Warren urges Trump to "abandon" DOGE's "inefficient and harmful" agenda

Washington — Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is urging President Trump to "reverse course" on the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to cut government spending and agencies, advocating instead that he implement her policy proposals to find savings, days after a split between Elon Musk and the president spilled into public view.

"Although Mr. Musk and DOGE have failed at achieving their purported savings goals, you could choose to end this government waste while avoiding dangerous cuts to important federal Programs," Warren wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump along with Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the House DOGE subcommittee. "You should learn from Elon Musk and DOGE's mistakes, end your attacks on critical federal programs, and instead act on these recommendations."

The Democrats penned a letter to Mr. Trump outlining "DOGE's failures," along with recommendations that they said would save the U.S. more than $2 trillion over 10 years. The letter, obtained exclusively by CBS News, follows a letter Warren wrote to Musk in January, outlining the 30 recommendations.

"Mr. Musk ignored these recommendations — but you could choose to reverse course, abandon Mr. Musk's inefficient and harmful DOGE actions, and instead carefully review and implement our policy proposals," the lawmakers wrote.

Musk initially pledged to cut $2 trillion of government spending, but later lowered the benchmark to $1 trillion. Ultimately, the White House said DOGE's efforts saved roughly $170 billion in spending. But that figure has been disputed, with a number of errors and miscalculations on the initiative's "wall of receipts." Musk said he expected the DOGE cuts would achieve the $1 trillion goal "over time."

Warren's suggestions include cracking down on prescription drug middlemen known as Pharmacy Benefit Managers; eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in federal charter school programs and ending support for-profit schools; reforming the estate tax exemption; negotiating better Defense Department contracts; and ending practices surrounding "unnecessary federal arrests."

"It is time to eliminate the real waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending, rather than ravaging programs that keep Americans safe, secure, and healthy just to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations," Warren and Stansbury said.

The letter comes after Musk's opposition to a massive budget bill central to enacting the president's agenda erupted into a dramatic and public feud between him and Mr. Trump last week. The spat marked a swift turnaround, coming one week after Mr. Trump gifted Musk a key to the White House as the world's richest man wrapped up his time in the federal government.

Despite the public blowup, administration officials told CBS News last week that there had been no efforts to oust officials who came from Musk's orbit. And the White House's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, praised DOGE's work in recent days, while expressing doubt that the feud would affect its continued efforts.

"Waste, fraud and abuse, unfortunately, is alive and well in America, and the DOGE folks here, they're good folks," Navarro told reporters at the White House Friday. "When you work with them and bring to them the institutional knowledge of how bureaucracies work and what's important in a bureaucracy and what's not, when you wed to that, it's a great thing. So, we're happy."

Musk expressed some remorse for the spat on X on Wednesday, after deleting some of the most inflammatory posts days earlier.

"I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week," Musk said. "They went too far."