Republican lawmakers are racing to embrace Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s push to chop up the federal government — even if their actual authority is still murky and the effort poses a potential threat to congressional power.
While President-elect Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) won’t formally get started until January, the team behind the office has already been meeting with GOP lawmakers, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Ideas that Musk and Ramaswamy are floating include cutting regulations, reducing the size of the federal workforce and mounting a legal bid to bypass Congress on spending cuts.
What has emerged from the early DOGE-Capitol Hill discussions is a growing number of Republicans eager to work with the office, including not only MAGA favorites like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, but also incoming Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chair Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa. Ernst, a one-time Trump critic who has recently huddled at Mar-a-Lago, is spearheading a dedicated DOGE caucus.
Many of those Republicans have previously pushed to cut spending, making DOGE an opportunity to bear hug one of Trump’s first big initiatives and also advance their own long-held goals.
One group of outliers appear to be appropriations committee leaders, the senior lawmakers who control Congress’ power of the purse and would nominally be crucial to executing any DOGE recommendations. They face a potential challenge to their power, with Musk and Ramaswamy floating the possibility of circumventing Congress in their bid to slash the federal bureaucracy. Further complicating things is the fact that DOGE, though created by Trump, won't be a formal part of the government and is poised to act in a pure advisory fashion.
What follows is a run-down of how Republican House members and senators are jockeying for influence in the DOGE era.
Less than four years ago, 11 Republicans joined with Democrats to remove Greene from congressional committees over a series of incendiary comments and actions. This January, she’ll be leading the new House Oversight subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, which is being tasked with helping Musk and Ramaswamy at DOGE.
It will give one of Trump’s loudest allies on Capitol Hill an official perch where she can coordinate with the administration, drive her own policy ideas and pressure recalcitrant GOP colleagues. Greene said in a statement that her subcommittee will “work hand in hand with President Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the entire DOGE team.” House Oversight Chair James Comer of Kentucky said in an interview that Greene would be a “good match” with Musk and Ramaswamy given her previous experience as a small business owner.
Greene’s ascendance comes as Speaker Mike Johnson pushes for her to be a more active player in the GOP conference, which could work to his benefit as he tries to shore up support for keeping his gavel in January.
Greene’s subcommittee is expected to target “wasteful spending,” come up with ideas for reorganizing federal agencies and identify ways to “eliminate bureaucratic red tape,” said a person granted anonymity to discuss the panel’s plans.
Greene is lobbing a more direct warning, saying the subcommittee would help “expose people who need to be FIRED.”
Comer said the Oversight Committee’s jurisdiction of the federal workforce would be a big area of overlap with Trump’s DOGE team. Musk and Ramaswamy indicated in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this month that they would try to get around protections that make it harder to fire federal employees. They are also considering pushing for a five-day return to office as a way to thin the federal workforce.
Comer and Greene have already met with Trump’s incoming DOGE team, including Ramaswamy, according to a person briefed on the discussion, who added that the Trump officials are “supportive of the Oversight Committee’s endeavor and are already working together.”
Ernst is making an early bid to position herself as a lead Senate DOGE ally, where large swaths of Trump’s agenda still face pockets of GOP opposition and a Democratic filibuster.
Ernst is leading a new DOGE caucus and outlining trillions in potential spending cuts or savings, arguing that DOGE’s mission is in line with her long-running “Squeal Awards” that target government waste. The House has its own DOGE caucus, spearheaded by Reps. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas).
Ernst’s move to align herself closely with DOGE, and by extension Trump and his allies, comes after she lost the race for Senate GOP conference chair earlier this month to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
Ernst met with Ramaswamy late last week at Mar-a-Lago, where she pitched him on ways to curb federal spending. Ramaswamy publicly thanked Ernst and said that DOGE officials “look forward to partnering with the Senate to downsize government.” Ernst then posted a photo on social media from over the weekend with Trump and Musk, saying she met with the incoming president to discuss his Cabinet.
In the Senate, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will have the largest area of overlap with DOGE. Paul, a libertarian-leaning, small government Republican, will be its chair.
Paul has long been a gadfly for leadership and often pushes efforts to cut spending, which have routinely gotten votes on the Senate floor but been rejected by even some of his GOP colleagues.
Paul during a recent Fox News interview, said that he was “all in” on helping DOGE, adding that “we’ve already forwarded them 2,000 pages of waste that can be cut.” He’s also pledged to give advice to Trump’s DOGE team about using recissions to clawback already approved government funding, which would require congressional signoff.
Republican lawmakers who are responsible for crafting and spearheading funding legislation aren’t totally shutting the door on DOGE as it encroaches on their turf.
Musk and Ramaswamy are floating the possibility of circumventing Congress on steep cuts by mounting a legal challenge against the Impoundment Control Act, which places limits on a president’s ability to unilaterally withhold funding. They believe the Supreme Court, which has three justices nominated by Trump, would be favorable to them.
Key appropriators aren’t embracing that plan, but aren’t yet fighting back. Instead, in interviews with POLITICO, Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and other members of the panel said they are waiting to see the details of what Trump is proposing and how realistic the plans from his allies are.
“I am not concerned at all,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a member of the Appropriations Committee. “I learned a long time ago, stay calm, we’ll deal with all these issues as they come. Look, what are we even talking about? Is this something real?”
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
