President Donald Trump has announced that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would audit the Pentagon’s spending.
Trump made the remarks during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House. The president told reporters that he has directed DOGE, which is led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, to probe spending at the Department of Education (DOE) and the Pentagon.
“We’re going to be looking at Department of Education. We’re going to be looking at even our military. We’re going to be looking at tremendous amounts of money, Peter, being spent on things that bear no relationship to anything and have no value,” Trump said in response to a question from Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy.
“We’re talking about trillions of dollars. It will be, in the end, trillions of dollars being absolutely wasted and perhaps illegally, I would say, certainly in many cases, illegally, but perhaps illegally overall,” he added.
Trump says DOGE will be “looking at” the Pentagon, Department of Education
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 7, 2025
Trump went on to praise the staffers at DOGE, most of whom are in their 20s and have little to no government experience — which is something that many Trump supporters see as refreshing, as they believe that the older generation and the long-term government bureaucrats have run the country poorly and allowed for the waste, fraud, and corruption that DOGE is attempting to eliminate.
“And I’m very proud of the job that this group of young people, generally young people, but very smart people, they’re doing,” Trump said. “They’re doing it at my insistence. It would be a lot easier not to do it, but we have to take some of these things apart to find the corruption. And we found tremendous corruption.”
Trump says he’s directed Elon Musk to review spending at the "Pentagon, Education, just about everything."
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 7, 2025
One reporter asked Trump a follow-up question about the issue, requesting that he confirm whether he had specifically directed Musk to audit the Pentagon’s spending.
“Yes I have, Pentagon, Education, just about everything,” Trump confirmed.
The news that Trump wants an audit of the Pentagon is unsurprising to anyone paying attention over the past few years, as the Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a row back in November 2024, reporting that it was unable to fully account for all of the $824 billion that the Department of Defense is allocated.
