Roundup: DOGE's Power Checked; Vance's Role Evolves

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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon.
I cover politics. I'm Stephen Fowler.
I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
It's time for the weekly roundup. We're starting with the Trump administration's continuing efforts to reshape the federal government through the entity known as DOGE.
Stephen, you've been covering DOGE very closely. DOGE is claiming to have saved taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars already, but your analysis shows it's less than what they're claiming.
Just walk us through that. Right.
So the doge.gov savings page lists a wall of receipts that's only a few of the things that they've done to save money. They have this top line number that they claim.
As of right now, it's about $105 billion that they say that they've saved through things like firing workers and terminating contracts and decreasing regulations and other things. We can't verify that number, but we can look at these receipts.
And I've been tracking the contracts that Doge says agencies have canceled and terminated and saved a bunch of money for. It turns out that number is also inflated because Doge is doing things like counting things that are known as blanket purchase agreements, which act as a line of credit.
So like canceling it doesn't actually save you any money. They've done things like double and triple count things.
So all of that to say is that the actual quote unquote savings that Doge has done by canceling all of these things is a fraction of what they have claimed. It's also a fraction of what the federal government spends and raises each fiscal year.
And so we're really talking about pocket change compared to the trillions of dollars that Congress handles. Lots swirling around, lots of claims from Doge.
One thing that happened this week was the government published and then deleted a list of government real estate holdings it was purportedly looking to sell. How does that fall in line with Doge's larger goals? Well, in addition to the contract, Sarah, there's also been lease terminations that Doge is sharing receipts of.
Those are buildings that the government leases and rents out to do things like have Social Security offices or Bureau of Indian Affairs health offices or the IRS taxpayer assistance offices. They have been canceling a lot of those left and right, and we're still looking at all of those receipts to see what has been canceled and not.
But on the other side, the government owns a lot of big buildings, and the General Services Administration posted a list to say, hey, we've identified a bunch of buildings that we think are not core to government operations. And looking at that list, it included things like the Justice Department building, the Department of Agriculture's headquarters, and a bunch of other huge government buildings in Washington and across the country.
And then that list got pared down, and then that list got deleted altogether. And so at the practical level, we still don't know what government buildings might be sold, who might buy them.
And at the bigger picture level, Sarah, it's just another example of this fast-moving DOGE effort that does a lot of things and then quietly revises things when people point out errors and mistakes. I mean, Stephen, do we know how much DOGE is costing the government? We don't.
Part of it is because DOGE is inside of the executive office of the president in the White House, so we can't file Freedom of Information Act requests for C things, and there's no public accounting. Also, some people like Musk are special government employees, and they don't necessarily get paid any money from the budget, so there's no salary list of things to go through.
But there are things like litigation costs for contracts.

We know that some of the savings have been revised down because when you actually terminate or close out the contract, you still have to pay some of the money.

And Stephen, you made another important point earlier, which is that all of this, whether it's cutting jobs, selling off buildings, terminating leases, that can only save so much money because that is just a small portion relatively of the government's overall budget. What, if anything, can Doge do about really the biggest expenditures for the government, things like entitlements, defense? Well, Doge itself can't actually do anything about those things.
And really, a lot of the other things they've done, there's the argument people make that it should all be handled by Congress. Congress is the one that does the budget.
Congress is the one that has to do a spending plan next week to keep the government open. And when we are talking about the scope and scale, the amount of money that the federal government spends on salaries is a fraction of what it spends on things like Social Security, Medicare, national defense.
So there is a big part of the federal budget that can't be done by Musk and his team. You know, there have been lots of questions about who's really in charge here.
Questions from agency heads about how much authority they have versus Elon Musk and Doge's power to hire and fire. President Trump said in a cabinet meeting this week that Musk isn't in charge.
But what do we know about the reality of the situation? In that meeting, Trump said that he told agency heads that they're the ones in charge of figuring out who stays or goes at their agencies. He said, I don't want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut.
I want the cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren't doing a good job, that are unreliable, that don't show up to work, etc. Those people can be cut.
And then he added, if they can cut, it's better. And if they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting.
And so in some ways, that does make a distinction from how Musk and Doge and Trump have kind of explained things in the past few weeks of the administration. It puts more of the onus on agency heads to run their agency instead of this nebulous Doge entity.
But in other ways, it just adds more confusion because Trump has said that Musk is the one in charge of restructuring. There are lawsuits about Musk being in charge of restructuring and saying that he's leading things and that he's the deciding factor in all of these cuts and slashes and reductions.
So for all intents and purposes, you won't find very many people who disagree that Musk is overseeing Doge, whatever that means. You know, I think Trump saying the scalpel, not the hatchet approach is just Trump seeing the politics on the horizon and what people are already complaining about in the Republican conference about what they see as sort of arbitrary cuts across the board and then seeing hundreds, if not thousands of people then giving their jobs back.
So Trump is trying to hit a reset a little bit on the politics and be able to avoid any of the potential political consequences for himself. Well, Stephen, thanks for being here.
Thanks for all of your good reporting. Thank you.
It's time for a break. We'll have more in just a moment.
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And we're back with NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Hey, Franco.
Hi there. You have been reporting on the evolving role of Vice President J.D.
Vance that he's playing in the Trump administration. What's different about Vance versus other past VPs? Yeah, I mean, certainly in recent past VPs, I mean, they've largely kind of remained in the shadows.
You can take former Vice President Pence. You can take former Vice President Biden when he was vice president to Obama.
I mean, Vance has not played that role of being in the shadows. He's really taken on kind of this unique role

of being a provocateur, whether it's in Oval Office meetings, whether it's in speeches. He has really gone on kind of an attack in many ways.
A big example, obviously, is when Vance accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office of being disrespectful and essentially helping blow up some of the peace talks. He also questioned the UK's record on free speech in front of the British Prime Minister, Kier Starmer.
And then he went to the Munich Security Conference where he told European leaders that their greatest threat is not Russia or China, but it's the threat from within. And I'll just add that, you know, there have been vice presidents who have kind of played like an attack role, kind of position in, you know, a White House.
But in those cases, they've often been a vice president who's kind of playing that role in order to allow the president to kind of stay above the fray, kind of not be political. And that's obviously not the case here.
Trump needs no help in playing an attack dog. No.
And you see Vance jumping in and backing Trump up, kind of almost in a wingman kind of role. Absolutely.
At the same time, though, while Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference recently made a lot of news, you know, the former vice president, Kamala Harris, also went to Munich. Mike Pence went to Munich.
Is it really all that different? So definitely Harris, Pence, they both went to Munich. The difference is that they kind of paid tribute to the allies.
They talked about their shared priorities. They talked about the things that they had in common.
But that's not what Vance did. I mean, he really scolded European leaders.
He even said after expressing sympathy for the attack in Munich, that he was afraid that might be his last applause line. Because after that, he basically told European leaders that they're out of touch with their people, and that that was something that the United States could not help them with.
And when I spoke to attendees after, I mean, they told me that there were tears in the room. You know, Domenico, one of the things that's interesting here is Trump, of course, is serving non-consecutive terms and he has a different vice president this time around.
Usually when a president is in his second term, you see the vice president taking a more elevated role. Sometimes you even see the president grooming the vice president to run for the nomination the next time around.
Do you see Vance angling for prominence here with an eye toward his own political future? Of course, any politician is doing that all the time, everywhere you look. So J.D.
Vance is no different. And of course, everyone knows that Trump is barred from running again in 2028.
So there's going to be a huge competition on the right and left for who's going to be the guy or woman who leads the parties going forward. So Vance is clearly trying to angle.
There's no one who more embodies the change of Trump 10 years ago versus Trump now. There was no manosphere back then and all these podcasts catered toward kind of youngish men.
J.D. Vance is very online.
He's very much in that podcast world. He's in that sort of tough guy mentality.
And a lot of them cast doubt on Ukraine and whether the United States should be giving more money to places like Ukraine. And I think in that meeting, Vance was somebody who doesn't really like Volodymyr Zelensky all that much, the president of Ukraine, and was looking for an opportunity, had a moment and was able to say something and stand up for what he believes to prove a point.
And Donald Trump was right there listening. Trump likes to see his people sort of spar with other people.
Trump is always the sort of center in the wheel and everyone else around him are sort of just the spokes feeding into him.

I think that's where Vance has to be so careful. I mean, there's clearly he has future ambitions that are quite large.
And I think with a vice president, you're always going to talk about them being the heir apparent. I think the attention on Vance is so much higher because Trump only has four years that he is allowed to serve.
So Vance needs to kind of take steps to kind of show that he can carry Trump's mantle going forward. At the same time, it is Trump, and he's got to be careful to not overshadow Trump, because Trump definitely wants to be the center of attention.
We have seen that over and over again. So I think the Vance and his team are going to be very careful that even now when they attack, they're going to do it carefully to make sure that they're always in lockstep with the president.
And I think the Zelensky meeting is an example of that. Vance did not separate himself from Trump.
He kind of echoed it. As you said, Domenico, he kind of embodied what Trump was saying.
You know, we talked in the first half of the podcast about Elon Musk and his huge role in the government so far. He's so front and center.
He's in Oval Office meetings and Cabinet meetings on Air Force One. And, you know, in many ways, getting some of the attention that maybe a vice president would have, especially early in a new administration.
How is Musk work at odds, if at all, with the role the vice president might play? I don't see it as at odds. Again, I think that Musk is another spoke in that wheel.
Vance is another one. Marco Rubio is.

Anybody else who's trying to sort of angle to get into the sun that is Donald Trump for them? I mean, I definitely think that that's another reason that Vance is kind of needing to step out of the shadow. I mean, you guys just talked a whole segment about the work that Musk is doing.
There's been so much news about Musk in Oval Office meetings, on Marine One, on Air Force One, bringing his son to the Oval Office. I mean, there's been endless stories about Musk.
And only recently are we hearing more about Vance. And I think for Vance, you know, if he has future ambitions, if he wants to be the heir apparent of Trump, which seems very clearly that he does, I think he needs to kind of step out and must shadow.
And I think this, what's happening these past week, these past two weeks are an example of that. One more thing before we take a break, back to Trump, because it always comes back to Trump.
Franco, the president made some news yesterday about NATO and what he sees as a U.S. role in the military alliance.
What happened? Yeah, Trump, again, is raising doubts about, you know, NATO's mutual defense pack. You know, Trump told reporters at the White House that the U.S.
may not defend NATO allies if they have not met their spending requirements as outlined by the alliance. He called it, quote, common sense.
Now, Trump has, let's be clear, Trump has regularly sent mixed signals about U.S. support for NATO.
You know, he's long pushed allies to spend more on defense, saying that the U.S. is carrying too much of the burden.
But, you know, just a week ago, he said he would support what's called Article 5. And that's the requirement that members come to each other's defense if attacked, but that he didn't think there was any reason for it.
So he keeps going back and forth. And it's very hard to kind of, you know, keep tabs on, you know, where he stands on this issue.
Very important issue. All right.
One more break. And when we come back, it's time for Can't Let It Go.
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It's time for Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise.
I'll start with myself. Mine is otherwise, and I've got to say, mine is a little sad, but it's also sweet.
You probably heard Dolly Parton lost her beloved husband, Carl Dean, earlier this week. They were married for almost six decades.
They'd been together since she was 18 years old. Now, Carl, unlike Dolly, was a very private person and a regular guy by all accounts and very supportive of his very famous wife.
So I woke up this morning and I saw that Dolly had posted a gorgeous new song to her Instagram called If You Hadn't Been There. Do not listen to it if you're not okay with crying.
But it was just a simple and lovely tribute to this incredible relationship they had. And one of the things I appreciate about that relationship is that so often, especially in that generation, it was the woman who was the invisible partner in the wind beneath her man's wings.

But Dolly and Carl had it the other way around.

And I think that's really beautiful.

And, you know, Dolly is someone who in this very polarized society has managed to kind of be a unifying figure and has done so much for so many people through her charity work. And so in a way, you know, I think you could attribute that gift that Dolly has been to so many people to her husband, Carl.
Love all things Dolly. Well, and he, you know, really didn't like the spotlight at all.
And it's just so interesting. He was so private.
But I thought it was funny. I heard an interview with her, you know, asking about Carl and, you know, she was asked, is he a Dolly Parton music fan? And she said, not really.
But I think he was a Dolly Parton fan. Right.
That's what she said. But he was a Dolly Parton fan.
But he loves me. All right.
Franco, I'll go to you next. My can't let it go is something that i was checking even this morning online are you guys familiar with uh stick nation no it's a stick ball better i'm picturing stick figures stick nation it is this worldwide you know where people post essentially cool sticks they they find all around the world i mean it's uh well sounds like dogs would like this website you're you may be mistaken here's here's a little sample what's up stick nation um i had this beautiful stick laying around my parents house hello stick nation i'm here with this magical goose duck head of the forest.
Hello Stick Nation we're here in the Huehuas Mountains in Peru. Hello Stick Nation my name is Rakel I found this cold stick on an island in Sweden.
Now all those were from their Stick Nation YouTube channel. I mean, how many times have you guys been in the woods or whatever and just picked up a stick and said, how cool is this? Yeah.
And that's what this is all about. And it's just endless, as you heard, endless just people finding sticks.
And it's always in the coolest locales everywhere. I just have the kind of like this vision of, you know, going to the White House and finding some stick, you know, in the manicured yard and doing a stick nation.
But unfortunately, the White House is a little bit too manicured. Yeah.
I have an instinct to go break some sticks now. I'm glad this warms your heart, but I just, I don't know if you can hear the eyes rolling in the back of my head.
I'm just like, geez. We can hear them.
Good Lord. Sticks.
I mean, come on, guys. Have a little fun, Domenico.
Like, yeah, is this fun? I mean, walking around – look at the stick I have, guys. Hey, guys.
Hey, guys. Look at my – look at the stick.
Isn't it cool? Come on. Go do something else.
Oh, man. Stick Nation.
You heard it right there from Domenico Montanaro. Goodbye.

Love you guys.

Well, I like it even if you don't.

Thank you. Domenico.

What is yours, Domenico?

What can't you let go?

I can't let go of a phone call that was placed to 911 by a toddler.

Hello, I'm 101.

Hmm.

What?

Hello?

Yes?

Do you have an emergency?

No.

Donuts. Donuts? I want donuts.
I'm fine, baby. Are you going to share your donuts? Donuts.
Hello? Donuts. Can I talk to Mom? Bye.
See you next hear it there, there's a two-year-old in Moore, Oklahoma, who called 911 asking for emergency donuts. Sometimes it's an emergency.
All of us sometimes want those emergency donuts. The best part of this story is that the next day, the police showed up with a box of Dunkin' Donuts for the little boy, and he was just ear-to-ear smile.
So apparently the parents gave him an old cell phone to play with that had no connection to like how he did a cell service, but they still can make 911 calls. Oh my gosh.
Pretty interestingly, if the battery is in and that's what the kid did just playing around with it. I was about to like give some PSA that you should not be encouraging little kids to call, but then the police bring donuts the next day.
I mean like. Yeah.
And we should note the tape of that 911 call is from the Moore, Oklahoma Police Department.

I was just going to say it's cute, but also like what is that reinforcing?

Exactly.

Is this kid going to do it again now?

Thank you, Sarah.

Okay.

As a parent, I have to be a bit of a curmudgeon.

I thought you were going to criticize the terrible eating habits.

No, no.

Okay.

I mean.

You like donuts.

I like donuts.

Who doesn't like a donut?

I like the old-fashioned donut.

I like the Boston creams. Those are good, too.
Okay. I think we're going to leave it there.
That's a wrap for the week. Our executive producer is Mathoni Maturi.
Casey Murrell edits the podcast. Our producers are Bria Suggs and Kelly Wessinger.
Special thanks to Christian Dev Kalamer. I'm Sarah McCammon.
I cover politics. I'm Franco Ordonez.
I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. And stick nation curmudgeon, by the way.
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