President Donald Trump announced Friday that his administration is fully committed to making permanent the deep federal spending cuts identified by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a Trump-era innovation credited with slashing bureaucratic waste.

Though some conservatives have questioned the administration’s initial $9.4 billion rescissions proposal, Trump assured the American people that the bulk of the cost-saving measures — totaling well over $157 billion — will be enacted in phases.

“We’re totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent,” the president said during a press conference in the Oval Office. “Most of it is going to come later.”

Trump made the pledge alongside Musk, whose tenure as a special government employee officially came to a close. The president commended Musk for his contributions in rooting out unnecessary and often politically driven federal spending, calling his work "remarkable."

Among the cuts included in the $9.4 billion rescissions package are significant reductions to foreign aid, as well as taxpayer subsidies for progressive media outlets like NPR and PBS — long criticized by conservatives as vehicles for left-wing messaging.

According to the White House, the proposal will be formally submitted to Congress next week.

President Trump highlighted specific examples of DOGE’s findings, pointing to $101 million in canceled diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) contracts at the Department of Education, $59 million previously allocated to house illegal immigrants in New York City hotels, and a $45 million cut to taxpayer-funded DEI scholarships in Burma.

“They canceled $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education, and that was just a small section of the Department of Education, $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City. And the landlord never made the kind of money that he made in the last short period of time,” Trump explained to reporters.

“In Burma, does anyone know about Burma?” Trump asked rhetorically, before elaborating on the misuse of American tax dollars abroad.

These cuts, the president noted, are only the beginning. The White House also backed a sweeping spending reform package — described by Trump as a “big, beautiful bill” — that passed the House and is now headed to the Senate. According to The Washington Times, that legislation includes additional cuts and structural reforms targeting government inefficiency.

“We want to get our great, big, beautiful bill finished and done,” Trump said. “We put some of this into the bill, but most of it’s going to come later. … It’s hundreds of billions of dollars.”

But not everyone on Capitol Hill is playing ball. House Speaker Mike Johnson sounded the alarm this week, warning that several Republican senators might try to weaken the legislation by stripping out key provisions essential to Trump’s America First agenda.

Appearing on CBS’s Face The Nation, Speaker Johnson pushed back against leftist disinformation — specifically the false narrative that the legislation would slash Medicaid.

“We have not cut Medicaid, and we have not cut SNAP,” Johnson told anchor Margaret Brennan. “What we’re doing, Margaret, is working on fraud, waste and abuse. And everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that that’s a responsibility of Congress.”

Johnson pointed to shocking statistics, revealing that approximately 1.4 million illegal aliens are currently receiving Medicaid benefits — a program intended to serve vulnerable American citizens, including the elderly, the disabled, and low-income expectant mothers.

“Right now, they’re being drained by fraud, waste and abuse,” he said.

The Speaker also highlighted the moral imperative behind reforms requiring able-bodied adults to contribute to society.

“You’ve got about 4.8 million people on Medicaid right now nationwide who are able-bodied workers, young men, for example, who are not working, who are taking advantage of the system,” Johnson said. “If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system. You’re cheating the system. And no one in the country believes that that’s right.”

“There’s a moral component to what we’re doing. And when you make young men work, it’s good for them, it’s good for their dignity,” he added.

Johnson emphasized that the work requirement is minimal — just 20 hours per week — and will ultimately strengthen the system by curbing dependency and restoring integrity.

As the Senate prepares to take up the Trump-backed legislation, all eyes are on whether establishment Republicans will stand with the president in his mission to root out government bloat and restore fiscal sanity to Washington.