Take it from a former DOGE employee: Donald Trump isn’t fighting fraud and abuse, just threatening hard-earned benefits and scrambling to rehire critical federal workers that he fired. While Trump and Elon Musk air out their messy breakup, new reporting shows that their reckless agenda canceled critical Veterans Affairs contracts, including those to develop better cancer treatments and improve care provided by nurses. The reality is that their record of so-called “savings” is actually a scam filled with misinformation, mistakes, and inflated numbers. 

Donald Trump and Elon Musk lied about uncovering fraud and abuse in government spending, according to a former DOGE engineer who wrote error-ridden code to slash Veterans Affairs contracts. 

NPR: “A former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency says that he found that the federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were ‘relatively nonexistent’ during his short time embedded within the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

ProPublica: “DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to ‘Munch’ Veterans Affairs Contracts”

“As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veteran Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them. …

“The DOGE AI tool flagged more than 2,000 contracts for ‘munching.’ It’s unclear how many have been or are on track to be canceled — the Trump administration’s decisions on VA contracts have largely been a black box. The VA uses contractors for many reasons, including to support hospitals, research and other services aimed at caring for ailing veterans.

“VA officials have said they’ve killed nearly 600 contracts overall. … We identified at least two dozen on the DOGE list that have been cancelled so far. Among the cancelled contracts was one to maintain a gene sequencing device used to develop better cancer treatments. Another was for a blood sample analysis in support of a VA research project. Another was to provide additional tools to measure and improve the care nurses provide.”

REMINDER: Musk repeatedly inflated DOGE’s “receipts” about actual savings and efficiency. 

CBS: “DOGE continues to publish misleading or inaccurate claims on its ‘Wall of Receipts’”

“According to the running tally on its website, DOGE claims it has saved American taxpayers a total of $170 billion. However, only $70.9 billion is itemized, and many of those entries continue to raise serious doubts about their accuracy.”

New York Times: “DOGE’s Only Public Ledger Is Riddled With Mistakes”

“[T]he math that could back up those checks is marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes, according to a New York Times analysis of all the contracts listed … its slapdash accounting adds to a pattern of recklessness by the group, which has recently gained access to sensitive government payment systems.”

New York Times: “Struggling With Errors, DOGE Deletes Billions More From List of Savings”

“Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has deleted hundreds more claims from its mistake-plagued ‘wall of receipts,’ erasing $4 billion in additional savings that the group said it had made for U.S. taxpayers.

“Late Sunday night, the group erased or altered more than 1,000 contracts it had claimed to cancel, representing more than 40 percent of all the contracts listed on its site last week. The deleted items included five of the seven largest savings that it had claimed credit for just last week. At the same time, the group added about 1,000 additional canceled contracts, worth smaller total savings.”

Trump’s disastrous agenda of mass firings and funding cuts has already hit millions of Americans, including veterans, rural communities, and small businesses. 

Federal News Network: “VA employees who work on the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) say the hiring freeze has affected the hiring of support staff.” 

Washington Examiner: “VA layoffs spark concerns about veterans’ care: ‘This could be life or death’”

“The employee explained many of the calls they already receive from distressed veterans have to do with roadblocks regarding receiving their benefits.

“‘A lot of these calls — they are calling because of their claims not going through, their claim getting denied. They just got bumped down from 50% to 10% or being worried about their SNAP benefits being cut or reduced,’ the person explained.”

Wall Street Journal: “[T]he wide slashing has worsened services Americans receive and hindered remaining staff working on areas like improving healthcare and lowering energy bills. … In many parts of the country, the Trump administration’s job cuts have hit services and constituencies that Trump pledged to protect.”

Axios: “DOGE is taking its wrecking ball to the Social Security Administration, the agency responsible for overseeing retirement and disability benefits for 73 million Americans. …

“The agency announced last month it seeks to cut about 7,000 employees, or 12% of staff, through voluntary resignations and a reduction-in-force plan due Thursday.”

CNN: “Trump’s Monday order also took aim at ‘environmental justice’ — eliminating positions and assessing spending on projects, including those aimed at poor, rural communities.” 

Politico: “Those cuts included officials working on Medicare and Medicaid initiatives aimed at improving care for beneficiaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and at the CMS office that oversees Obamacare, as well as officials at the FDA offices that regulate prescription drugs and medical devices.”

Washington Post: “Layoffs hit contractors and small businesses as Trump cuts take effect”

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