congress is a Republican, you may not be able to attend an in-person town hall anytime soon.

After weeks of protests over DOGE-driven cuts to the federal workforce, freezes on federal funding, and other early actions taken by President Donald Trump's administration, GOP lawmakers are signaling that they're likely to move away from the format.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Tuesday that he believes the protesters are "literally paid" by the liberal megadonor George Soros, and that they're using the town halls to generate "sound bites" to make Republicans look bad.

"They're doing this for the cameras, we all know it, and I think it's not to play into it right now," Johnson said.

The Wall Street Journal's Olivia Beavers reported that Richard Hudson, the chairman of House Republicans' campaign arm, directly urged lawmakers not to hold in-person town halls.

Johnson told reporters that Republicans would engage with constituents in other ways.

"There's lots of different ways and forums to do it. You can do it in telephone town halls. You can have small subgroups of people from different industries and segments of the community," Johnson said. "We find that to be very, very productive, and more productive than if you just go to an open forum right now."

Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, who was confronted at a town hall over the weekend, told reporters on Tuesday that he hasn't decided whether he'll continue holding in-person town halls.

"We did a telephone town hall last night," Marshall said. "We can reach thousands of people more at a time."

Meanwhile, Democrats are seizing on the moment, with some pledging to take the fight to Republicans' turf.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna wrote in an op-ed for The American Prospect that at the end of March, he would travel to three GOP-held California districts to "speak out against DOGE's mass firings and the Republicans' Medicaid cuts."

And Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota wrote on X that he would host events in districts where Republicans refuse to hold town halls.

"If your Republican representative won't meet with you because their agenda is so unpopular, maybe a Democrat will," Walz wrote.

• Several recently fired federal workers are set to attend Trump's joint address to Congress.
• They'll be there as the guests of Democratic members of Congress.
• BI spoke with one of them, whose job was to root out waste in Medicare.

In February, Matthew Fessler was one of thousands of probationary employees fired by the Trump administration amid DOGE-driven cuts to the federal workforce.

On Tuesday night, he'll be seated in the gallery overlooking the House chamber, attending President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress alongside several other former federal workers whose employment has been terminated in the early weeks of his administration.

All of them are attending as guests of Democratic senators and House members who are using Trump's speech — a nationally televised address akin to the State of the Union — to highlight the impact of his administration's early moves to reshape the bureaucracy and freeze streams of federal spending.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is bringing two New Yorkers recently fired from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona is bringing a disabled veteran who was fired from his role as a security expert at the Department of Homeland Security. Rep. Ayanna Pressley is bringing a Massachusetts constituent who worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Elon Musk, the man leading much of the charge behind the firings as the de facto head of the White House DOGE office, will also be there.

Fessler, a 35-year-old former health insurance specialist at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will be the guest of Rep. April McClain Delaney, a freshman Democratic lawmaker from a Maryland district near Washington, DC.

"I ran on common sense, common ground, and I really agree that our government should run efficiently and effectively for the American people," McClain Delaney told BI in an interview on Monday. "But I think the Trump administration's actions thus far have been marked by confusion and chaos."

For Fessler, there's a particular irony to his termination, which he says came after he was told he'd "achieved outstanding results" in an early January performance. His job was essentially to root out waste and fraud in Medicare Part D, the portion of the program that helps pay for recipients' prescription drugs, by keeping track of improper payments.

"These are actually the people that you really need to achieve the things that they purport to want to be doing," McClain Delaney said. "But in fact, it's all smoke and mirrors."

Fessler said that if he could send a message to Trump and Musk, it would be to "make sure you're aware of what the implications are for the actions that you're taking."

The Trump administration has broadly characterized the cuts as necessary to shrink a bureaucracy they view as bloated, and White House Spokesman Harrison Fields cast the Democratic lawmakers' effort as dishonest in a statement to BI for this story.

"Exploiting the American people for political points is par for the course, but it is unsurprising coming from a party that would rather showboat than solve problems," Fields said.

• Elon Musk will attend Trump's joint address to Congress on Tuesday night.
• It's similar to a State of the Union address.
• The DOGE leader recently attended Trump's first Cabinet meeting.

Elon Musk is coming back to Capitol Hill on Tuesday night.

The defacto leader of the White House DOGE office will attend President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress, a White House spokesman confirmed to BI on Monday.

The speech, expected to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern time, is akin to a State of the Union address, where the president delivers a nationally televised speech before senators and members of Congress in the House chamber.

Trump's address is expected to cover his presidential agenda, and the president could make new announcements on tariffs, taxes, AI, and DOGE.

Musk, a special advisor to Trump, recently attended the president's first Cabinet meeting, standing off to the side in a "tech support" T-shirt while providing an update about DOGE's work.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO last attended a speech in the House chamber in July, when Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress.

• Trump told an interviewer that he dined with Jeff Bezos on Wednesday night.
• That's the same day Bezos announced a major shake-up at the Washington Post's opinion section.
• Trump said little about the dinner, but marveled that so many billionaires are cozying up to him.

President Donald Trump says he had dinner with Jeff Bezos, the executive chairman of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post, on Wednesday night.

That's the same day that Bezos announced a major shake-up of the Post's opinion section, including a new focus on defending "personal liberties and free markets."

Trump told The Spectator in an interview conducted on Thursday that he "had dinner with Jeff Bezos last night."

The president offered few details of the encounter, and it's unclear who else was at the dinner, or what was discussed. A White House spokesman declined to comment further, while representatives for Bezos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump demurred when asked whether he trusts Bezos: "Who do I trust? I mean, who do you trust? Do you trust anybody? These are very smart guys."

But he also marveled at how Bezos and other billionaires, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have cozied up to him since his 2024 election victory.

"We have dinners together, usually started by them. I'm so busy with all of this. Between China, Russia, Ukraine, I've got more things happening," Trump told the outlet. "I said, 'would you have been here if I lost,' you know? 'Would you have been here if I lost it?' They never answer that question. Actually, they just sort of shy away from it."

Bezos, Zuckerberg, and other major tech billionaires and CEOs attended the inauguration in January, with prime seating in front of Trump's Cabinet. It was a stark reversal from Trump's first term in office, when he had a more antagonistic relationship with many of those tech leaders.

In October, Bezos blocked the Post from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

• Harmeet Dhillon is Trump's nominee to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.
• The prominent GOP lawyer made millions from her law firm — and $43,531 from X — last year.
• She's at least the third Trump nominee to make money as a content creator on Elon Musk's platform.

One of President Donald Trump's top law enforcement nominees made tens of thousands of dollars from posting online last year.

Harmeet Dhillon, a prominent Republican lawyer who has been nominated to serve as the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, said in a financial disclosure made public on Thursday that she had made $43,531 from X's content-creator revenue program.

Dhillon has more than 1.1 million followers on X, and she frequently posts on the social media platform.

She's at least the third Trump nominee to have made money this way. National Institute of Health Director nominee Jay Bhattacharya made $11,995 from the program, while Sam Brown, a former Nevada GOP Senate candidate who's been nominated to be Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, made $5,169.

Under the revenue program, created by Elon Musk after he took over and renamed Twitter, premium users can earn payouts based on engagement from other premium users.

Bhattacharya, Brown, and Dhillon have all agreed to demonetize their accounts if confirmed to their roles.

Dhillon's main source of income was her work as a lawyer: She disclosed earning more than $2 million in income from her firm, Dhillon Law Group, last year. Her major clients, according to the disclosure, included President Trump and his campaign, Tucker Carlson, the Republican National Committee, Caitlyn Jenner, and X itself.

She also earned a $300,000 salary from the Center for American Liberty, a civil liberties-focused legal nonprofit she helped found in 2018, along with $50,000 from four paid speeches.

• Elon Musk says it "might make sense" to increase pay for members of Congress.
• He said it could help safeguard against corruption — an argument Democrats like AOC have long made.
• It's a reversal from December, when he helped tank a funding bill over a modest lawmaker pay raise.

Elon Musk seems to be changing his mind about whether members of Congress should get a raise.

"It might make sense to increase compensation for Congress and senior government employees to reduce the forcing function for corruption," the Department of Government Efficiency head wrote on X on Thursday. "The latter might be as much as 1000 times more expensive to the public."

It's a far cry from December, when Musk helped tank a bipartisan government funding bill in part because it included a modest pay increase for members of Congress.

Musk's comment on congressional and government salaries came in response to a video claiming that members of Congress are enriching themselves by steering congressional funds toward non-government organizations that they're affiliated with.

Members of Congress are already prohibited by law from using their official positions for personal gain, and outside income often comes in the form of book proceeds.

Nonetheless, the argument Musk is making about corruption and salaries echoes those made by Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and good-government experts, who have warned that members of Congress may be tempted to trade stocks or be lured into employment in the private sector due to their stagnant salaries.

Rank-and-file members of the House and Senate currently make $174,000 — a figure that hasn't changed since 2009, since lawmakers have proactively blocked a cost of living adjustment every year since then.

If their salaries had kept pace with inflation since 2009, they would have been paid $217,900 last year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Though that $174,000 salary is far higher than what most Americans make, lawmakers and experts have pointed to the cost of maintaining two residences, as well as the importance of the job, as a reason why the salary should be increased.

• When DOGE was first announced, GOP lawmakers expected to be at the forefront.
• One month into Trump's presidency, they're largely in the backseat.
• One key DOGE-focused lawmaker says he wants to see lawmakers get more input.

When Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy made a splashy visit to Capitol Hill in December to tout their new "Department of Government Efficiency," the excitement among Republican lawmakers was palpable.

GOP leaders moved to set up a DOGE subcommittee led by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Lawmakers established DOGE caucuses in both chambers to serve as the focal point for legislation, and in the House, it was even bipartisan. "If this is where that conversation is going to happen," Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida told BI at the time, "I'm happy to be at the table."

Two months later, it's clear that Congress is not where the most consequential DOGE conversations are happening, or where key decisions are being made.

Instead, even Republicans who broadly support DOGE's mission have been left watching from the sidelines as Musk's team has shuttered entire agencies, frozen federal funds, and asserted control over the federal workforce, spurring a flurry of lawsuits and fears of a constitutional crisis along the way. At the same time, those same lawmakers are still bearing the brunt of the public outcry over DOGE cuts, with some now public suggesting that the effort should slow down.

Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, one of the three GOP co-chairs of the House DOGE caucus, recalled on Tuesday feeling "very encouraged" when Musk visited the Capitol in December, when lawmakers took the microphones in a subterranean auditorium to offer up the variety of ideas that they'd spent years developing around government efficiency and eliminating waste.

"There was just very much an interest in taking and collecting input for stuff that we've already been working on," Moore told BI. "I want to see more of that."

Musk's shock and awe campaign across the federal bureaucracy has made parallel efforts in Congress feel quaint. Later on Tuesday, a handful of members of the House DOGE caucus held a "DOGE Day" press conference, where they highlighted various bills aimed at clamping down on government waste. When it was time for questions, those lawmakers weren't asked about any of those bills — they were instead pressed over the cuts that Musk's team has already been making.

Rep. Aaron Bean of Florida, another co-chair, told reporters that the "uncomfort factor" for members of Congress came from the speed of it all.

"A lot of members of Congress haven't seen this speed," Bean said. "But I can tell you, it has to be done."

Republicans on Capitol Hill have continued to assert that they remain behind the steering wheel when it comes to the flow of federal funds and the structure of the federal bureaucracy, even as they're increasingly in the back seat. Others blame the perennially slow pace of congressional legislating.

"Congress will have its time," Rep. Greg Murphy, a North Carolina Republican who's in the DOGE caucus, told BI. "But as slow as Congress moves, and as difficult as it is to get 535 opinions, this is one thing where the executive branch has come in."

Some argue that the administration's moves to withhold congressionally approved funding and fire thousands of workers merely constitute a "review," and that Congress will have the final say. Others, such as Republican Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, say their main concern is the longevity of the executive actions driven by President Donald Trump and Musk.

"We've got to codify what President Trump is doing," Cloud, a member of both the DOGE caucus and the DOGE subcommittee, told BI. "Otherwise, it's just a great blip on the radar."

Sen. Rand Paul is urging the administration to send a rescission bill to Congress, arguing that it would be "messier" to attempt impoundment, which would "likely be challenged in court" and take some time to resolve.

"Rescission won't be challenged in any way," the Kentucky Republican told BI. "It's a much cleaner way of doing it."

Congress played second fiddle to DOGE yet again on Wednesday, when Greene's DOGE subcommittee held a hearing centered on the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. Over the course of nearly two hours of testimony and questioning, few of the panel's Republican members acknowledged the elephant in the room — that the agency is already shuttered and nonfunctional.

After the hearing, Greene insisted that Congress remained at the forefront of DOGE.

"We're actually filling our role here on the DOGE subcommittee," Green said, "looking into the waste, fraud, and abuse, making our recommendations, and hopefully putting that into legislative actions."

• Rep. Rich McCormick faced a town hall full of constituents angry over DOGE last week.
• Now, he seems the government-efficiency initiative is moving too quickly.
• "I'm concerned that maybe we're moving a little bit too fast," he said.

Last week, Rep. Rich McCormick faced a town hall full of voters angry about President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency's swift reshaping of the federal government.

Now, the Georgia Republican says he's worried the government-efficiency initiative is moving too quickly.

"I'm not against anything he's doing, but I'm concerned," McCormick said on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "Politically Georgia" podcast on Monday. "I'm concerned that maybe we're moving a little bit too fast."

At a town hall in Roswell, Georgia on Thursday night, McCormick fielded a variety of contentious questions about the Trump administration's recent moves, with many of the questions focusing on the firing of federal workers and the cutting of certain programs.

The Georgia congressman, who represents a conservative-leaning district, said on Monday that he'd prefer a more methodical approach to cutting than the rapid pace that Elon Musk's DOGE is setting, including the shuttering of entire government agencies.

"We should have impact studies on each department as we do it, and I'm sure they can do that," McCormick said. "But I think if we're moving really, really rapidly, we don't know the impact."

McCormick also suggested that he's not the only House Republican who's concerned by the pace of DOGE's work.

"I think there's debate of how rapidly we're moving," McCormick said. "Some people who are very conservative also think we should move much more slowly."

In response to a request for comment, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to BI that Trump has "enjoyed broad support" for his cost-cutting initiatives.

"The spending freeze is already uncovering waste, fraud, and abuse across federal agencies and ensuring better stewardship of taxpayer dollars, including for American farmers and families," Kelly said. "Ultimately, President Trump will cut programs that do not serve the interests of the American people and keep programs that put America First, just as 77 million voters elected him to do."

• Trump and Elon Musk keep talking up the idea of sending some DOGE savings to Americans.
• GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, keep batting it down.
• The president can't do this on his own — he'd need Congress to approve it.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk keep talking up the "DOGE Dividend" — turning a portion of the Department of Government Efficiency's eventual savings into checks to taxpayers.

But for the DOGE checks to become reality, Congress would have to authorize it. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told reporters as much on Thursday, pointing to the ongoing budget reconciliation process on Capitol Hill.

So far, most Republicans aren't biting — including House Speaker Mike Johnson.

"I mean, politically, that would be great for us," Johnson said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday. "But if you think about our core principles, right? Fiscal responsibility is what we do."

"We have a $36 trillion federal debt, we have a giant deficit that we're contending with," Johnson continued. "I think we need to pay down the credit card."

That's similar to what other Republicans are saying — that Congress should be balancing the federal budget and paying down the national debt before any talk of sending out checks.

"If there's money left after we address inflation, and the debt, and the deficit, it's always a good idea to send taxpayers their money back," Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming told reporters. "But when we're $36 trillion in debt, we've dug ourselves a pretty big hole."

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told reporters that he's "all for it after they balance the budget." Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told Business Insider he'd "want to see the details" of the plan.

With Democrats largely shunning DOGE, the legislative path for the checks is largely closed off — unless Republicans change their mind.

That hasn't stopped Musk from talking it up.

During his own appearance at CPAC on Thursday, the billionaire businessman likened the checks to the "spoils of battle" and expressed optimism about the idea.

"I talked to the president, he's supportive of that, and so it sounds like that's something we're going to do," Musk said.

The "DOGE Dividend" was first proposed by investor James Fishback, who pitched the checks as a way to engage the mass public in DOGE's efforts and pay "restitution" to taxpayers.

According to Fishback's formulation, 79 million households — those that are net taxpayers — would receive $5,000 checks in 2026, funded by 20% of the money saved by DOGE.

That's based on an assumption that DOGE cuts $2 trillion from the federal budget. In recent weeks, Musk and Trump have revised that goal down to about $1 trillion.

• An investment banker floated paying some of DOGE's savings back to taxpayers in the form of checks.
• Elon Musk said he'd "check with" Trump about it.
• Lawmakers on Capitol Hill would need to approve it, and it's facing some skepticism.

What if some of the money saved by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency could be paid back to Americans as checks from the government?

That idea, promoted by investment manager James Fishback, gained significant traction online on Tuesday after Musk said on X that he would "check with" President Donald Trump about it. "Obviously, the President is the Commander-in-Chief, so this is entirely up to him," Musk later added.

After the initial publication of this story, Trump acknowledged the idea at an event in Florida, saying that a "new concept where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens" is now "under consideration."

"I literally had a dream about this," Fishback told BI during a Wednesday phone interview about how he and a colleague at his firm came up with the idea. "Then we woke up and started working on it, and put it on paper over the course of about two and a half hours."

Fishback told BI that he's meeting with a variety of House and Senate offices in Washington, DC this week, and that he's emailed the proposal to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

In any event, the idea still has a long way to go. It would take an act of Congress to enact the proposal, which is already encountering some early skepticism from lawmakers in both parties.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told BI that he believes "sending checks is not the smartest way to spend savings" and that he'd rather use the savings to "drive down the debt."

"I have three grandchildren, all under the age of eight years old," Tillis said. "Their fractional share of the national debt is about $100,000. I think maybe it makes sense to help pay down that debt obligation."

Responding to the proposal on X, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wrote that he'd be "happy" to entertain the idea "once we balance the budget."

"The first use of that money needs to actually be reducing spending, so we can have a balanced budget, so Americans can keep their hard earned dollars," Johnson told BI. "Not only from a standpoint of not having to pay taxes, but so we don't inflate them away."

Fishback said he welcomes the conversation and agrees that paying down the debt should be a top priority. But he said that the checks would be a crucial way to generate public interest and buy-in to DOGE's goals — and he suggested that public pressure could push potential critics to back his populist proposal.

"I don't see how you can go to a town hall meeting, when you go back to your district, and say you voted against President Trump's DOGE dividend," Fishback said. "You're going to have a lot of questions to answer from a lot of angry, aggrieved taxpayers."

How the 'DOGE Dividend' would work

Under the rosiest version of Fishback's proposal, some Americans would receive a one-time $5,000 check in 2026, paid for the savings generated by DOGE.

There are a couple of caveats.

For one, Fishback's plan is based on an assumption of $2 trillion in savings, the goal that was originally set for DOGE. Musk and Trump have since halved that number, telling Sean Hannity in a Tuesday night interview on Fox News that "the overall goal is to try to get a trillion dollars out of the deficit."

Additionally, the checks — funded by 20% of DOGE's overall savings — would only be sent to net payers of federal income tax, which Fishback estimates to be 79 million households.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who said he generally supports "the principle of taking that money and returning it to the people," said he wants to see those savings put toward a child tax credit.

"That's what I prefer to do," Hawley told BI, pointing to the costs borne by families with multiple children. "We ought to direct relief to them, and this would be a great way to fund it."

Fishback countered that his proposal is "not an economic stimulus package" and is about paying "restitution" to taxpayers whose money has been misused.

"The only criterion that we care about is whether or not you have paid federal income tax. If you have, then you deserve restitution. If you haven't, then you haven't been aggrieved," Fishback said. "The people who get restitution are the people who paid, and did not feel like they got a good value out of it."

Meanwhile, Democrats largely want nothing to do with DOGE, owing to the recent shuttering of federal agencies and mass firing of federal employees.

"It's just a con. It's not about saving money. It's about stealing from people," Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told BI, referring to DOGE broadly. "This is all a pretty simple effort to steal from regular people to enrich the very wealthy."

This story has been updated to reflect Trump's acknowledgment of the idea later on Wednesday.

• Trump's nominee for NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, made $11,995 from posting on X last year.
• It's a relatively uncommon income source for a nominee for a top government job.
• He also made $457,743 from teaching at Stanford and $25,772 from giving speeches.

One of President Donald Trump's top health-related nominees has had a unique income source over the past two years: posting on social media.

Jay Bhattacharya, Trump's nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health, made $11,995 last year as part of X's content-creator revenue program, according to a financial disclosure filed this month.

Under that program, which Elon Musk instituted after he took over the social media platform and renamed it, users with a premium account can receive payouts based on engagement from other premium users.

Before Trump announced his nomination in late November, Bhattacharya was a frequent poster on X, where he boasts more than 680,000 followers. He joined the creator revenue program in 2023. His ethics agreement says Bhattacharya has "ceased creating content for compensation" and has "ceased sharing in revenue for content creation for X."

Bhattacharya rose to prominence in 2020 as a critic of COVID-19 lockdowns and was a coauthor of the "Great Barrington Declaration," which promoted a "herd immunity" strategy against the virus. In a statement, a White House spokesman, Kush Desai, argued that Americans had "lost confidence in the medical apparatus that let us down during the COVID pandemic" and touted Bhattacharya as the "perfect pick" for the role.

"Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has been a leading voice in support of greater transparency and efficacy in our healthcare bodies, and that's exactly why he is the perfect pick to lead the NIH and help deliver on President Trump's resounding mandate to Make America Healthy Again by restoring confidence, competence, and accountability in health care," Desai said. "We look forward to his swift confirmation by the Senate."

Bhattacharya's main occupation isn't posting on X: He earned $457,743 last year as a professor at Stanford University.

He also made thousands of dollars from paid speeches: $20,000 from the conservative Bradley Impact Fund in October, $3,500 from the Global Liberty Institute in July, and $2,272 from Hillsdale College in October.

Bhattacharya also owns thousands of dollars' worth of stock in Walmart, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor, which he has agreed to divest if confirmed.

Bhattacharya did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump's nominees are required to file public financial disclosures describing how they made money in recent years. Recent filings include those from Pam Bondi, the attorney general; Kash Patel, the nominee for FBI director; Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; and Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense.

• Some Republicans are beginning to speak up against DOGE-led cuts to federal jobs.
• It tends to happen when those cuts impact their home states.
• They've made sure to emphasize their support for government efficiency as they've spoken out.

As the Department of Government Efficiency continues to make swift cuts to the federal workforce and government spending, a handful of Republicans have begun to push back.

They're not criticizing the existence of DOGE or decrying Elon Musk as an "unelected bureaucrat," as Democrats have.

In fact, they've each taken pains to emphasize their support for making the government work more efficiently as they've spoken up.

Yet in a stream of recent social media posts, interviews, and public statements, a growing number of Republicans have begun to criticize aspects of DOGE's work, saying that the cuts are too rapid and indiscriminate or warning that their particular states will suffer as a result.

In a social media post on Saturday, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy suggested his state would suffer if new hires at the Federal Bureau of Investigation were terminated.

"I am all for efficiency and ultimately downsizing the federal government, but firing large numbers of new FBI agents is not the way to achieve this," Cassidy wrote. "Louisiana specifically benefits from newly hired FBI agents. We need to add to our law enforcement, not take away."

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that recent reductions in the federal workforce, including cuts to the National Park Service, were "leaving holes in our communities."

"I share the administration's goal of reducing the size of the federal government, but this approach is bringing confusion, anxiety, and now trauma to our civil servants," Murkowski wrote on X. "Indiscriminate workforce cuts aren't efficient and won't fix the federal budget, but they will hurt good people who have answered the call to public service to do important work for our nation.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire teamed up to urge President Donald Trump's administration to exempt members of the defense industrial base from the Musk-inspired buyout program. They cited the impact it would have on a shipyard on the border of their two states.

"Our shipyards cannot afford to reduce their workforces," the duo wrote in a letter sent last week. "While we continue to identify opportunities to improve efficiency, reductions to the size of our defense industrial workforce cannot be one of them."

Republican Sen. John Curtis, meanwhile, told the Utah-based Standard-Examiner that if there was "one thing" he could change about DOGE, it would be to slow it down: "It's moving so fast, it's not really factoring in the human element. That these are real lives, real people. They have kids. And we're really adding a tremendous amount of stress, even to jobs that are not going to go away.

"I think we can do a better job in Washington of bringing that compassion to the DOGE conversation, bringing that awareness that these are real people with real lives," Curtis continued. "We need to make sure we're always doing this with dignity as well."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Roughly 75,000 federal employees accepted the "buyout" offered by the Trump administration, which purports to allow workers to agree to resign while being paid through the end of September. The legality of that offer is still being challenged in court.

Additionally, thousands of recently hired federal employees working at a variety of federal agencies — including the Forest Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Department of Veterans Affairs — were fired last week.

• Trump nominated former GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be his labor secretary.
• She supported pro-union legislation in the House, drawing praise from Democratic senators.
• DOGE and Trump's recent moves are eroding her support from the left side of the aisle.

When President Donald Trump nominated former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to be his secretary of labor, the Oregon Republican seemed primed to be Democratic senators' favorite nominee.

She had sponsored pro-labor legislation, had the support of some labor leaders, and quickly won measured praise from Democrats eager to show their willingness to work with the new administration. Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, her home-state senator, announced in late January that he planned to support her.

Then came Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, a freeze of federal grants, the sudden shuttering of two federal agencies, and swift efforts to reduce the federal workforce.

"We cannot have business as usual as Trump allows his unelected sidekick Elon Musk to undertake an authoritarian administrative coup by dismantling agencies, disregarding our laws, and dishonoring our Constitution," Merkley said in a statement earlier this week. "While I would have voted for Lori Chavez-DeRemer to serve as Secretary of Labor, as long as Trump and Elon's illegal actions persist, I will not vote to confirm any cabinet nominees."

As Musk's machinations in the federal government continue, Democratic resistance has awoken. Fewer Democrats are voting for Trump's nominees, and more of them are showing up for protests outside various agencies that have come into DOGE's crosshairs.

Chavez-DeRemer is now a potential recipient of some of that backlash. In interviews with BI this week, several Democratic senators offered a variety of warning signs for the labor secretary nominee ahead of her confirmation hearing next week.

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who's broadly struck a positive note about the Oregon Republican, told BI that Trump and DOGE's potential plans for the labor department itself would play a pivotal role in whether Democrats ultimately support her.

"I have a feeling much of the hearing is going to focus on, is there going to be a Department of Labor, or is there an effort to destroy it?" Kaine said. "If it appears that there's an effort to completely undo the Department of Labor, that could get in her way."

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told BI on Thursday that despite having a "good" meeting with her "early on," he would not support Chavez-DeRemer due to Trump's recent firing of a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board, causing the agency to lose a quorum and become unable to function. That move is being challenged in court.

"I'm not going to support any nominees that are that are cool with unconstitutional policy," Murphy said. "I have heard nothing from her to suggest that she opposes anything the president has done, and that's not an accident."

And Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who'd suggested in November that Chavez-DeRemer's nomination represented a test of the GOP's commitment to labor, demurred when asked about her nomination this week. "I haven't met with her yet," Warren said. "So I just don't have anything else to say."

Chavez-DeRemer doesn't only have issues with Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-minded GOP senator from Kentucky, has declared that he will not support her owing to her support for the PRO Act, a union-backed bill that would strengthen workers' ability to form unions while overriding state-level "right-to-work" laws.

Paul, who has predicted more than a dozen GOP senators might vote the same way as him, told BI this week that he would reconsider his stance on Chavez-DeRemer if she recanted her support for the bill.

"If she wanted to make a public statement saying that her support for the PRO Act was incorrect and she no longer does, then I'd think about her nomination," Paul said.

While her support may be slipping among Democrats, Chavez-DeRemer's nomination doesn't appear to be imperiled altogether. Other Republicans who oppose the PRO Act have said they'll support her anyway, and that they're willing to defer to Trump. And some Democrats, including Sens. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Peter Welch of Vermont, told BI they still haven't made up their mind.

The Senate has also managed to confirm nominees far more controversial than Chavez-DeRemer thus far, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Pete Hegseth.

• The House's DOGE committee held a hearing on Wednesday about improper payments and fraud.
• In reality, it was all about Elon Musk.
• Democrats used the hearing to spotlight Musk and DOGE's recent antics in the executive branch.

The official reason for Wednesday's hearing, convened in a cramped, pastel-walled room in the second floor of a labyrinthine House office building, was to examine improper payments and fraud.

In practice, it was mostly about Elon Musk.

Over the course of two hours, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency met for the first time against the backdrop of a DOGE-led blitz across the federal government that's spurred numerous lawsuits and ignited Democratic resistance.

"We can't just sit here today and pretend like everything is normal, and that this is just another hearing on government efficiency," said Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the committee. "While we're sitting here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government."

The House's DOGE subcommittee was established to support the Musk-led "Department of Government Efficiency" in the executive branch. While some Democrats have expressed an eagerness to work with Musk, those lawmakers didn't end up on this committee. Instead, the party selected some of its most ostentatious brawlers to prosecute the case against Musk.

For Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the committee's chairwoman, it was a high-stakes moment. Four years ago, a bipartisan majority of the House voted to bar the Georgia Republican from serving on any committee for the entirety of her first term, owing to her history of violent and conspiratorial rhetoric. Now, she's chairing one of the most high-profile committees in the House.

As she led the hearing, Greene largely eschewed the theatrics for which she's known, using her opening remarks to offer a relatively boilerplate disquisition on the national debt.

"This is not a Democrat problem. This is not a Republican problem. This is an American problem," Greene said. "We, as Republicans and Democrats, can still hold tightly to our beliefs, but we are going to have to let go of funding them in order to save our sinking ship."

Democrats on the committee took a decidedly different approach, using the forum to attack Musk, DOGE, the machinations of the billionaire businessman's young lieutenants, his potential conflicts of interests, and President Donald Trump's recent firing of inspectors general across the federal government. Stansbury even invited Musk to testify before the committee, alluding to his eagerness to "engage with members of Congress on social media."

The most dramatic moment of the hearing came when Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California, referring to Greene's display of nude photos of Hunter Biden during a 2023 hearing, unveiled what he called a "dick pick" — a posterboard plastered with Musk's face.

"This is not about working with the richest man on the planet," Garcia said. "This committee wants to empower the richest person in the world to hurt people."

Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas grilled witnesses on Trump's recent firing of inspectors general, the independent officials at agencies throughout the government whose jobs include investigating waste and fraud.

"If this committee were serious about rooting out waste from our federal government, then today's whole hearing would be about how Musk and Donald Trump are firing the independent watchdogs who've done this work for decades," Casar said.

Both sides of the dais largely agreed on the substance of the hearing: that improper payments and fraud in the federal government are worth addressing. But as with most congressional hearings, the testimony and questioning were largely for the cameras, and Greene found herself in the unusual position of bemoaning that Democrats had decided to "make a political theater of the whole thing."

"If they want to make this a place to create partisan attacks and future campaign ads, they're really going to be on the losing side of the issue," Greene told reporters.

Toward the end of the hearing, Republican Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas bemoaned the direction that the proceedings had taken.

"All we've heard about for most of this hearing on the other side of the aisle is Elon Musk, Elon Musk, Elon Musk," Gill said.

• The Trump administration has frozen USDA grants, impacting farmers.
• Now, a key Democratic group says they'll hold vulnerable House Republicans "accountable" for it.
• It's an early look at how Trump's early moves could impact the 2026 midterms.

The Trump administration's freezing of US Department of Agriculture grants is leaving some farmers in the lurch. Now, a key Democratic group is aiming to make it a campaign issue.

In a memo obtained exclusively by Business Insider, House Majority PAC — a super PAC aligned with House Democrats — says they plan to hold "accountable" several House Republicans who face potentially competitive reelection bids in 2026.

"Multiple vulnerable House Republicans representing tens of thousands of farms are now standing by as Trump freezes hundreds of millions of dollars of funding that American farmers were promised," the memo reads. "House Republicans are leaving American farmers out to dry, and will have some explaining to do next week when they head back to their districts."

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order halting the disbursement of funds authorized by Democrats' signature 2022 climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, to allow the administration to review whether those funds are consistent Trump's priorities.

Some of that funding has impacted grants and loans from the Department of Agriculture for environmental improvements, with farmers saying they haven't received the money they were previously guaranteed. That's even after Trump's initial move to halt all federal grants was rescinded.

A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture told Business Insider that the agency would be in touch with "interested parties" once Brooke Rollins, Trump's nominee to lead the department, was confirmed by the Senate and "has the opportunity to analyze these reviews."

"The Trump Administration rightfully has asked for a comprehensive review of all contracts, work, and personnel across all federal agencies," the spokesperson said. "Anything that violates the President's Executive Orders will be subject for review."

House Majority PAC listed nine Republicans they're targeting, including:

• Rep. David Valadao of California
• Rep. Gabe Evans of Colorado
• Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa
• Rep. Zach Nunn of Iowa
• Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana
• Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri
• Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska
• Rep. Rob Wittman of Virginia
• Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin

Each lawmaker represents a district encompassing thousands of farmers, according to 2022 US Department of Agriculture data. Three of them — Miller-Meeks, Nunn, and Van Orden — represent over 25,000 farmers each.

None of the lawmakers targeted by House Majority PAC responded to Business Insider's request for comment for this story.

While it's unclear whether the PAC will end up spending significantly on this particular issue, the group is certain to be a key player in the midterms, where Democrats will only have to flip a few seats to regain the majority in the House. In 2024, the group spent more than $256 million.

It also offers an early look at how Democrats hope to politically capitalize on some of the Trump's administrations early moves, which have revolved heavily around government funding.

In a statement for this story, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not directly address when the funds would be unfrozen, but referenced other issues that farmers may contend with.

"The Biden administration crushed American agriculture with regulatory uncertainty, crippling inflation, trade imbalances, and radical environmental policies. Thankfully, President Trump is already delivering relief by unleashing American energy and cutting ten regulations for every new regulation," Kelly said. "He will continue to make all agencies more efficient to better serve the American people, including our hardworking farmers."