Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., accused President Donald Trump of deliberately weakening federal agencies and then using the resulting dysfunction to justify further cuts. Warren’s post on X did not link to a specific article but referenced the administration’s ongoing restructuring of the federal workforce.
Warren: “We Can’t Let Him Get Away With It”
“Trump is tearing the government apart — then pointing to the wreckage and saying, ‘See? The government doesn’t work,'” Warren wrote. “That’s like setting a house on fire and blaming the house. We can’t let him get away with it.”
White House Directed a 4-to-1 Hiring Ratio Starting in February 2025
Warren’s comments reference a series of policies the administration has pursued since taking office. A Feb. 11, 2025, executive order established the “Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative,” directing agencies to hire no more than one employee for every four who departed and instructing agencies to prepare for reductions in force targeting positions not required by statute.
GAO Found Federal Workforce Fell by Nearly 256,000 Employees
A Government Accountability Office report published in June 2026 found the federal government’s 22 largest agencies lost a net total of nearly 256,000 employees — more than 11% of their combined workforce — between December 2024 and January 2026, driven by roughly 378,000 separations, many through the administration’s deferred resignation program, against about 127,000 new hires.
White House Says Reforms Saved $215 Billion and Cut Workforce to 1966 Levels
The White House said in a June fact sheet that the changes had reduced the federal workforce to its lowest level since 1966 and, in a Sept. 9 release, credited the broader Department of Government Efficiency effort with an estimated $215 billion in taxpayer savings.
Independent GAO Audit Found Much of the Claimed Savings Could Not Be Verified
A separate GAO audit released Aug. 6 examined $110.3 billion of DOGE’s claimed savings from contract, grant and lease terminations — a portion of the broader $215 billion figure — and found “several issues limiting the transparency and reliability” of the reported numbers. GAO found DOGE did not use its own stated methodology to calculate the majority of contract savings, could not provide sufficient information to verify 96% of claimed grant savings, and had claimed credit for 108 of 264 lease terminations that were already underway before DOGE was created. Auditors also found no termination action had been taken on 2,503 of 13,476 contracts DOGE listed as terminated. DOGE did not respond to GAO’s requests for information or interviews, according to the report, which recommended the agency’s public “Wall of Receipts” more clearly disclose these limitations.
GAO Found DOGE Claimed $1.7 Billion From a Military Hospital IT Contract Never Actually Canceled
Among the specific cases GAO examined was a Defense Health Agency contract providing IT services to more than 700 military treatment facilities worldwide. DOGE’s public “Wall of Receipts” credited itself with $1.76 billion in savings from terminating the contract, but GAO found the contract was never terminated, no work was removed, its scope and value were unchanged, and no funds were ever deobligated. According to GAO, Pentagon program officials met with DOGE, discussed the contract’s purpose, and DOGE agreed no termination action would be taken — yet the $1.76 billion figure remained publicly listed as savings. The Department of the Air Force and the Defense Health Agency represented the two largest categories of Pentagon contract savings DOGE claimed, according to GAO’s review of federal procurement records. Military Times reported that the Defense Health Agency and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on the discrepancy.
VA Also Briefly Moved to Cut Contracts Tied to Veterans’ Cancer and Toxic Exposure Care
Separately, the Department of Veterans Affairs moved in 2025 to cancel roughly 875 contracts as part of the same cost-cutting push, before reversing course within a day after lawmakers and veterans’ organizations raised concerns. Internal VA communications reviewed by reporters showed the targeted contracts included services related to assessing veterans’ exposure to toxic materials, cancer treatment support and disability rating reviews, despite public statements from then-VA Secretary Doug Collins describing the cuts as eliminating consultants who made “PowerPoint slides.” A VA spokesperson said afterward that the review remained “ongoing and not final” and that no benefits or services to veterans would be eliminated.
Senate Democrat Called DOGE “a Slapdash and Deceptive Effort”
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who requested the GAO review, said in a statement that “everyone supports rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, but DOGE was a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American people while doing real damage to the government’s ability to serve them.”
Warren Has Focused Particular Attention on Cuts to the Consumer Bureau She Founded
Warren has repeatedly highlighted the administration’s effort to scale back the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she helped establish. At the request of Warren, Sen. Andy Kim and Rep. Maxine Waters, GAO released an initial report examining the administration’s reorganization efforts at the bureau.
Administration Has Also Reclassified Thousands of Career Positions
Beyond workforce reductions, the administration’s policies have included reclassifying certain senior career civil service positions under a “Schedule Policy/Career” designation that removes traditional job protections, making affected employees easier to remove, according to the White House’s own June fact sheet describing the changes as part of a broader effort to increase “accountability” in the federal workforce.
OPM Says Reforms Reflect a More “Accountable and Effective” Federal Workforce
The Office of Personnel Management has defended the changes in similar terms, saying in a news release that the administration has “delivered a more accountable and effective federal workforce” through the deferred resignation program and stricter hiring discipline.
Debate Reflects Broader Disagreement Over Cause and Effect of Agency Problems
The dispute over the workforce reductions largely turns on a causal question that GAO’s reports do not resolve: whether reported difficulties at affected agencies stem primarily from the pace and scale of the cuts, as Warren and other Democrats argue, or reflect legitimate elimination of waste and non-essential functions, as the administration contends. GAO’s own reporting has focused on verifying specific savings claims rather than assessing broader agency performance impacts.
Warren Serves on Senate Banking and Armed Services Committees
Warren, a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, has used her committee positions throughout Trump’s second term to press for oversight of the administration’s restructuring efforts across multiple federal agencies.