Trump’s government -efficiency drive turns attention to defense spending

10th February (UPI) – President Donald Trump turned the view of defense expenses and said his government efficiency Czar Elon Musk would cut billions in waste and irregularities from the Defense Department’s budget of $ 850 billion, or more than $ 1.1 trillion including veterans’ expenses.

“Let’s check out the military. We’ll find billions, hundreds of billions of fraud and abuse. You know the people chose me on it,” Trump told Fox News In a pre-Super-Bowl interview Sunday.

Trump said he would instruct Musk to assess the Department of Education for possible cuts and reforms, and then the military would be next in line.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegeth said he greeted control of his department’s expenses of interest in gaining value to US taxpayers.

“We know in a world where America’s 37 trillion dollars in debt, resources will not be unlimited, so every dollar we can find that is not used wisely is one we can put against a warfare, so we welcome DOGE To Dod, “Hegeth said.

“The president is right. He sets the pace, and he’s also right that US taxpayers deserve to know exactly how and where their money is used. The fact that I have to commit to an audit performed on four years, is bad enough.

“We need to know when we are using dollars, we need to know where to go and why the simple accounts and it has not existed on the Ministry of Defense. We will solve it.”

Trump’s comments came in the midst of an escalating power struggle over the extent of Doges jurisdiction, which, because it is unofficial, is not subject to supervision outside the administration itself, with a number of legal challenges mounted in the federal court in an attempt to empty musk And his team.

US district judge Paul Engelmayer blocked Saturday Temporarily DODE’S Access to payment systems for the Ministry of Finance Contains personal financial data about millions of US citizens and ordered Musk and his team to destroy or delete copies they may have right away.

The case against Trump and Finance Minister Scott Bessent in the southern district of New York was brought by attorneys’ attorneys from 19 democratic states, who argued for Dog’s actions, represented a “unique security risk” to states and residents whose data was held in the system.

Engelmayer gave benefit to the plaintiffs on the basis that they were likely to be successful in proving that access to the payment systems was not legal, and that sudden changes imposed by the Trump administration risked the reveal of sensitive data and the vulnerable system to be hacked.

The judge blocked all accessible “officials with a need for access … who have passed all background checks and security preparations and all information security training” required by laws and regulations “through February 14, and ordered Bessent to respond at that time.

A federal judge in Washington had previously ordered a block of two key musk allies embedded in the Treasury.

Friday issued a federal judge an emergency situations Blocking the Trump administration from cutting the US Agency for International Development Force to less than 300 significant staff, placing the other 2,200 on administrative leave from midnight Friday.

The case brought by two unions representing USAID staff also won a seven-day stay of an order that required US staff in the agency abroad to return to the United States within 30 days or risk losing, that the government pays their relocation costs.

The ruling quotes the “irreparable damage” to which the workers would be exposed by the original order.