Former WH Chief of Staff Mulvaney says Musk's DOGE will be 'most important' work of second Trump term
Mulvaney served as director of the White House Office of Budget and Management in Trump's first term
GOP sen says there's 'a lot of excitement' for DOGE: 'This will be what the voters want'
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., discusses Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk meeting with lawmakers to address government spending, President-elect Trump's latest administration picks and the GOP prioritizing the extension of Trump tax cuts.
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said that the work billionaire Elon Musk's DOGE will do may be the "most important" part of President-elect Trump's second term.
Musk and ex-GOP presidential candidate and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Though named for Musk's favorite memecoin, the Tesla and SpaceX chief insists his quasi-agency will reduce government waste and slash trillions from the federal deficit.
Mulvaney, who also served as Trump's director of the White House Office of Budget and Management, told Piers Morgan he wishes for Musk to succeed where he himself "failed miserably."
In an interview on "Piers Morgan Uncensored," Mulvaney said the American people re-elected Trump to "fix Washington," and that the effort led by Musk and Ramaswamy "might be the most important part."
MUSK, RAMASWAMY VISIT CAPITOL HILL TO DISCUSS TRUMP'S DOGE VISION FOR CUTTING GOVERNMENT WASTE
Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, on May 3, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
"I don’t think they can do much on their own. They don’t have a lot of statutory authority. I was the last person, by the way, who was in charge of government restructuring and I failed miserably because everybody was against me," he added. "The House, the Senate, even most of the agencies. I remember the secretary of defense was against the things the president wanted me to do."
When Morgan asked how Musk could overcome the difficulties he faced, Mulvaney answered, "First of all, Elon Musk is a lot smarter than I am."
ERNST VOWS TO WORK WITH DOGE TO REVERSE BIDEN ADMIN'S TELEWORK EXTENSION FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
President-elect Trump, left, and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 19. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images / Getty Images)
He went on to say that Musk has a "bigger footprint" and a "movement" behind his efforts to bring fiscal sanity to Washington.
"When I was doing it, I was doing it because I was looking at a government that had been created in the 1920s and said, ‘We have to fix it.’ It’s not very sexy, Piers," Mulvaney continued.
DOGE HIGHLIGHTS HOW MUCH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION COSTS US TAXPAYERS
GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, on Aug. 17, 2023. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / Getty Images)
"Vivek and I think Elon Musk have the ability to sort of make this a cause célèbre to the point where ordinary people are going to care what’s happening when they fix the government."
Musk and Ramaswamy paid a visit to Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to pitch their ideas to save taxpayers money.
They are wasting no time laying out their vision for slashing government bloat through DOGE. The pair penned an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal last month, explaining how the outside-government agency will operate to determine suggestions for cuts.
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The entrepreneurs have vowed to scrap entire government agencies through the DOGE initiative, which they intend to wrap up by July 4, 2026.
It remains to be seen whether their efforts will be taken seriously by lawmakers, or treated as suggestions to be ignored by appropriators.
FOX Business' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.