Since the House Freedom Caucus was founded in 2015, it has bedeviled a succession of Republican speakers, from John Boehner to Paul Ryan to Kevin McCarthy to current gavel-wielder Mike Johnson.
With Republicans holding a slim 218-214 House majority through the end of March, the Freedom Caucus has more influence than ever — and could trip up President Trump‘s agenda before it even has a chance to make its way through Congress.
But Trump — and, by extension, Johnson — has a new ally in the usual Republican intramural sniping: the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose bull-in-a-china shop approach to shrinking government is helping GOP fiscal hawks get on board.
“I think that’s an important part of it,” Chip Roy (R-Texas) told The Post this week when asked about DOGE’s burnishing the administration’s credibility on spending cuts.
“DOGE is basically right now a great big magnifying glass … I think that’s step one of many.”
Roy is one of the most prominent fiscal hawks among House Republicans, reluctantly voting to approve a blueprint for Trump’s agenda package last week despite calling the proposed spending cuts “weak.”
Recently, Roy signaled openness to doing something almost unthinkable for him — support a continuing resolution (CR) needed to avert a partial government shutdown at 11:59 p.m. March 14, on the theory that Republicans will work to codify DOGE’s savings during the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process.
In both cases, Roy noted the work that’s been done by the controversial executive branch agency. And he’s not alone in doing so.
“The bottom line is that DOGE has made it pretty clear that what we’ve been saying all along is pretty true,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.).
“We need a closer look at every single dollar that the federal government spends.”
Like Roy, Harris has signaled support for the stopgap CR measure, suggesting that if GOP leadership is forced to court Democrats to keep the government lights on, “it will cost us tens of billions of dollars.”
During Trump’s annual presidential address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, he drew thunderous applause by touting some of DOGE’s savings — but not every Republican is impressed.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), the sole House GOP vote against the Trump agenda blueprint last month and a lawmaker who prides himself in opposing CRs, has indicated he wants to go further.
“Congress just stood up and applauded DOGE for exposed wasteful and fraudulent programs that Congress itself funded… and plans to fund in the coming CR,” Massie groused on X, after Trump’s speech.
Roy, who is often aligned with Massie on fiscal matters, argued that leadership’s request for more time to codify the DOGE cuts makes sense.
“It takes a little time to get them organized [and] identified. And we’re not going to have that all ready [in time],” Roy explained.
When last week’s budget blueprint vote — needed to start drafting a massive package on tax cuts, border security, bolstered defense and revamped energy policy — came down to the wire, Massie was joined in holding out by Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.).
While Massie stuck to his guns and voted “no,” Spartz went the other way after a protracted conversation with Trump.
“DOGE is important for the American people to bring transparency and show how bad things are,” Spartz said. “Ultimately, Congress has to put all these things in the code.”
“What Elon [Musk] does that I don’t have an ability [to do] is…bring it to [330] million Americans to see,” she added. “That will help us to move our swamp, which is quite swampy — the United States Congress.”
On the other side of the House GOP spectrum, there are lawmakers who think Musk needs to take a more careful approach.
“I think DOGE has done a good job overall, but in some ways, they’ve acted a little too fast and we saw some unintended consequences — one of them being the 9/11 program,” said Staten Island and Brooklyn Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY).
Last month, the White House stepped in to reverse a roughly 20% cut to staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program following an outcry from Malliotakis and other NYC-area lawmakers.
“Those are types of unintended consequences we would like to avoid going forward,” she added. “Let’s cut with a scalpel and not with a sledgehammer. But there’s been tremendous savings. And obviously they have exposed so much waste.”
Several Republicans, such as Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) have faced blowback from constituents at in-person town hall meetings over DOGE’s antics.
While Trump and his strongest supporters are foursquare behind Musk and DOGE, House GOP leadership has privately urged lawmakers to hold more virtual town halls, which are less likely to feature made-for-media demonstrations.
“What we’re seeing at these town halls is not authentic,” Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) alleged. “Ultimately, when I look at what that pushback is, I would equate it to a wounded animal that’s trying to defend itself.
“Democrats are doubling down on business as usual. I think they’re pretty tone deaf to where the majority of the country is.”
The toughest battles for Trump and Johnson lie ahead.
Assuming a partial shutdown is avoided next week, they still need to get hardliners and moderates to coalesce around Trump’s agenda package when the legislation is finally finished being drafted.
Then, when lawmakers return from their August recess, they will set about trying to fund the government through an omnibus package of 12 spending bills — bills which haven’t passed Congress on time in almost three decades.
