THE WASHINGTON POST: Trump executive order vows substantial cuts under DOGE to federal workforce

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that requires federal agencies to work with the US DOGE Service to cut their existing workforce and limit future hiring - the most explicit statement yet by the president that he supports “large-scale” cuts to the federal workforce.

The executive order gives billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE, tasked with finding government inefficiencies, even more power than it has amassed in the first three weeks of the new administration. The order installs a “DOGE Team Lead” at each agency and gives that person oversight over hiring decisions. DOGE stands for Department of Government Efficiency.

The directive instructs agency heads, after the hiring freeze expires, to recruit no more than one employee for every four who depart from the federal government, with exemptions for personnel and functions “related to public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement.” And it orders agency heads to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force, consistent with applicable law.”

Eliminating 25 percent of federal employees would cut the overall budget by about 1 percent. Semafor first reported that Trump would sign the executive order.

“We are going to be signing a very important deal today,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “It’s DOGE.” He said that his administration had found “billions and billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse.”

Beside him was Musk, who had brought his animated son X Æ A-Xii for the press briefing. Musk said: “If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?”

“It does not match the will of the people, so it’s just something we’ve got to fix,” he added.

Neither Trump nor Musk provided specifics about the corruption they found or how they plan to address it.

The Tuesday directive builds on executive orders and corresponding memos aimed at reshaping the bureaucracy made up of 2.3 million civilian employees into a smaller workforce loyal to Trump and his vision. DOGE so far has moved to dismantle some US agencies, pushed out hundreds of thousands of civil servants and gained access to some of the federal government’s most sensitive payment systems - prompting fierce pushback in the courts.

Trump on Tuesday criticised the judicial rulings, saying that “it seems hard to believe that judges want to try and stop us from looking for corruption.”

He threatened to “look at the judges because that’s very serious,” but later said he would “always abide by the courts” and appeal their findings.

Last week, a federal judge halted the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation program,” which offers federal workers a way to quit and receive pay through September, while weighing a legal challenge. The program is the Trump administration’s most sweeping attempt yet to drastically cut the federal government.

“They’re getting a good deal. They’re getting a big buyout,” Trump said Tuesday of the program. “What we’re trying to do is reduce government. We have too many people.”

Trump said federal office space is “occupied by 4 per cent.” But that number conflicts with a congressionally mandated report issued in August by the Office of Management and Budget, which found that federal employees who were eligible for telework were still spending more than 60 percent of their work hours on-site.

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