WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) praised President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for their work to root out fraud and put an end to the federal government’s frivolous spending of taxpayer dollars and called out the media for spreading falsehoods about DOGE’s efforts. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.

“Right now the U.S. national debt—that’s like our credit card—sits at over $36.4 trillion.”

“Washington, D.C. is addicted to spending and has been for a long, long time, and we have no responsible choice but to address it. So I’m glad that Mr. Musk and his team have stepped up, and while DOGE may not erase that national debt overnight, they are certainly highlighting the problems that those taxpayer expenditures present.”

“There are many in Washington who want nothing to change. I think we saw some of them last night sitting on their hands during the President’s… speech.”

“Some in the media have created, for their own reasons, misperceptions that Mr. Musk and his team are going in and making personnel and financial decisions on their own or forcing these decisions on the respective agencies that they are researching, but that’s simply false.”

“The reality on the ground is that DOGE employees are reviewing systems, processes, data, personnel, and making recommendations to the agency heads. Then the agency head, in most cases a cabinet member appointed by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate, is the one with the authority to make those discretionary calls.”

“To have someone like Elon Musk and DOGE come in and shake things up is just exactly what Washington needs.”

“We know there’s always been waste, fraud, and abuse within the government, but it does not have to be that way.”

“I support the efforts that the Department of Government Efficiency are undertaking, and I look forward to continuing to work with Mr. Musk and President Trump as a member of the Senate Caucus for DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, so that we can get our nation’s fiscal trajectory back on track. It’s absolutely essential that we do so.”