Tillis shouts at Vought, tired of picking up ‘DOGE s— because people did it wrong’

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GOP Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.) on Thursday lambasted Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought over, in his view, the shuttered Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) lack of accomplishments.

During a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing, Tillis asked Vought to name “one DOGE initiative” he could tout as an “exquisite realization of the value” the agency brought to the table.

When Vought began to talk about DOGE’s cuts to the federal workforce, Tillis interrupted and asked for specifics, adding he did not “want a world salad answer.”

DOGE, which President Trump launched and Elon Musk oversaw in the early months of the administration, officially ceased operations on July 4.

As of October, the fledgling agency estimated it saved $214 billion through asset sales; contract, lease and grant cancellations; fraud and improper payment deletion; savings on interest; programmatic changes; regulatory savings; and workforce reductions — amounting to $1,329 saved per taxpayer, according to a site tracking the national debt.

But in December, the executive director of the environmental nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said the Trump administration cost taxpayers an estimated $10 billion last year via its deferred resignation program, through which it offered federal workers full pay and benefits until they left the force by the end of September.

Nearly 140,000 employees agreed to leave the federal government through the program, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Tillis, who has frequently criticized the administration since announcing his impending retirement last year, repeatedly asked Vought to identify a worthwhile DOGE initiative.

After Vought referred to the congressional appropriations process, Tillis again cut in.

“I worked in the business world,” the North Carolina Republican said, noting the 50-year-old Vought has not worked in that realm since he graduated from George Washington University Law School in 2004.

“I love the idea of DOGE. But what I don’t love is the idea of DOGE s‑‑‑ that we’re picking up because people did it wrong,” the conservative lawmaker added, raising his voice.

“I spell it with a dollar sign by the way,” Tillis quipped, motioning to Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). The DOGE logo featured a gold dollar sign.

Tillis concluded his time by asking Vought to present him with a written consultation outlining which government agencies saved the most money thanks to DOGE, so he “can go back to North Carolina and explain” where the program succeeded.

“Because right now, I’m picking up a lot of bags of — people some of the most experienced people leaving, scientists leaving the NIH [National Institutes of Health], these random, ‘You were fired. Oh, I’m sorry, you weren’t. Wrong email address,’” he added.

“All that stuff is amateurish stuff that would have gotten me fired in my job at Pricewaterhouse in a week.”

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Donald Trump

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Russell Vought

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Thom Tillis

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