Transcription
What's your experience now, two weeks in? Is there actually a fourth branch of government?
There most definitely is, and this really goes to the heart of the problem. In order for us to be a true democracy, a functioning democracy, the government must be responsive to the people. That's literally what democracy means.
However, when you have a vast unelected bureaucracy that is not answerable to the public, and if the elected officials—the president, the people in Congress and the Senate—actually don't have the power to affect the bureaucracy, and it's actually extremely difficult to affect the bureaucracy, then you do not have rule of the people. You do not have democracy; you have rule of the bureaucracy.
This is obviously wrong; it is unconstitutional. Therefore, it is imperative that we return power to the people of the country and not have tyranny of the bureaucracy, which we most definitely have had to a degree that is absurd. As I said, it's not just that there's an unconstitutional fourth branch of government, but it is arguably the most powerful branch of the government.
J, ask your back. Would you—yes?
Can you hear me now?
I can, yes. I apologize, gentlemen. He said I hopped to my laptop. I've been working on this for, as Elon said, over a decade now with my Squeal Awards, and there are many in Congress that actually really do care about this.
Absolutely. The problem, I think, is that there are not enough of us that have. So while I highlight a lot of the abuses—and you wanted some anecdotes, Elon, and I've shared a number of those with you—I think it's hard for the public to resonate with statistics. But people can really resonate with powerful anecdotes.
Jo had a bunch of them.
Yeah, you had a bunch of them, Joanie.
Yeah, I did. Sending kitties to spas to find out whether they produce less furballs—hack up less furballs. So yeah, we've spent taxpayer money on that. We put shrimp on a treadmill to see how fast they run.
I'm sorry, all of these things, while they may be fun, why are we spending taxpayer dollars on them? It goes to the point of we've sent millions of dollars to China to study what COVID— we saw how that ended. In fact, it's pretty outrageous that the virus was developed in a lab in Wuhan and yet was funded by U.S. tax dollars, which was simply routed through this fake nonprofit, EcoHealth, because the U.S. government can't give directly to China.
So they just gave to EcoHealth knowing that it would go to China. Our U.S. tax dollars were used effectively to, in the end, kill Americans, which is insane—absolutely insane.
And I know, Elon, you have been on aid. You have really—and that's the one miss for sure. This was another one of my efforts, and this began years ago when we were trying to figure out what they were doing with our American taxpayer dollars that were going to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
So I wanted to know exactly how those dollars were being spent.
And not just a reasonable request.
Yes, oh my gosh. And I shared this with you earlier, Elon, just privately, but we got all kinds of threats from USAID because I was trying to exercise my oversight capacity in Congress.
That's just—it's honestly outrageous that a taxpayer-funded organization would threaten a U.S. senator who is simply trying to figure out if American taxpayer money is being spent correctly and not fraudulently.
Yes, and so what my staff and I had estimated was that 30 to 40% of USAID's awards would go to indirect costs—so their overhead, their rent, employees, what are they living in?
Hey, but okay.
Okay, after months and months of obstruction where you wouldn't let us in, they told us the NICRA—negotiated indirect cost rate agreements. It's a lot of government jargon, but anyway, the indirect cost—they said that the database, oh, it doesn't exist.
That was a lie. That was a lie; it was false because we found it. And then we were told we weren't allowed to access the database.
And then that's when Congressman McCall and I came together, and we launched an official congressional investigation so that we could gain access to the rates.
Wow.
And then after about six more months of negotiations, my staff was finally allowed to access very limited data. They were allowed to go into a room, and they couldn't take notes. They were on camera the whole time; they couldn't remove any of the information.
But what my staff found is—you were laughing at that—30 to 40%? Because that is outrageous; that was understated. In some of the cases, the NICRA rates were upwards towards anywhere from 50 to 60%, and that doesn't include the cost for subcontractors—what the subcontractors were adding on.
So this is the problem with USAID, and that's why, Elon, I'm just with you on this because so much of that taxpayer money is not even going to—we love to feel good about helping starving children in name your country, but it's not going there.
It's going to pay rents in Paris; it's going to support somebody's fancy dinner to entertain whoever.
Yeah, exactly.
So to be clear, in shutting down—which we're in the process of doing—shutting down USAID, the reason for that, as opposed to simply trying to do some minor house cleaning, is that as we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a bowl of worms.
At the point which you don't merely—you got an apple; it's got a worm in it—maybe you can take the worm out. But if you've got actually just a bowl of worms, it's hopeless, and USAID is a bowl of worms.
There is no apple, and when there is no apple, you've just got to basically get rid of the whole thing. That is why it's got to go; it's beyond repair.
So yeah, well, there's a solution to this, which is that let's say something's cut that the people of this country just demand needs to exist again. It can always be voted back into existence by Senator Earn and her colleagues.
Totally. The fact that isn't going to happen reveals exactly why many of these agencies really—deletion is the only answer that's left.
Yes, exactly right. If it turns out we really need such an organization in the future, we just create it—problem solved by the people.
Yes, by the people—answerable to the people and to the people's elected representatives. That is the way that government is supposed to work.
I agree, and more transparency—sunshine is the best disinfectant out there. And they hate sunshine; that tells you something.
Yes, we really need to be able to exercise our oversight, and this is where we have been blocked so long in Congress. You can go onto my official website on the internet; you can look through my priorities, go to my Squeal area.
You can go back; I've got the last several years on there of efforts, whether it's USAID, the National Institutes of Health, those taxpayer dollars that were going to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, SNAP overpayments through USDA and the states—you name it.
Gosh, just even my back-to-work report—the out of the office that we've talked so much about.
And on day one, the president came in and said, "Hey, everybody, back to work."
Yeah, I don't think most Americans understand that only 6% of our federal workforce shows up to work in the office every single day.
Only 6%?
Yes, absolutely. It's truly insane. In fact, one of the most insane things I've seen was that I was speaking with hopefully soon-to-be Attorney General Pam Bondi, and she was telling me that the U.S. engraving—I guess we used to be the U.S. Mint, which is actually a building that is a historic building, actually a beautiful building.
It's here in D.C., and the windows are all broken, and it has turned into a homeless encampment.
That means like there's no one comes to work to such a degree that this beautiful building has all the windows broken and has turned into a homeless encampment in downtown D.C.
That's how absurd it is; it's beyond belief.
Yeah, and that's why so many of these buildings—if we could repopulate them, that would be great. That way we can have oversight and make sure employees are doing what they're supposed to do.
I'm going to hammer on USAID one more time.
AB, we—yeah, so we talk about the locality pay abuse, and that's what happens when people aren't working in the office.
What they're doing in D.C.—and not everyone, I don't want to accuse every federal worker of being a bad actor, but I have seen so many examples of this.
We had a USAID employee that was falsely using an office supply retailer's mailing address, I think like Staples and places like that, using that address in Virginia to defraud the taxpayers by claiming higher Washington, D.C. locality pay, but they were actually living in another state full-time.
And they had the full knowledge and assistance of their supervisor in pulling off this scam.
And then the IG—the USAID IG—blew off my request for an investigation.
Did they?
That seems—how can they do that?
They can do this. This is the problem we have, is that there are checks and balances in place where we can write letters all day and we can request IG oversight, but if that IG says, "I'm not going to investigate; I'm not interested," I, as a United States senator, don't have the power to force them to do it.
And this is why I'm so excited that we have Doge and that we have a president that's willing to back us up.
Absolutely. So really, none of this could be done without the full support of the president.
And with regard to the USAID stuff, I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down.
I want to be clear; I actually checked with him a few times and said, "Are you sure?" I'm like, "Yes, so we're shutting it down."
And yeah, it's also incredibly politically partisan and has been supporting radical left causes throughout the world, including things that are anti-American, which is insane.
Right, and that's why there are probably some arguments to be made about what could be important work that falls under USAID.
But the fact of the matter is that it has been overshadowed by these bad actors.
Yes, if there are truly good pro-American programs, then let's move them to the State Department.
Let's make sure we have proper oversight. Let's make sure that when senators and congressmen are asking for documents, that they provide them in a timely manner.
Yes, let's make sure the IGs are upfront and honest and wanting to be the watchdog over the agencies that they are charged with.
This is not rocket science.
And you're a rocket scientist.
This is simply common sense and being responsive to the electorate.
You just can't have these sort of institutions which are taking lots of taxpayer money but then are not answerable to elected representatives of the public.
Then they're totally disconnected.
So why I call it like we must move away from rule of the bureau to rule of the people—demos.
And I'm hopeful that some of this creates momentum, Jo, with some of your colleagues as well in passing the REINS Act.
Half of this is decades of Congress effectively just punting off the responsibility to avoid accountability—not you, but many of your colleagues over the years.
Hopefully, if this is a catalyst to say Congress and the Senate say we make take the lawmaking power back to the elected representatives of the people and get the kinds of things done that haven't gotten done for years, like the REINS Act and other mechanisms to say lawmaking power comes back to Congress, I think that could be one of the best things to come out of all of this.
I'm hopeful that happens this time; I know you're supportive.
Yeah, fundamentally, there's got to be a feedback loop to the people.
You can't have these organizations that are just disconnected from the will of the people.
Like I said, you just fundamentally do not have a democracy in that situation; you have tyranny of the bureaucracy, which is just inappropriate and needs to end.
By the way, you know who's pumped up about you bringing everybody back to work?
It's actually Muriel Bowser, the mayor of D.C.
Okay, you talking about the homeless encampments?
I talked to her maybe, what, last month or a month and a half ago?
And that's a Democrat.
It doesn't matter; it's basically the base principle of A, self-governance, and B, saving money and making sure that our buildings aren't being infested by homeless invasion, but instead is actually creating a thriving capital.
I think is shockingly a bipartisan idea if we give people the permission to come out as Democrats and say those things make sense, which I think we're seeing some of.
Which I think is cool.
No, you're absolutely right.
The lack of people showing up for work in D.C. has actually made D.C. look like a ghost town.
In fact, parts of it really look post-apocalyptic in parts of D.C.
Because once people start coming to work, then the restaurants close down, then the stores close down, and then you just have boarded-up stores and restaurants, and it destroys the small businesses in downtown D.C.
Yeah, and there's a reason why people come to work and are more effective and more collaborative in one place.
Yeah, which is discovering why you have offices.
Oh, it turns out there's a reason.
And the president has made his world clear: return to work.
That's it; end of story.
I think the first two weeks have been pretty massive, and if it continues at that rate—even if you think about one of the big economic questions right now is the 10-year treasury rates, right?
They're going up.
Bond markets don't like our national debt.
If this is the pace of what cutting looks like, presented in a coherent plan, I'm hopeful that bond investors and credit investors in the U.S. government debt can at least say, "Okay, this is positive progress," which actually will bring down not only the costs that you're cutting directly but also our interest rate costs.
Yes, and I think that's really when we hit a virtuous cycle here, which I think could happen soon.
No, I agree.
Actually, the bond markets do not currently reflect the savings that I'm confident we can achieve.
And I'm actually giving a talk later this week with J.P. Morgan Chase and Jamie Dimon, and this is obviously a financial audience.
And really, just to say, look, if you're shorting bonds, I think you're on the wrong side of the bet.
It's basically—seriously, yeah.
It's really basically the bond—there will be less debt needed as we stop wasting taxpayer money on crazy things.
Whatever the—$50 million for condoms to Gaza, which I suspect didn't actually end up being condoms in Gaza.
That's a lot of condoms, guys.
What is that, a super tanker of condoms?
Ian, how many do you need?
Oh my gosh, you guys, that's a real line item.
Is this fiction?
I don't doubt that we did have those items going to Gaza.
I don't know if it was that many, but this is the problem.
It was probably that line item, but God knows exactly.
But that's the problem we have with the budget and why when monies flow through all of these entities, we may have a line item that goes to, say, USAID, or maybe goes through USAID to the United Nations, and then from the United Nations, it goes to a subcontractor, and from that subcontractor, it goes to someone else.
It is a nightmare trying to follow that money and to understand what it's actually being used for.
So again, going back to the transparency, we just need to make sure that we have our eyes on it and that it's easily accessible—not just by members of Congress, but also the public as well.
I agree; it should be—if it's public money being spent, it should be in full view of the public.
But when they want to hide this stuff, frankly, the reality is because there's massive fraud and abuse.
That's the reality.
Nobody needs to hide something unless they have something to hide.
Once in a while, you've got something that's, say, an intelligence operation or that actually needs to be classified, but that's a rare situation; that's a tiny fraction of expenditures.
The vast majority of these things—it's unfortunately a tremendous amount of fraud and abuse.
And the reason that it's so extreme with the federal government is that the checks never bounce for the federal government.
Okay, so the federal government can always make more money, and the problem is that in doing so, that's what creates inflation.
Something that I really want to reinforce for people is that it's government spending that creates inflation.
So when you see prices go up at the grocery store, it's because government spent more money than it brought in taxes, increased the money supply, diluted the value of money, and made your paycheck go be less valuable.
It meant like the prices are going up because of government-induced spending—of government spending that results in inflation.
So now it's just very important to connect those dots because people don't—they think maybe the supermarket's taking advantage of them, and they're not.
You can look at the financials of the supermarket; they have 2% margins.
It's got nothing to do with pricing of the supermarket; it's just that the government spent too much, that increased the money supply, and diluted the value of somebody's paycheck.
And that's why the prices go up at the grocery store.
But the good news is if we solve government overspending and the money supply grows at the same rate as the output of goods and services, there will be no inflation.
And the prices in the supermarket now will be the same as the prices in the supermarket in a year.
And that's a super big deal, and that really affects people's lives.
That's what we're aiming for, and we're going to do everything possible to succeed in that goal.
And I think every dollar saved—the problem you just mentioned, Elon, is exactly why 10-year interest rates on U.S. treasuries are persistently going up, even if the government's trying to make them go down.
The market's bidding them right back up.
Yes, but conversely, for every dollar—hard dollar—actually saved, right?
So how many billion was it in the first two weeks?
There's actually—it's almost like a two-to-one saving because that means that the interest rate that lenders to the U.S. government charge will go down.
Yes, at a time when the interest rate payment itself on our national debt is one of the biggest items of our federal budget.
So that automatically comes down for every one of these other savings.
And the only thing to present it as a coherent plan, which I think you're already beginning to do—that alone, I think, will have a two-to-one savings for every dollar that's actually hard dollar that's actually saved because you get the interest cost next year that comes down as a consequence as well.
Yeah, that's actually a very good point you just made.
I just want to basically repeat that and reiterate that for the audience.
When you get—you actually get a double benefit when you bring down government spending, and there are very important double benefits, which is that you stop inflation and interest payments go down because the government is no longer borrowing money.
So if the government is borrowing money, it's actually competing with everyone else to borrow money, and that drives up the interest rate.
So if we solve government spending, in a nutshell, your grocery bill stays the same, your mortgage payment goes down, and your car payment goes down, and your credit card bill goes down.
Exactly.
That's what the people of America want, obviously.
Yeah, a good goal; couldn't agree more.
It's really important, and I'm sitting here tonight in Iowa, and I took my mom to church this morning.
And man, everybody at church—we stand around afterwards and visit, and everybody's just really excited about the opportunity that the new administration is bringing because costs are just through the roof for people in my neighborhood in southwest Iowa.
It's hard.
These are folks just getting up every single morning, trying to do their job and do the best, and yet we, as the government, have failed to listen to their needs.
And then to be able to cut the spending at the federal level to make sure that their taxes stay low and make sure that we are paying down our debt—no more deficit spending.
Let's try and balance this budget as best we can.
And we've heard plans from Ron Johnson and others in Congress, but we've really got to get serious about it because every one of my constituents owes $67,000 to our national debt.
That's outrageous, and it's getting worse over time.
So really, if we don't do something about it, America is going to go bankrupt.
That's the fact.
So we must do something about it—imperative.
Senator Mike Lee, I see you've joined. Would you like to add something to this conversation?
You've got some great stuff as well to talk about.
Yeah, I'd love to; thanks so much for the invitation.
Look, I see this as an inflection point.
Every 75 to 90 years in Anglo-American history, we've seen a major upheaval.
We had one in 1776, another one in 1861, another one in 1937.
2025, we're due for one, and I think that's going to be the Doge Revolution.
And I think it has to be about much more than just the individualized wasteful spending pet projects.
At the core of all this is a fundamental ailment, which is that we've missed the purpose of the United States government.
It's supposed to be about just a small handful of things: weights and measures, trademarks, copyrights and patents, regulating foreign commerce.
The founders of the country would blow their minds that the federal government has gotten so gigantic and is interfering with people's lives in so many ways.
That's exactly right.
And then we've compounded the problem.
Once we lost track of what the federal government's purpose is, we put the wrong branch in charge of the wrong responsibilities.
We've been making most of our law—100,000 pages a year—through the executive branch, which the Constitution says you can't do.
It says you cannot make a federal law unless you go through both houses of Congress and then give it to the president.
So we've destroyed federalism and separation of powers.
I think for Doge to succeed, we have to restore both of those.
In my view, the best way to start is by passing the REINS Act, which would require Congress to enact those laws.
And I think to get that passed this year, we've got to attach it to the debt ceiling bill.
I absolutely agree with you 100%.
What you're saying is just absolutely true—that there's vast amounts of federal regulation which are de facto laws that are created.
It's an incomprehensible amount; it's literally no human could possibly even comprehend it.
If you tried your hardest your whole life, you could barely understand a small fraction of the regulations.
And these regulations—you know, if you look at them, there's millions of them.
And it's not like any one regulation is the showstopper, but it's the way I visualize it.
It's like Gulliver—like America is like Gulliver tied down by millions of little strings, and we need to cut those strings and free the giant.
Exactly, that's exactly right.
Those laws, which they are laws, will put you in prison; those will shut down your business; those will ruin your life if you disobey them.
No different than any other law; it's totally crazy.
Exciting, Elon, isn't it true President Trump has an executive order that says for every one new regulation that is put into place, ten have to be rescinded?
Yes, yes.
And now, of course, the bureaucracy is going to try to game that by having the one regulation when, like, somebody says, "I have everyone can ask one question," but then have a question in ten—in three ten parts.
So it's possible to game the regulation.
So I think in addition to that executive order, which I certainly applaud, I think we need to go in and do wholesale removal of regulations.
Like, regulations basically should be default gone—not default there; default gone.
And if it turns out that we missed the mark on regulation, we can always add it back in.
These regulations are added willy-nilly all the time, so we just got to do wholesale spring cleaning of regulation and get the government off the backs of everyday Americans so people can get things done.
And the government doesn't have a sort of boot on the neck of the average Americans.
Because what are the core founding values of this country?
What has made America great?
What will lead to further greatness is a focus on merit—that you get ahead as a function of your hard work and skill and that you have freedom.
It's the land of freedom and opportunity, and if the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, it's not freedom.
We got to restore freedom.
And by the way, that's multiplied and fifty-fold higher where each of the fifty states then do the same thing.
Yes, and many of these federal regulations are duplicative of the states doing the exact same thing, where the bureaucracies in each of the states are behaving like the federal government.
You think about the impact on people's lives; it just layers one on top of the other.
And like you talk about zero-based budgeting, I really like this concept of zero-based regulations, where the default is nothing and build back on top of nothing.
Exactly; that's what our founders wanted.
Yeah, absolutely.
It used to be like—and not that long ago—if you wanted to start a business, you just start a business.
You just go; you just open a store; you can just do it.
The government's not like frying into every part of—get the license for this, do the license for that, get 17,000 permits.
You look at L.A., and like how it's—when I lived in L.A., it was hard to get a permit to remodel your kitchen.
And now, with this disaster that's happening in L.A., this terrible tragedy, just the sheer number of permits required to build a house are staggering.
Basically, they've made it illegal.
But we got to start somewhere on the regulatory front, and certainly at least if we address federal regulation, then people can choose to move from one state to another and still remain in America and move to the state that has less regulation, where the government gives you more freedom.
And you've got that competition between states; you've got that federal system that was meant to be the case.
That was how the country was created—let the states compete.
And if your state is being oppressive, you can go to a neighboring state and live there.
That's the whole idea—federalism is the answer.
No doubt.
But you've got two things going for right now in the country that haven't happened in a long time.
One is a willing president, Donald Trump, who actually believes everything that all four of us have just said, which is a beautiful thing.
And without that, it wouldn't be possible.
The more I've gotten to know President Trump, the more I like him, frankly.
I love the guy; he's great.
Yeah, and he's full bore more than any president we've had since the creation of the administrative state.
So I think that's number one.
And number two is, thanks to him, actually in his first term, you have a Supreme Court that 6-3 vehemently agrees with everything we've just said.
Yes, and so I think it's possible now; in fact, it's actually possible.
Yes, in fact, if it's not possible now, it'll never be possible.
This is our shot; this is the best hand of cards we're ever going to have.
And if we don't take advantage of this best hand, it's never going to happen.
So we're going to do it.
I agree; now or never.
And I do think you're right, VI, with the first administration of President Trump and lessons learned through that administration.
Now, in the second administration, the stage is set, and he knows how to aggressively tackle a lot of these issues that have plagued us for years.
And folks ask me, "Oh, Trump's first 100 days, what is that going to be like?"
And I'm like, "Forget the 100 days, folks; it's going to happen a lot faster than that."
And he needs to continue to be alive, and we all know there's going to be bumps along the way.
Of course there are, because we're moving at the speed of relevance here.
But we've got to get in there and make an impact so that our constituents can actually see the benefit.
Because we've got a tough mid-cycle or mid-presidential year election coming up in 2026, and we cannot lose the House or the Senate because then the president will be dead in the water.
Yeah, and we just need to move out.
That's move out.
Yeah, I think that's really—the people will judge the performance and whether actually we got things done and whether things are better off.
And in two years, I think if people feel like, "Yeah, they're better off; the country is working better; they feel there's the reward for hard work is there; that their paychecks are going further than it used to; that their standard of living is better; their mortgage is lower; the credit card bills are lower; the prices at the stores are the same, haven't risen dramatically," then I think we—there's no problem; we will win the next election.
The people will reward that.
So I think that's what needs to happen.
And if it does happen, there will be a Republican win in the midterms, which is usually unusual.
But I think if we make these goals happen, I think we'll actually have an increased majority in the House and Senate and be able to continue to, as the president would say, make America great and even greater.
So love it.
In the case, the blanket that you and I have talked about this, Mike Lee, you and I have talked about this, might as well just say it here as well.
When in doubt, push it to the states, right?
If there's some doubt about, "Okay, we're not sure about this regulation," you got a whole nuclear energy framework at the federal level; you have an entire one in each of the 50 states.
Same thing for spending or some other program.
Are people going to really suffer if this is taken away?
Federalism is the answer; just push it to the states.
And I think that's a big part of obviously what I'm looking to do next, but it's governors across the state—whatever—let them bear the load of what the federal government needed because that's actually what the founders envisioned in the first place.
Mike, you've been a crusader for this since day one.
No, that is right; that is the whole reason I ran for this job 15 years ago.
The fact is the people of our country are upset.
They're upset about our government because it manages things poorly.
And what a lot of people are starting to grasp is that it's not just a matter of changing from the red team to the blue team, back to the red team, and making sure you've got better personnel on there.
Because better personnel won't make those same mistakes and won't fund the stupid studies about the drunk gerbil on a treadmill.
The point is it's poorly run because when the U.S. government is doing all kinds of things that it's not supposed to be doing—that should be left to the states or to the people, in the words of the 10th Amendment—it becomes very poor at doing the few things that it is supposed to do.
You can't be good at running the Pentagon and at making sure that traffic lanes, lines of commerce are open when you are doing all kinds of things that the federal government wasn't built to do.
We're using it as the wrong tool.
There are very few things the federal government currently does that the federal government is itself uniquely equipped and constitutionally authorized to do.
That's what we got to get back to, and that's why this is going to be a painful, radical, transformational change in many circumstances.
But it's going to be a huge relief to the American people once we get through the initial shock and once we get through this stage where the media is telling us that the sky is going to fall—dogs and cats living together in the streets, apocalyptic stuff.
Once they realize that's not true, they're going to feel this huge burden lifted.
That's what we want; we want a better future for America.
We can't get to—absolutely returning to our founding document.
Exactly; I couldn't agree with you more.
And I'm actually pretty optimistic that we're going to make it happen.
It's going to—this is—I think it's going to happen.
So the progress is good so far, and if it keeps accelerating, then I think it's going to be awesome.
Like, the cost of excess regulation on economic growth and prosperity is really underestimated.
Like, if you basically don't even permit—allow people to do things, like make it illegal—you can't—the builders can't build.
America is a nation of builders, and we need to give the builders permission to build.
And that's really what deregulation is all about—just letting people do things.
Deregulation and meritocracy go hand in hand, actually; they're two sides of the same coin.
And you want to actually measure success—not just the deficit reduction.
I don't think that's the sole metric, although it's a really important one.
And bringing down the national debt and the interest payment cost as a consequence—that's really important.
But actually, a lot of these benefits of delivering economic growth won't be measured in this year's deficit reduction but will be measured in long-run GDP growth, long-run economic growth, long-run prosperity of the country.
Yeah, and I think that's equally important.
I actually—I'm optimistic that we'll see the material impact in FY26, which starts in October.
A lot of the stuff—I think we can make significant gains in FY25, which ends in September.
But I think the sort of metric we're tracking startup style or just—and we're going to be posting more and more detail on the Doge website.
And Doge handle on X is just so people can see in detail this is where we're seeing the delta in spending between current spending and government financial year 25, which or 26, which starts in October.
And that number is really—we think it's at this point over a billion dollars a day, maybe two billion, maybe approaching three.
And I think we can take a trillion dollars out of the deficit next year.
Obviously, this is going to require strong support from the president, but thus far we certainly have that.
And also support from Congress and support—and also hopefully support from the judiciary as well.
But basically, the goal in a nutshell is pretty straightforward.
We have a trillion deficit, which is far an excessive economic growth.
If we can get that deficit in half from two trillion to one trillion, and we can get the economic growth to match that one trillion growth in the money supply, that means there will be no inflation.
And also that interest rates will drop—credit card interest down, mortgage interest down, car payment interest down, and prices at the store stay the same.
That is a great outcome for people, and I think we can—I think people say it's unrealistic.
Yeah, people say it's unrealistic.
The funniest part about this is just the hard number here, and the four of us here know the answer.
But for people who are listening, it might just be eye-opening.
How much money did the federal government actually spend last year?
Not the mumbo jumbo, not discretionary this and not just—like, how much did the federal government spend last year?
It was about seven trillion—just under $7 trillion.
How much did we spend in this, like, ancient time period known as 2019?
Not that long ago—this year called 2019—not that long ago.
We all kind of remember 2019; it was 4.5—was less than 4.5—4.45, less than four—about four and a half trillion.
That's two and a half trillion right there.
So if you just go back to 2019, that's two and a half trillion, which is insane, actually, that they think that's impossible.
2019 was not that long ago, and nobody thought that was an apocalyptic hellscape underway in 2019.
2019 was pretty cool, actually.
I like 2019.
2019 was not some nightmarish hellscape.
Exactly.
In fact, we got—things were just fine in 2019.
Mike can vouch for this too, though.
What we saw with COVID, as we were pushing all those dollars out the door, they started a lot of programs with those dollars, and people just continue to expect those dollars to come even though we're way beyond COVID.
Yes, way beyond COVID.
So often people will say you can't reduce the deficit that much because what about all the entitlement spending?
There's the sort of guaranteed spending, but here's the thing—especially during COVID, as you're listening to there was actually a massive growth, a massive increase in the amount of fraud and waste in entitlements, with like fake people, like correcting Social Security, like bogus payments to Medicare.
The level of fraud is actually staggering, and just cutting back on that.
And by the way, it's not just even U.S. fraud rings.
I don't think people realize this, but the estimates I've seen are between $200 billion in foreign fraud rings.
There are professional foreign fraud rings operating that are taking somewhere between $100 and $200 billion a year of U.S. taxpayer money out of the country.
A lot of people realize that.
And so the fraud in this case isn't even going to American fraudsters; it's going to somewhere in other countries.
Elon, I sent that example to you the other day.
I sat down with a friend of yours who works in ID technology, and he showed me that video of a deep fake where it was a Chinese scammer trying to receive U.S. federal government benefits.
Just—it's outrageous.
But so much of that money—those Chinese scammers are taking out of the pockets of our taxpayers.
So yes, and I mean, there's really—American entitlements are being defrauded by people not even in the U.S., from many other countries, because the fraud controls are so weak on the entitlements programs.
The diligence is so bad that it's actually possible to operate hundreds, if not thousands, of fake people and get entitlements sent to you that you then take the money out of the country, out of the United States.
This is happening as we speak; it's utterly insane.
So this is why I'm actually quite optimistic that a trillion dollars can be saved just by addressing waste, fraud, and abuse.
While it's a lot of work, I don't think this is some insurmountable task.
I am confident it can be done, and we'll do everything in our power to make it happen.
And I think that'll be—if we succeed, and I hope—I’d like to ask for the support of the American people because we're going to get a lot of opposition.
Let me tell you, from what I remember most from one of the things I remember from the PayPal days was that who complains the loudest is the fraud.
Okay, so like when somebody was trying to commit fraud to PayPal, where we would see the most amount of righteous indignation, like it would be like immediate, over-the-top righteous indignation was from the fraudsters—not from honest people.
Because honest people are like, "Oh, I think there's something wrong with my account; I guess I wonder what's wrong; let me inquire."
But the fraudsters will come at you immediately.
This is like a tell; you know someone's actually doing fraud because the level of faux outrage is way over the top.
So we're going to get a lot of that—a lot of people claiming with fake outrage, claiming that they're a single mother with kids just trying to feed them.
Meanwhile, it's like some dude operating a fraud ring out of another country.
Actually, that's the kind of thing we'll see.
So really, I would like to ask for the support of the American people in pursuit of this goal, bearing in mind that we're going to see some pretty outrageous stuff from the fraudsters as we crack down on fraud.
They're going to be the loudest complainers.
To anyone in America listening to this, your support in pursuit of this goal is very much appreciated.
Thank you.
Absolutely, and thank you, Elon.
I think we've got a ways to go, but I'm glad it's rolling along.
This has just been the most aggressive effort really to downsize or right-size our government since probably at least the Reagan Revolution.
So just excited to be part of it and have the support of the American people as we move through and make it in Washington, D.C.
Yeah, thanks to DJT.
Thank you, Elon, and you keep kicking ass.
And when in doubt, send it to the states, and we'll take care of it there.
Exactly.
All right, cool.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator Lee.
And perhaps one day, Senator Ramaswamy, Governor.
Yeah, that's the direction we're headed.
And everyone who tuned in, once again, I'm asking for your support for this noble goal.
And please help in any way you can.
Sometimes it's like these small things that happen on the side—sort of small, thankless tasks—that actually will result.
The Doge is going to win.
Doge will win if millions of people support it in ways that I wouldn't even know how they supported it, but just that you did.
And to the unknown soldier.
Yeah, definitely.
And hey, Elon, before we all break out of here, I do want to acknowledge that I've founded the Senate Doge Caucus on my side of the Rotunda.
We've got some great co-chairs over in the House as well with Pete Sessions and Aaron Bean and Blake Moore.
They have got now, I think, over a hundred members of Congress that have joined the Doge Caucus, and we've got 18 and climbing in the United States Senate as well.
You and the president and Viv have all really gotten everybody to come together, and I'm just really grateful that we have an outlet and are able to do this.
Thank you all so much.
That sounds good, and we'll be doing this every week.
So I look forward to having members from the House and other contributors and try to keep the people informed of the progress.
And I think it'll be very interesting to follow along.
So thanks, everyone.
Thank you so much.