President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants his Cabinet secretaries to take the lead in efforts to scale back the federal workforce — and to use a scalpel rather than a hatchet in making cuts, suggesting a shift from the approach being taken by the Elon Musk-led DOGE effort.
“I want the Cabinet members to keep good people. I don’t want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He said he told his Cabinet to decide on cuts first and keep the people they need. “If they can cut, it’s better,” he said. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.”
Trump’s comments come after he held his second cabinet meeting earlier in the day, with Musk, who is not a Cabinet member, also in attendance — and after Musk met with Republican lawmakers on Wednesday and reportedly heard several call for him and his team to work more closely with Congress on making and codifying the cuts.
The Trump administration’s mass firings and the DOGE infiltration of federal agencies has sparked controversy and concerns that the effort to downsize the government has cut too deep or too indiscriminately — that following the Silicon Valley mantra of “move fast and break things” doesn’t work for essential government programs.
Musk may have proudly wielded a chainsaw recently, but Trump on Thursday indicated he wants a bit more precision in making federal job cuts. In a social media post, he wrote that “DOGE has been an incredible success” but added that he has instructed his team to work with DOGE and get more involved in decision-making. “As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet,’” he wrote. “It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people. We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done.”
Trump preparing order to dismantle Education Department: Even as Trump talks about a seemingly more judicious approach to federal job cuts, White House officials have reportedly prepared an executive order to start the process of dismantling the Department of Education, which was created by Congress in 1979.
A draft of the Trump order reportedly instructs McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department” in accordance with “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” Shuttering the department would also require an act of Congress, as newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon has acknowledged.
Trump said recently that he wants McMahon to put herself out of a job. He reportedly wants Congress to eliminate her department via legislation.
“The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars—and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support—has failed our children, our teachers, and our families,” the White House draft order reads, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Any move to close the department would undoubtedly be met with legal challenges, as the American Federation of Teachers has pledged to fight any effort to slash funding for states and students.
“The Department of Education, and the laws it is supposed to execute, has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed. Trying to abolish it—which, by the way, only Congress can do—sends a message that the president doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the union. “Any attempt by the Trump administration or Congress to gut these programs would be a grave mistake, and we will fight them tooth and nail.”