Steve Bannon said he doubts the Department of Government Efficiency can reach its lofty $1 trillion dollar cut target, and failure could fuel Democratic Party dissent.
Elon Musk, the maybe but also maybe not DOGE chief, set the objective during President Donald Trump’s Cabinet meeting last week, saying that he believes DOGE can save $4 billion per day every day from now through to the end of September. “We can do it, and we will do it,” he said.
But Bannon, speaking on his War Room podcast, waved away Musk’s suggestion and called on him to give a more realistic number. The former Trump White House adviser said if the tech billionaire doesn’t come up with a firm figure, it could fuel the Democratic party. “There’s going to have to be an indication, I’m just asking for a fist cut, I’m not going to hold you to the number,” he said.
“Is it $25 billion? $50 billion, is it $100 billion? Is it $10 billion? I really don’t care what the number is right now. What is the absolute number? Let’s drive a stake in the ground.”
Continuing frankly, and insisting it is “not a smear on DOGE,” the 71-year-old added: “I love what DOGE is attempting to do, but the waste, fraud, and abuse is not going to be $1 Trillion. It’s just not.”
He re-affirmed that “we’ve got to cut federal spending” but said he believes the numbers are going to “rapidly deteriorate.”
“And the Democrats are going to use that against President Trump,” he concluded.
Earlier in the segment, he said a grasp on where DOGE is truly at would be helpful. A dedicated DOGE savings website estimates that $105 billion has been saved so far. However, the number is difficult to verify beyond taking Musk and Trump’s word for it, as it is lagging behind on receipts to justify the number. DOGE math has been questioned, and the body even had to modify a claim it saved $16 billion in canceled contracts, later changing it to $9 billion.
“It would obviously help if we had our arms around where DOGE stands right now, where they really stand on the numbers, and we have to get to that number,” he said, clearly not buying the available figures.
Bannon said it’s important to have a verifiable figure before a vote on a “clean” continuing resolution (CR) that will fund the government through the end of the fiscal year. The March 14 funding deadline to avert a government shutdown is looming.
Trump has tasked Musk with finding $2 trillion in spending cuts through his task force. Bannon has been critical of Musk’s way of working. “Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant,” he told UnHerd last month. “He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions.”
Bannon also warned the Trump administration not to take a “meat ax” to Medicaid, which insures more than 70 million low income and disabled Americans. He sees the massive Defense Department budget as more suitable.
“DOGE is sitting there with the budget, but where the f--- are the DOGE cuts?“ he asked. ”We are 30 days away from approving a budget for the entire year with $2 trillion already baked in, and not one penny of anything that DOGE found. It’s ludicrous.”
