well. $241 billion in federal spending in over ten years. >> i now recognize the gentleman from california, mr. garcia. >> thank you. thank you for all our witnesses being here. i want to make something clear. i think we're all here to fight against the lies, corruption and attacks on social safety net. we should in no way be cooperating with house republicans who want to shut down the department of education and destroy medicare and medicaid. we should not stand by as the richest man on the planet gives himself and his companies huge tax cuts while the american people get absolutely nothing. now i find it ironic that our chairwoman, congresswoman greene is in charge of running this committee. in the last congress chairwoman greene literally showed a dick pick in her oversight congressional hearing so i thought i would bring one as well.

now this, of course, we know is president elon musk. he is also the world's richest man. the biggest political donor in the last election. he has billions of dollars in conflicts of interest and we know that he is leading a power grab also abided by and encouraged by donald trump and of course the chairwoman congresswoman greene. i want to run through what doge actually is going to do. the demolition plan to run through our government. doge is trying to abolish the department of education. that means opportunities denied to kids. ripping away opportunities for children with disabilities or dependent on this money. you also halting medical research critical that we have to also stop. the idea we're going to eliminate or destroying the department of national institute of health and nih is crazy. let's talk about the department of labor. we're talking about protections for working people across this

country where people can complain about abuses, companies are making against them and co-workers. workers are now going to be in danger. let's talk about the consumer financial protection bureau, another huge issue for us. think about the scammers and fraudsters that will be empowered across this country because elon musk wants essentially these companies have more power over consumers and over people across this country. look at the centers for disease -- medicare and medicaid services being discussed today. healthcare we're talking about being denied to millions of poor people, working class people across this country. now, of course, they are on to their largest target, the u.s. social security administration. we're talking about the destruction of the actual social safety net in this country. we know that one in five americans collect social security. seniors, disabled people.

this entire plan is about hurting the american social safety net and destroying our institutions. it is important we actually call out what is happening at this subcommittee. this is not about working with the richest man on the planet. this is about empowering. this committee wants to empower the richest person in the world to hurt people so they can take all of this money that they so call want to save and then give it to themselves, their companies, and their billionaire friends. that is the attack that is happening in this committee and across this country and it is important that we call it out. we also know, of course, that elon musk is sendsing his unqualified doge staff to carry out this agenda across all of these agencies. in some cases, actually teenage staffers. no accountability, no experience, and problematic records. they are trying to rob you and probably a minor, thank you and

i yield back. >> the gentleman yields and i now recognize the gentleman from south carolina, mr. timins for five minutes. >> thank you, i find it sad my colleagues across the aisle can't take this seriously. we have 36 trillion in debt. we run an annual almost 2 trillion deficit. when i got elected six years ago we had 21 trillion in debt. so in six years we've added over 15 trillion to the debt. guess what? president trump ran on fixing this problem. president trump told the american people he would right the ship financially and he said during the campaign that elon musk was going to be person to lead this charge. the man turned business after business around. the richest man on the planet because he succeeds at his endeavors and why president trump has appointed him the head of this effort. this is a very serious problem and it is incredibly hypocritical my colleagues

across the aisle are complaining about this because joe biden -- joe biden signed his name and wanted the american people to believe he had the ability to forgive $2$50 billion with a signature. guess what? supreme court ruled he did not. that's our system of checks and balances. the president biden clearly was experiencing cognitive decline. didn't have the ability to be charged with a crime as determined by his own department of justice. he signs his name and thinks it gives a quarter of a trillion dollars away redistributes taxpayer dollars. it is crazy we can't come together to address the greatest national security threat facing this country. our debt. now to the task at hand. medicaid fraud. if we implement enhanced

identity verification and enhanced income verification, what will happen and how much money will we save? >> you will save hundreds of billions of dollars. identify verification, elimination of self-certification and monitoring beneficiaries will prevent these trans national criminal groups from accessing those systems at scale so legitimate people who need the benefits can get them in a timely fashion. >> so we'll get actual benefits to american citizens in need faster because if you do it electronically through web base like they did in myself re missouri where the pilot programmed saved 20% of medicaid dollars. we need to adopt what has already been proven in missouri and we'll save 20%. to people listening we spend almost $9 hundred billion every year on medicaid. and if 20% of that is saved,

that's almost $2 hundred billion dollars. we have a 1.8 trillion annual deficit. we just knocked off 200 billion. let's keep the train going. the fact democrats are filing lawsuits to impede the efforts of president trump to right our fiscal ship is unforegivenable. you talked about pandemic fraud. i have a bill that would cause the i.r.s. to share data with the small business administration and the f.b.i., the department of justice that would show that you were ineligible for ppp loans and you got them. so i think that would save probably $1 hundred billion. do you think that we should go back and take money away from people that fraudulently got covid money? >> during the pandemic, the ppp program was a virtual buffet for

fraudsters because of that 1974 privacy act where data sharing and matching is virtually impossible. congress needs to change that. >> we can do it retroactively and find the people that stole this money rick hold them accountable probably get money back. i have that bill filed. that bill i think would probably get $1 hundred billion. now we have enhanced i dent fee verification and income verification is proven that it works. i work on that bill and drop it soon. that's $2 hundred billion. there is a competition in congress. i think we need a competition of this committee. i got $3 hundred billion in savings proposed. we have to all pull our weight because we have such a massive problem right now. i would ask my colleagues across the aisle to get out of the way if you don't want to help. if you don't want to help right the fiscal ship in this country get out of the way. stop filing lawsuits. we do not have the financial

ability to continue down this path and we -- you can kick and scream all the way or get out of the way. i prefer the former. thank you, madam chair. >> the gentleman yields. i now recognize the gentleman from texas. >> this subcommittee is supposedly about looking into waste, fraud and abuse. so i would like to start talking about independent inspector generals who are supposed to be looking into waste, fraud and abuse. do you know how many inspector generals at agencies that were investigating musk's companies have been fired by the trump administration? five. miss royal. inspector general of the department of labor add 17 open investigations into tesla and spacex. do you know what the trump/musk administration did to that inspector general? >> no.

>> they fired him. >> do you know what the trump musk administration did to another inspector general. department of defense inspector general was looking into spacex. do you know what the trump/musk administration did to that inspector general >> >> i believe he was fired. >> everybody knows what the answer to the questions were. the u.s. department of agriculture inspector general was investigating musk neuro link. i will ask you do you know what there mr. trump did to looking into one of munchies companies? he was fired. >> inspector general at the epa was taking on tesla. since it seems you are answering the questions that everyone knows the answer to, do you know what the trump/musk administration did to that inspector general? >> i believe he was fired. >> five inspector generals looking into elon musk's

companies were fired by the trump/musk administration. these inspector generals independent, protected by law. the people that find the waste, fraud and abuse and found many cases brought up today. fired because they were looking into elon musk. at the norb, the national labor relations board supposed to protect workers from getting unions busted by folks like musk made functionally broken by the so-called department of government efficiency that really is the department of government efficiency for musk, not you. they are trying to shut down the department of education. the department of labor. you know what elon musk doesn't seem to be looking into? his own contracts. again, i'll ask you, do you know how much money a day mr. musk will receive from the federal government for his contracts? >> no. >> the answer is $8 million a day. just last year elon musk was

promised $3 billion from close to 100 contracts with the federal government. ms. royal do you know how much the average person in this country who survives on social security. about how much they have to survive on a day? >> i do not. >> $6five a day. >> we're not looking into musk 8 million a day. this subcommittee chaired by house republicans is looking into your grandmother's $6five a day. let me be clear. i think we would all support taxpayer savings, look into money we might needlessly send to billionaires and big corporations, find taxpayer savings and send it back to your hard working family. instead what house republicans and the trump/musk administration want to do is to look into your kids' lunch money, teachers salary, into your grand parents' social

security. they want to take that money and give it out in billionaire tax cuts and they are talking about that in committee tomorrow in budget committee tomorrow. they just released their plan. let me be clear. when republicans talk about government efficiency in this congress, they are not looking into billionaires who don't pay taxes, not looking into billionaires who get rich off government contracts. they aren't looking into elon musk firing watchdogs supposed to keep him accountable. they look at cutting public schools. straight for your social security. coming straight for cancer research, coming straight for the department of education. they aren't looking at big tech, they are not looking at big pharma. those people fund their campaigns. if this committee were serious about rooting out waste from our federal government then today's whole hearing pub about how musk and donald trump are firing the independent watchdogs who have done this work for decades. instead my republican colleagues actual goal on this committee is to distract from trump and from musk's corrupt war on

accountability. it won't be a subcommittee dedicated to making government he fishents for everyday people but helping musk and trump be as efficient as possible in robbing our government and handing out our government services to the rich. so this seems this subcommittee is just >> the gentleman's time is expired. >> total sham. >> the american people are $36 trillion in debt. it certainly seems reasonable that someone has been fired. i now recognize the gentleman from tennessee. >> you will put us more in debt. >> thank you, chair lady. the gravy train for a lot of these folks has been on biscuit wheels is about to run off the tracks and it's about time. can you imagine standing up here and defending waste, fraud and abuse? i think that's what we're seeing what people squeal and don't ask questions. i think it shows the american

public what heck is going on and that little gravy train is getting ready to run off and the spigot turned off. how can the federal government improve identity verification for these entitlement programs? >> it is doing what the private sector does every single day whether you use your bank, you go to amazon. using those tools and moving away from some of the dated compliance standards that the federal government uses, the 800, 2017 before there was anything called deepfakes and other tools. >> i was informed that pay pal has never been -- they've never been able to crack into that and steal people's vital information. are they using those systems that you would be favorable towards that government seems to

be shying away from? >> yes, sir. >> describe how that works. >> they are systems based on encryption. they use technology and they use data to validate you are who you say you are. people that are stealing right now i believe a lot of them are ghosts from china, russia, nigeria and romania. >> i read a report today that north korea was involved in some of that as well. >> they are. >> those people are our enemies. again, they will hate us for free. we don't have to give them taxpayer money. are there loopholes that can be closed to avoid these improper payments? i wish you would describe those to me. >> the biggest most important thing particularly in the benefit program space is the use of self-certification. as mr. timins noted the state of missouri is using called steady iq to validate wages and wealth. you cannot allow individuals to provide the information based

upon what they think. it has to be based on what you know. that will stop the ghosts from using people's identities to steal money from u.s. taxpayers. >> how much money do you calculate is wasted due to waste, fraud and abuse in the entitlement programs each year? >> my number right now between federal. state and local government. you can save $1 trillion a year by simply putting in front end identity verification. eliminating self-certification and monitoring the back end of the programs. those three things. >> are there others you feel like more low hanging fruit? >> i would start with those three things because they are simple, it will take the 20% fraud rate you see in the public sector down below 5%. >> i would suggest that we adopt mr. timins's legislation and get

that out of the committee as fast as possible. what actions also could congress take to fix these problems quickly? >> i think the first thing is updating and redoing the 1974 privacy act. that is virtually impossible to do data matching. it is very difficult to have data shared and when you look back at the pandemic, data sharing and data matching would have stopped probably 50% of the trillion dollars that was stolen from taxpayers. >> any of you all like to add anything to that? >> i would add that rather than accepting self-attesttation that states should have to be required to verify people's identities. here is the key part. before they get enrolled. they shouldn't get enrolled and then eventually come later on down the road. >> it's amazing to me.

i was at a doctor's appointment in knoxville. the verification is extensive. more so than the federal government requires for any of that. what type of computer systems are these agencies using and do they need updating? >> they are using very dated technology. but they are also burdened. i look at the usda. 6.2 million words in a 10,000 page document that shows how to implement the rules of the program. nobody can figure that out. one of the things that i think has to happen is the simplification of these processes and systems and then use the technology that we use every day in the private sector. >> thank you all so much for being here. >> gentleman's time is expire. i recognize the gentleman woman from texas. >> i will go ahead and pick up where you left off quickly.

just to be clear, the upgrades that you are talking about as relates to our data processes, these aren't things that would be free, are they? they would cost some kind of money. not looking for a number but they will cost, correct? >> some are free. some would cost money. >> i just want to leave it there because we've had a number of these hearings so i do want to be clear before the trump administration came in, this committee did exist in the form of the oversight committee and our task is to root out waste, fraud and abuse. in that vain, we had a number of hearings at least last term. i can't speak for any other term as i'm only one term and we dealt with improper payments. interestingly enough, our chairwoman who was so passionate about this today missed every single one of those improper payment hearings but just to be clear i was there so i don't want anyone to believe that

democrats just come to work and don't plan to do work. in fact, i'm trying to figure out exactly what it is that the republicans believe our job is. right now they have relinquished their constitutional duties over to an unelected bureaucracy crate. someone who no one went out to vote for and absolutely he is occupying the oval office as we saw yesterday. that is a first for me to see someone occupying the oval office who has never actually been elected to the oval office and answering more questions than the person that allegedly got elected. but for whatever reason this is the first time we're having a doge subcommittee hearing and that guy is not here and we have you all. i want to thank you for coming but it is interesting to me that in the first few days of doge existing we know that they are trying to get rid of the department of education, usaid, consumer financial protection

borough. laying off faa workers, cdc, fbi agents and talking about getting rid of fema and they brought you all in and i will say that i actually was shocked there was only one person that seemed like he was an overt trumper as you laid out your opening remarks because i anticipated that at least one of you would say yes, what elon is doing is exactly what we would prescribe. instead i will applaud you because you actually were focused. you talked about what the american people are looking for us to do. we've actually consistently on this side of the aisle promoted this idea of making investments into technology so that we can do things such as say look at the department of defense, the department of defense that takes up approximately 50% of our discretionary spending, approximately 50% goes to the

department of defense. that has not been able to pass an audit in the last six audits and we aren't talking about pennies. i understand that we want everything to be perfect and if we can get all waste, fraud and abuse out that will be fantastic. let's talk about the big numbers. they are on that side when we look at say our entire workforce, our federal workforce as we're trying to somehow fire all of them. they don't even make up a total of 5%. it's even less than that when we look at our budget. but let's talk about defense. that just happens to be the same side of the ledger that mr. musk gets the vast majority of his money from. in fact, at the same time that they were unlawfully. we will say that in court. on this side we believe-in-law and order. we believe in a number of us are actually lawyers but nevertheless we understand the constitution and we believe in that as well and so there are things such as you know, emotion

poundment because as mr. with itson said we need to return the power of the purse to congress. it never left. according to the constitution that's where it is at. now i know people are confused now but for whatever reason we had a guy that went in and you talk about people invading our data. listen, people said they were upset about tiktok. i'm upset about the guy that runs twitter who for sure is doing nefarious things. i don't understand if you are trying to conduct audits and figure out where the waste, fraud and abuse is why go to some tech guy. it was only techies that were sitting at inauguration. we didn't have auditors. i would welcome auditors to do forensic audits. he sat there in the oval office yesterday and he admitted that he was lying and he was using thinks propaganda machine to do it when he said that we sent millions of dollars to gaza for condoms. that was a lie. let me tell you something. >> the time has ex parts.

>> let's rein in this rogue actor. >> the time is expired. i recognize the gentleman from missouri. >> thank you, madam chair. i want to speak frankly at first to the american people. we are nearing $37 trillion in national debt. what does that mean? it means each and every u.s. taxpayer owes over $323,000, okay? what does that mean? it means when the epic rick -- the policy innovation center says we have 18 trial left to take out and we spend 2 trillion in debt every year folks, we're at the precipice of a debt -- like a debt cycle. we're literally at a point which the dollar will be worth nothing. what does that mean?

we know social security goes bankrupt in eight years, right? medicare goes bankrupt in ten years. and then 15 years from now the dollar is completely devalued and worth nothing. so what does that mean? it means your pension, the money in your banks, your savings is nothing. it is worthless. so what are we doing? we're trying to save this country. we're trying to save your pensions and your bank accounts and we're trying to save this country for the next generation and it would be nice if we had help. but instead we have people that are fighting us on this. i would hate to be in the democratic party right now. you are in a bad bind. having to defend all this crazy spending. all of this crazy -- >> harris: we have breaking news now. we have been watching monitoring while that hearing was going on on doge. we'll get right back to it.

but for now tulsi gabbard has enough votes to become the next director of national intelligence. this would be the 14th member confirmed of trump's choices for the cabinet is. six more to go. i understand that's the count we're working with. now let's go to senior congressional correspondent chad pergram on the hill. we're keeping tally here. what is happening on the floor? >> this is the roll call vote for tulsi gabbard to confirm her as the director of national intelligence. a couple weeks ago some people didn't think she would have the votes to be confirmed. what we're watching now if there are any republican nos, the one person to watch would be mitch mcconnell. republican senator from kentucky. we found out before the vote that john curtiss, the senator from utah was a yes but said in his statement that his vote for her was not quote pre-determined. this vote is open right now and

tulsi gabbard will be confirmed. before the roll call vote began you had schumer indicating he didn't think that any democrats would vote for this and proud of that and on the floor this morning you had john thune, republican leader saying that tulsi gabbard used to be a democrat. maybe she saw the error of her ways. after the roll call vote they'll vote to break a filibuster for rfk, jr. we expect democrats to run out the clock on him. they were originally planning to do this vote at 12:30 or 1:00 this morning. democrats would make them consume all this time when the vote would ripen for actual see and her confirmation. the reason they delayed it until today is because of the snowstorm. a big snowstorm here in washington, d.c. with anywhere 6 to ten inches of snow on capitol grounds here and they thought it might be hard to get people in and out of the capitol. sometimes when you are playing

with fire with these roll call votes you want to make sure that everybody is here. keep in mind they did not think this vote was in jeopardy if they had all republican senators here because jd vance broke the tie to confirm pete hegseth as the secretary of defense. jd vance had to break that tie. the second time in history it happened. he have is nowhere near the senate now. he is meeting with european leaders in paris, france here today. so again this will be the 14th confirmation of any nominees that president trump has sent to the hill. this will probably mean that this is a partisan vote. again we have to keep an eye here on mitch mcconnell. if all republicans vote yes. keep in mind before that 11 nominees have gotten democratic support but no democratic yays on this today. >> harris: no concern for vance to have to step in to break tie.

republicans have the votes for tulsi gabbard. you laid it out about mitch mcconnell. he won't be senator again. he is not flexing to get reelected. what would the point be to go against tulsi gabbard. what is the exact push point here? >> he has not made his announcement whether or not he would run again in 2026. again the bottom line he is not in the lead everyship. he voted against pete hegseth and if he were to vote. we don't know. he has kept close counsel on all these nominees. he voted yesterday i should point this out. he voted to break the filibuster, monday night i should say the break the filibuster on the nomination of gabbard to be the director of national intelligence. he didn't think that pete hegseth was equipped to be the defense secretary. i notice every time he votes for one of these nominees he says i am proud to support that person. but just because you vote for end that filibuster does not necessarily translate to a yes

vote. sometimes people might vote in the filibuster and sometimes might not support the nominee at the end of the day. >> harris: i appreciate that. he has been in the senate for so long i was just thinking -- >> 1984. >> harris: what would the reason be and why wouldn't we know it? we are watching now. she has enough votes to be our next director of national intelligence. chad pergram. great. good to have you. we're going back to something that turned out to be what we thought it would be. that was contentious, certainly informational and a good debate at a hearing about the department of government efficiency. at the center of it so far is one name, elon musk. let's go back live to the hearing on doge. >> federal workforce will this increase or decrease waste, fraud and abuse? >> thank you, delegate. i think it's pretty clear that chaos is not the friend of

efficiency. if you undermine the very functionality of the government you won't make it more efficient. you will make it worse. it will cost even more money to recoup or fix things that go wrong in the interim. again i mentioned earlier that if you care about waste, fraud and abuse, firing inspector generals doesn't add up. government being more efficient intentionally creating chaos is the opposite of that. >> well, do federal employees operate without oversight or rules and regulations? >> no, absolutely not. they are governed by plenty of rules and regulations. when there are independent inspector generals at the agencies they are supposed to be at they have a cop on the beat making sure they do so. >> i want to highlight some stories demonstrating exactly the kinds of federal workers the administration is trying to force out.

how about chris mark at the department of labor whose pioneering work on mine safety has reduced miners safety deaths from roof collapses to almost zero today, or gerad coopman at the internal revenue service who pioneered new methods for tracking criminal cybersecurity currency transactions that led to the rescue of 23 children from rape and assault, as well as the seizure of hundreds of millions of child abuse videos and 370 pedophile arrests? this work also prevented funding from going to terrorist groups or mr. walters who manages the

155 national cemeteries around the countries and tends to the resting places of almost 4 million veterans. these are just a few of the federal workers who serve americans every day. the workers are firefighters, border guards, doctors, nurses, food inspectors, air traffic controllers, and law enforcement that do their civic duty often despite the fact that they could make such more in the private sector. thank you and i yield back. >> the general lady yields. i yield to the gentleman from georgia, mr. jack. >> thank you very much, madam chair. i want to thank you for convening this hearing. i think it is incredibly important and thank our with it he witnesses for appearing for us today.

i too was once an employee of the executive president's i worked to trump's first and last day and saw firsthand how entrenched and resistant the federal bureaucracy was to his agenda. no surprise my democrat colleagues have continued that trend by using their time to bash elon musk instead of dusting ways to work together to advance a cornerstone of president trump's agenda. to finally eliminate fraud and abuse. i took count of the comments. i have 27 comments mentions of elon musk and three mentions of waste. i don't know if that's in fact the right count, encourage anybody to fact check me. it illustrates one of the problems we're facing, a lack of bipartisan effort to address these critical things. waste, fraud and abuse is something that should be

bipartisan. the chair noted that in opening remarks. you know how much i enjoy studying public opinion. i would like to enter into the record the cbs news poll from this weekend conducted february 5th-seven, 2025 and like to talk about two findsings. 70% of americans, democrats and republicans included, believe president trump is already doing the job that he was elected to do. which is interesting because i have an article from cnn from september of 2024 that notes trump says musk says he will lead doge commission so he is doing what he said he would do by empowering his administration to root out waste, fraud and abuse and what we're trying to do here today. i would like to note one interesting statistic from that. 62% of americans want democrats in congress to work with us to advance the priorities that president trump was elected to govern on. i think those are two stats i

hope everyone pays attention to. the ask questions of our witnesses. one of the things that i have found very interesting from your opening testimony you talked and i think you engaged on the 1974 privacy act. i had interesting folks visit my office yesterday noting 1/3 of all prior authorizations are done manually. first off would love your comments on that and like for you to expound on some solutions we can deliver to this congress in modern nuysing that 1974 privacy act. >> these are technology problems, not people problems. you can't process the number of individuals that are accessing our systems person by person. it takes too much time. so by updating the 1974 privacy act and allowing for digital matching, you would very quickly realize that a large portion of

the ppp loan funds were going to the wrong person. you would have been quickly able to match. i think the number was 20% were on the do not pay list. you can't expect people to do what a machine and especially a.i. can do today. >> fair enough. thank you very much for that. if i can also ask, i think we share a common interest which is to move departments and agencies outside of washington, d.c. something i campaigned on. something i helped president trump do in his first administration and i have to imagine if we have department and agencies outside of d.c. if we have a workforce that's more reflective of the balance that america is, we could potentially root out some of the waste, fraud and abuse by enabling other citizens of our country to help advance your issues. love your comments on that before my time expires. >> you are right. i think a, you would save a lot of taxpayer money. building the headquarters in

downtown d.c. versus huntsville, alabama you will save a lot of money. you will make life better for employees as well. a point also missed a lot. commute, inc. into d.c. being able to go somewhere else with a better cost of living might be better for folks. lastly, these areas where you set up a headquarters will be populated by people that live in the area to fill the rank and file of staff positions. so if you plant these federal agency headquarters in the heart of any area that's overwhelmingly one party or the other you will naturally get that sway versus something that's more representative of the people as a whole. >> thank you very much. witnesses mindful of my time and finish before my time expires of the yield back to our chairwoman. >> thank you. >> i would like to ask for consent to enter something into the record. >> what is it? >> it is a report from the congressional research service nonpartisan crs that lays out the rules and law for firing

inspectors general which look into waste, fraud and abuse. >> without objection. >> it requires for the law to be followed for congress to be notified with 30 days and a reason for firing inspectors general to give congress a chance to overrule that and that's the law. thank you for entering that into the record. >> without objection the materials mr. jack cited are also submitted for the record. i now recognize -- i would also like to ask for unanimous consent to submit for the record two items. one a statement from the afl-cio department of people who work for a living with views on working people to make the government work and the second is a statement from the center for responsibility and ethics in washington on ways to combat waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. >> without objection so ordered. i now recognize the general lady from new mexico.

>> thank you to all of our witnesses for being here to testify. thank you to my colleagues. we are going to have so much fun in this committee this congress. i actually appreciate the video that was shown a few moments ago because when i worked at the office of management and budget i worked on the waste e.o. referenced that president obama signed but there is one fundamental difference between the presidents and vice presidents that were shown on that video and what is happening today. that is that they followed the law. so my colleagues across the aisle who are asking us to get out of the way and stop trying to block things in the courts, let me tell you we do not work for an unelected billaire like this guy does. we work for the american people. if an unelected, unvetted individual private citizen is hacking our government systems

braking the law, firing federal employees, dismantling agencies, withholding funds, we're going to fight you in the courts. and i'm sad that my dear friend left because i want to talk about that gravy train on biscuit wheels he talked about. that gravy train is not the federal workforce. it is the billionaires that are trying to hack that system right now and which unfortunately my colleagues right now are working on a reconciliation deal to cut medicaid, to cut medicare and use that money to give to tax breaks to their billionaire buddies. that is the gravy train that is actually going on here. but because this is the oversight committee let's do a little bit of oversight. for the last several weeks i've been talking to treasury and omb officials to try to get to the bottom of why elon musk and his team are trying to hack the treasury payment system. because this is a completely nonpartisan system that

literally just pays the bills of the federal government. why are they so eager to hack this system? and i have to say that over the last several weeks we have literally received thousands of calls and every single congressional office. we know that our friends across the aisle are also receiving these calls because this system pays the bills of the u.s. government. it pays our soldiers. it pays for the work we do overseas, it pays your social security benefits. it pays your tax refunds. so why is elon musk and his hackers trying to access that system? and why did a senior civil servant who had overseen the system for over 30 years get asked to stand down after a 25-year-old intern working for elon musk tried to get access to the code for that system? thankfully they were shut down

in the court system but musk has installed with the president's blessing one of his silicon valley buddies who i want to point out which the media has not paid a lot of attention to is the ceo of a private i.t. company that was millions of dollars in i.t. contracts with the federal government. not only is he still operating as the installed doge person at treasury, he is actively still the ceo of this private company. how is that even legal? is it legal? i don't think it's legal. because the federal court is trying to shut this down. we also know that 25-year-old software engineer in violation of the court order was actually given access to modify the code. so what is going on here? why is this such a threat to the american people? why are thousands of people calling us? because of the size and significance of these payments,

because it is an invasion of the privacy and security of the american people. because it can threaten our ability as a country if there was a default in the debt ceiling and because it contains highly classified information that our foreign adversaries are trying to cyberattack us regularly for. so why is the private citizen being given access to this system? we know they are trying to shut down payment. trying to shut down agencies. what is next? are they going to shut down your social security payments? we don't know. because they have no oversight and elon musk will not come in front of this committee. in fact, the treasury folks are saying this is the biggest insider threat they've ever seen in the history of the agency. we are sounding the alarm and no matter how many executive orders donald trump signs or how many tweets the v.p. sends, you cannot rewrite the constitution and we are going to hold you to

account. i yield back. >> general lady yields. i now recognize -- >> i have three documents i want to submit for the record. the first document is the constitution article ii i would like to submit that for the record that clearly spells out the president's authority. i would also like to submit for the record u.s. code 3161, compensation of employees that spells out his authority to create doge. i want to submit the executive order that trump issued january 20, 2025, establishing doge officially. >> without objection so ordered. i recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. gill for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you for hosting this committee. if we've learned anything so far it is that republicans want to cut waste, fraud and abuse from our federal government and save taxpayer dollars. democrats want to grandstand and

play politics. we can see right now even of the six democrats on this committee only one can even be bothered to stay for the duration of this hearing. all we've heard about for most of this hearing from the other side of the aisle is elon musk, elon musk, elon musk, unelected bureaucrat. i would like to ask if democrats really care about unelected bureaucrats making decisions over our lives, where were they whenever their god anthony fauci was forcing vaccine and mask mandates on the american people for four years during the -- during the covid crisis? where were they when mayorkas was facilitating the invasion of our country by illegal aliens who were murder aring, raping and mileageing our people. where were they whenever the secretary of education, unelected targeted states and

schools and people who disagreed with his view of the radical left's transgender ideology? where were they when the former chairman of the scc was lawlessly thwarting the development of financial markets particularly in the crypto space by lawlessly pursuing regulation via enforcement? they were nowhere to be seen because they don't care. because all of those things benefited their side of the aisle at the expense of ours. perhaps that is also why they don't seem to be very interested in rooting out improper payments from our federal government. if you wonder why so many people are cynical about american politics, this is it. this is exactly why. the reality is that elon musk serves as an employee of the president and we were given a

massive mandate to carry out what he has been doing. his job is to carry out the will of the american people as expressed through the executive. that's exactly how the constitution is supposed to work. the constitution did not create an unelected, unaccountable fourth branch of government in the administrative state. the american people know this. my colleague brian jack discussed some of the opinion polls recently. we are doing and president trump is doing exactly what he was elected to do and that's why he is polling at a 53% approval rating, higher than he was at any point during his first administration. even elon musk and his doge efforts now are polling at a 49% approval rating which just to point out is 16 points higher than president biden was polling at whenever he finished his term in office.

the democrat party has for decades systematically grown and weaponizeed the administrative state against the american people and the american people have had enough of it. right now we're talking about $2.7 trillion in improper payments since 2003. we are uncovering what could be the biggest money laundering scandal in american history. and the other side of the aisle could care less. they have no concern about where this money went, to what entities it went. to what governments, what people or groups. nothing. all they want to talk about is elon musk incessantly. so it does make me wonder if they don't care where it is going, do they have an idea? what we've uncovered so far is so much of the waste, fraud and abuse of our federal government is actually funding their side of the aisle. it is funding media outlets

running cover for democrats routinely. the npr, pbs, bbc, "politico", going to fund left wing ngos facilitating the invasion of our country. going to fund left wing transgender activism and sex changes all over the globe. this is money that is being used, taken from the american people and used against their interests. if you care about rooting out waste, fraud and abuse we should be serious about this. i'm very excited to be on this committee. excited to expose what has been going on. thank you, i yield. >> in closing, i want to thank our witnesses again for their testimonies today. i now yield to the ranking member for closing remarks. >> thank you, madam chairwoman. well, i never thought so many conspiracy theories and wild

accusations could be wound into 15 minute speech. i appreciate my friends across the aisle. first of all let's talk about this massive mandate that supposedly brought donald trump into office. donald trump did not run on putting an unelected billionaire in charge of dismantling the federal government. he ran on lowering prices for americans and i think it's interesting that while we're sitting here this morning, the top of the "new york times" is reporting that inflation has risen unexpectedly as food and energy prices have soared. what's going on, guys? i thought you were going to tackle inflation and food and energy prices. isn't that what the executive orders were supposed to do? wait, dismantling waste, putting an ideological agenda and trying

to fire the federal workforce your actual agenda. have you been trying to address the fiscal health of this country? because the numbers are telling us that you have. so let's be real about what is going on here. while we've been sitting here for the last almost two hours getting lectured on fiscal responsibility, literally the republicans just released their plan to raise the debt limit while we were sitting here and they want to raise it by $4 trillion. okay, guys. literally i am like without words. inflation is going up, you want to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. you want to gut medicare, you want to gut medicaid, you are talking about going after social security after promising that you wouldn't. really, what the heck is going on here?

we aren't trying to take down elon musk as a businessman. this dude is breaking the law inside of the federal government and for a party that is supposed to be the party of law and order, in quotes, i really do not see you holding him accountable and doing your most basic constitutional responsibility in the separation of powers. so i want to end where i started. >> harris: oh my goodness. we are being schooled who somebody ran out of words and uses words my 18-year-old uses. the ranking member on the department of government efficiency. a look at that. they want to look at the war on waste now that republicans are pushing forward. this is one of the promises and visions of president trump. so we've stuck with this hearing for the better part of hour. let's start with republican

senator marsha blackburn of tennessee and senator, i laid it out harshly on there. she was just screaming about things we've heard so much like the name elon musk dozens of times it feels like. >> you know, harris, they are losing it. they have no game plan. they do not know what to do next so they are trying all of this unconstitutional crisis, you can't cut this, you can't do that. republicans are trying to get the fiscal house in order. democrats are saying let's spend it all and borrow more. that is what is happening. i am so grateful for the doge hearings and the work that we're doing and the work elon musk is doing bringing some sunlight to all of this so that we will be able to move forward with legislation, eliminate some of these positions, right size the federal government, right size

these agencies and cut what the federal government spends so that we can make certain we're a sovereign nation for our children and grandchildren. >> harris: i hadn't heard anybody put it that way. it's what this is about in terms of national security. the sovereignty that we have the ability to go forward with enough money to get the really important things done for our kids. right now what we're watching on the left side of the screen is the chairwoman marjorie taylor greene on the war on waste. earlier we had anticipated congresswoman jasmine crockett, a democrat, to have spicy words to say against this whole thing. we got it. she is the democrat from texas. here she is. >> i'm trying to figure out exactly what it is that the republicans believe our job is. right now they have relinquished their constitutional duties over to an unelected bureaucrat.

someone who no one went out to vote for and absolutely he is occupying the oval office as we saw yesterday. and that is a first for me to see someone occupying the oval office who has never actually been elected. >> harris: senator, this was more than a theme. representative brian jack, republican out of georgia, congressman jack said to his count 20 minutes or so there had been 27 mentions of locke musk and three mentions of waste. >> what the congresswoman doesn't want to recall is that for years we knew joe biden was not making the decisions and that there was someone behind the curtain at the white house. you had five or six people that were running the country by committee. but the democrats and mainstream media refused to report it.

they are so exercised. the democrats are so excised now because they know the american people want to see the federal government be held accountable, to be transparent, and to stop this out of control spending and harris, the great thing is we have all these people that are good federal employees who are coming forward and saying look over here, look over there. you need to watch what these people are doing. and i'm hearing it from tennesseans every day about whether it is the federal or the state government. >> harris: i want to get to this. breaking news to our coverage to the hearing today. rfk, jr. was facing a vote to move forward so everyone can vote on him for his confirmation if that happens. it looks like it will. for hhs. now, tulsi gabbard is in as the

director of national intelligence. tell me what it was like on the floor. mitch mcconnell, since 1984 said no to tulsi gabbard. >> 52-48 was the final total for tulsi. she is approved and going to be the dni. and we are getting ready and in the cloture vote now. i will go to the floor and vote aye for rfk to move forward for his final confirmation vote. we'll confirm him later today and we're so looking forward to having him take the reins at hhs and make america healthy again. >> harris: we have a minute left. so this is 14 and you have six more to go of people who need to be confirmed in president trump's government. are there any things that you anticipate down the road to keep that from happening? we have simultaneously so many

things going on around the world and you sit on every committee almost. >> yes, and we know that president donald trump has chosen such outstanding people for his cabinet. we are ahead of where the democrats were in approving biden's cabinet and on pace with the obama cabinet. we'll finish two or three more this week. we should in the next two weeks finish with the cabinet and move to the deputies and assistants. harris, you are going to see the golden age of america. you are going to see us cutting this federal government and you are going to see president donald trump sending power, authority and money back to the states and the people. that is the goal. it is happening. >> harris: i know you have to go vote or rfk, jr. to move it to a confirmation vote. thank you for being with me. "outnumbered" starts now