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House Speaker Mike Johnson talked about the incoming Department of Government Efficiency before meeting with its nominated leaders, Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy.
Will you take a question, Mr. Musk?
Welcome, everybody.
What?
We're all excited.
I know you're all excited that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have joined us today.
This is an important day.
It's the beginning of a journey.
You've heard what Doge is all about, the Department of Government Efficiency.
It's a new thing, and this is a new day in Washington and a new day in America.
We have long lamented the size and scope of the government, that it has grown too large.
And let me be frank about this.
Government is too big.
It does too many things, and it does almost nothing well.
And the taxpayers deserve better.
They deserve a more responsive government, a more efficient government, one that is leaner and more focused on its primary objectives.
And that's the opportunity that we have here now.
We believe it's an historic moment for the country.
And these two gentlemen are going to help navigate through this exciting new day.
Elon and Vivek don't need much of an introduction here in Congress for certain.
And most of the American people know what they're capable of and what they've achieved.
Both of these gentlemen have run very successful organizations.
They're innovators and they're forward thinkers.
And so that's what we need right now.
And so what you're going to have today is first is a meeting that we'll have here with decision makers, key figures in the Republican House and Senate, who are chairs of committees of jurisdiction who deal with the money and financing of government and the structure of government.
We'll have chairs of the new Doge caucuses that have been set up in the Senate and the House.
And then after that, we'll proceed to the Congressional Auditorium where all of the Senate Republicans and House Republicans have been invited.
And I think many of them will gather for this discussion.
So there won't be a lot of detail for the press today, and that's by design, because this is a brainstorming session.
It is the first, again, as I said, of a long series of meetings that will be held as we're laying the groundwork for the new year and the new Congress.
And you're going to see a lot of change around here and in Washington and the way things are run.
We need to make government more efficient.
And that is what this whole objective is.
It's what the Doge effort will be about.
And you're going to see a bicameral cooperation.
And it will be, by the way, bipartisan.
Over the last 24 or 48 hours, you've seen a number of our Democrat colleagues, both in the Senate and the House, who have said, you know what, sign me up.
I want to be a part of this as well.
So we welcome that.
It should be a bipartisan effort.
And I think we're going to do great things for the country.
So I guess I'll take one or two questions.
Do you believe that you'll find $2 trillion in cut without cutting programs like Medicaid, Social Security?
Do you have confidence that you can find cuts to that level?
Or will this meeting be an opportunity to level set to a more realistic number?
And second question, do you support clawing back federal funds that the Biden administration is pushing out in the final days, including to companies like Virginian, a competitor of Tesla?
Let me answer these questions in reverse order.
We're very frustrated by what the Biden administration appears to be doing right now, and that is, as you said, shoveling money.
As someone said on a hidden camera on a clip that I saw, someone in the administration who's charged with distributing the funds said, it's like we're dumping gold bars off the Titanic here at the end.
We take over in January, and until then, the big government Democrats are still in charge and they're spending money, in our view, recklessly.
And so, yes, we've had a lot of discussions over the last couple of days about what our authority would be to claw some of that back and to stop it.
It's a serious challenge, and we need to stop it and expose what's happening.
That's what this effort will be about going forward.
There is an enormous amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in the government.
And I think everyone knows that intuitively.
And so, the efforts here, both with our subcommittees that are being created here and with the Doge effort itself, will be to explore that, to investigate it, and lay it bare for the American people to see.
I think that's how we'll begin to bring about the change that we all need.
So, this is an ongoing effort.
Yes, some labor unions are already fighting back.
They've already signed contracts to try and get this that they could be able to work from home, things like that.
Your reaction to that?
Well, there was a report that came out today.
I don't know if you all have seen it, but someone did a little survey of how many federal employees are actually working in the office.
By one estimate, it may be about 1% if you don't count the security personnel that are covering these buildings.
That is absurd, and it's not something the American people would stand for.
And so, one of the first things that I think you'll see is a demand from the new administration and from all of us in Congress that federal workers return to their desks and get back to the work that they're supposed to be doing.
I think that is common sense.
What you're going to see here, the overriding theme here, is a return to common sense and a turn to accountability and efficiency in government.
I think that's going to serve the people well.
There'll be a lot more to tell you all in the days ahead.
Thanks for being here.
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U.S. Postmaster General Lewis DeJoy testified on proposed changes to the U.S. Postal Service, including the use of electric vehicles and cutting labor costs.