What Has DOGE Doled in Trump’s First 100 Days? Isn’t DOGE Failing to Feed the Doge?

The White House office that DOGe evolved from was given carte blanche to upend the executive branch in order to fight perceived waste, fraud and abuse.

NPR’s reporting over the first 100 days of the administration has found few similarities between the order spelled out by Trump and the one embedded across and beyond the executive branch.

Some agencies have many personnel associated with the doge, while others only have one or two. A small number of DOGE-linked staffers have been working at multiple federal agencies at the same time.

NPR’s reporting shows the contracts DOGE has terminated and spending it has frozen largely reflect policy disagreements with the Biden administration rather than waste, fraud or abuse. In some cases, DOGE targeted spending on the types of software modernization and efficiency efforts that its mandate claims to support. It eliminated 18F, a tech unit inside the General Services Administration that helped improve digital services across agencies, including developing the IRS’ free online tax-filing software.

The five contract Cancellations with the most claimed savings, accounting for over $7.5 billion in the DOGE tracker, are actually worth over $1 billion in potential savings. They include a contract that was never awarded, a contract that was already terminated and one that doesn’t look like it has been canceled at all.

Source: What has DOGE done in Trump’s first 100 days?

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that”: A lawsuit against the Trump administration and the General Services Administration over firings of probationary employees

One General Services Administration worker who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the administration was looking for cuts, even if it meant cutting staff and contracts.

Another Musk-driven initiative asked employees to send weekly emails to the Office of Personnel Management outlining five things they accomplished. Those emails sparked confusion among workers and Cabinet officials who gave conflicting guidance on whether their employees should comply. Musk and Trump provided no evidence to support their claim that the email was meant to identify federal workers who don’t actually exist.

A few months later, many of the workers were recently hired or promoted into new roles and should not have been targeted.

Some firings were so abrupt that agencies had to bring back people who were terminated. Other people saw the employees fired and then fired again.

The plaintiffs include some of the same unions and nonprofits that sued the Trump administration over its mass firing of probationary employees in the same federal court in San Francisco. In that case, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that OPM illegally directed six federal agencies to terminate recent hires and those newly promoted into new positions. More than 16,000 workers were ordered back to work by Alsup. The Supreme Court later vacated the reinstatement order but has not yet considered whether the firings were illegal.

Then there was the “fork in the road” resignation offer for federal employees to get paid through September without having to work, similar to a push Musk made after taking over Twitter. Some workers who accepted the offer have since been told that they can’t do it.

The Department of Agriculture employee, who spoke toNPR on condition of anonymity because of their fear of reprisal, was given the go-ahead to take the resignation offer and was supposed to go on leave on May 1. On Apr. 23, the employee received an email notifying them their job was considered “mission critical” and asking them to “reconsider their enrollment.” They still plan to resign.

“At this point, it’s their loss after firing [probationary employees], rehiring, uncertainty, mental anguish, being kept in the dark about decisions that affect your livelihood,” the employee said. “It isn’t fair to Americans because we will all feel the effects of agencies that can’t run effectively, but that’s not my fault. The decision makers are responsible for it.

At some agencies, workers say the number of people who are leaving, between firings, buyouts and early retirements, is affecting the government’s ability to provide services to the public.

An employee at the Internal Revenue Service spoke with NPR and said that people are dropping like flies when it comes to being able to retire. “That makes a lot of work for everyone else, especially since they can’t hire. So many people can’t do their jobs because of the lack of people.”

We think there are some people on the payroll who are dead and others that are not, which is probably why they can’t respond. Musk said in a February cabinet meeting that there are fictional individuals that are collecting paychecks.

Musk has not provided proof to support his claim that the Social Security system is plagued by fraud, and that benefits checks are going to people who are too old to be alive. His claims have been debunked by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general and its acting commissioner, Leland Dudek.

How Do Federal Employees Rejoin to Work in the Office? An NPR Analysis of DOGE’s Access to Data and Other Government Activities

However, even as the administration has demanded workers return to the office, it’s also looking to shrink the federal government’s real estate footprint by up to 25%, an NPR analysis found. Some federal employees have been told the offices they are assigned to work in may close in the near future – and some planned closures have been reversed after public outcry.

“The goal of remote work and telework was to bring down the taxpayer burden, to be more efficient,” said a Food and Drug Administration employee who asked to remain anonymous for retribution. There was insufficient space for the employee to work in. “This is not sustainable. They are going to have to get bigger spaces,” said the employee, who requested anonymity because they feared retribution for speaking publicly.

Many workers say their ability to do their jobs is also being stymied by a freeze on government-issued payment cards, which has disrupted their ability to buy supplies and services, book travel, and carry out statutorily mandated work. Long delays occur as a result of spending being approved by leadership at some agencies.

“We are literally jumping for joy over here in our local office because HQ/DOGE has approved our expenses to pump [a] vault toilet at one of our field offices,” said one worker at the Bureau of Land Management, who requested anonymity because they fear retaliation from the Trump administration. It took weeks to get approved when there was no problem before.

Do you have any information about DOGE’s access to data and other activities in the federal government? Stephen Fowler and Shannon Bond are both available to speak to on Signal. Please do not use a work device.

An NPR review of thousands of pages in federal lawsuits over DOGE’s actions found that there was an alarming pattern where the agency gave conflicting information about what data it had accessed, who had that access, and why.

Its data access is also being used to further the Trump administration’s immigration policies: The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that DOGE helped overhaul an immigration database to serve as “a single, reliable source for verifying non-citizen status nationwide.”

What is certain is that DOGE has already reshaped the federal workforce: More than 100,000 federal workers have been fired or taken buyouts to leave the civil service so far, though ongoing court battles mean that number is likely to change in the coming months. By the end of this fiscal year, 10% of the 2.5 million-person federal workforce could be gone.

The Doge of the Federal Government: How Do U.S. Governments Have Functioned in the 2024 Election? And How Do Do Federal Agency Reforms Have Been Made Possible?

“I’ll have to continue doing it for, I think, probably the remainder of the president’s term, just to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stop does not come roaring back, which will do if it has the chance,” he said.

When President Trump returned to the White House in January, he promised to “restore competence and effectiveness” to the federal government by establishing a Department of Government Efficiency.

There have been legal setbacks that led to the reversal or delay of many initiatives of DOGE. According to NPR’s reviews of district court dockets in the U.S., since January 20, more than 50 federal lawsuits have challenged DOGE’s activities or mentioned its actions.

Doge has delivered on its promises, but not in the way that it was promised.

Trump has touted these moves as restoring accountability. He has repeatedly argued that the American people, through the 2024 election, gave him a mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and inefficiency in the federal government.

Since the founding of the nation, federal courts have recognized that the federal agencies aren’t created by the President and that Congress has the power to do so, the argument claims.

Three months into this Administration, there can be no doubt that federal agencies are acting according to the direction that President Trump gives through OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, as well as the government efficiency team overseen by Musk.

The coalition of labor unions, nonprofits and local governments is challenging President Donald Trump’s sweeping changes to the federal government.

Yet Congress, which is led by Republican allies of Trump, has largely chosen to remain silent as the administration fires federal workers, shuts down government programs and closes federal buildings.