Majority Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson vow to take DOGE spending cuts to the next level

The GOP's Hill leaders are signaling their eagerness to back up Elon Musk by turning DOGE spending cuts into real legislation. Musk's slash-and-burn cuts may be undone by the courts. But he's given congressional Republicans a blueprint for what's possible to cut. "I think that anything that DOGE does will be factored into what we do up here," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). Republicans need to do some serious unifying if they want to pass party-line spending cuts. Ten GOP senators and 34 House members voted in December against the government funding stopgap. But DOGE-inspired cuts might help get the House's rowdy Freedom Caucus and senators like Rand Paul (R-KY) to vote yes on some bills—as long as specific cuts don't create new GOP "no" votes.