Trump says he'll be 'satisfied' with DOGE's cuts in 'the next two or three months'
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- President Donald Trump said what DOGE is doing is "not necessarily a popular thing."
- "I have no idea how it plays out in the public," Trump said at a cabinet meeting.
- Trump said his administration will be "satisfied" with DOGE's cuts in two to three months.
President Donald Trump said his administration will be "pretty much satisfied" with the Department of Government Efficiency's cuts to the federal government in two or three months.
"We think probably over the next two or three months, we will be pretty much satisfied with the people that are working hard and want to be members of the administration and our country," Trump said at a cabinet meeting on Monday.
"We want to keep the good ones, and we want to get rid of the ones that don't exist, and we want to get rid of the ones that do exist but don't work, and we have quite a few of them," Trump said of federal workers.
On Monday, Trump said that what DOGE is trying to do is "not necessarily a very popular thing," but he thinks it has to be done to "save our country."
"I have no idea how it plays out in the public. I guess you see poll numbers that are very good numbers, but I don't know what that means long-term," Trump added.
In November, Trump announced the formation of DOGE and said Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Vivek Ramaswamy would helm it. Ramaswamy left DOGE in January.
Since Trump was sworn in, DOGE has moved quickly to slash federal spending by laying off thousands of federal workers and shuttering foreign aid programs. However, the way these broad cuts have been carried out has sparked chaos.
Musk and DOGE are facing legal challenges to their work, too. Since the start of Trump's second term, DOGE has been hit with nearly two dozen lawsuits.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered Musk and DOGE to hand over records and answer questions about DOGE's plans to cull federal agencies. Federal courts have also ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the federal workers they fired.
Representatives for the White House and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.