House Republicans’ mammoth budget reconciliation bill is in peril on Monday evening with at least two GOP lawmakers threatening to vote against it.

House GOP leaders are hoping to hold a vote Tuesday on a vast bill advancing President Donald Trump’s priorities on the border, defense, taxes, and energy. 

But at least two House Republicans have said they oppose the legislation – and the GOP’s razor-thin margins mean Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can only afford one defector to still pass anything along party lines, if all Democratic lawmakers are present.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told reporters he was against the bill on Monday, the day after Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., said she was also opposed. Both said they are seeking assurances that Congress is sufficiently committed to cutting government over-spending.

Meanwhile, a group of GOP lawmakers in less ruby-red districts are still undecided over potentially severe cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs to offset the cost of Trump’s priorities.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told reporters there was ‘somewhere between six and 10’ House Republicans who needed more clarity on where spending cuts will fall.

‘If I don’t get answers, I’m not going to vote for it,’ Malliotakis said. ‘But if I can get some clarity and assurances, then you know, we’re moving a little bit more toward the ‘yes’ column.’

Malliotakis said on the way into Johnson’s office Monday that there was ‘a lot of seniors and people with disabilities’ in her district, ‘and I want to make sure they’re not gonna get harmed in this process.’

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., who was also part of that meeting, called it ‘helpful’ but did not commit to supporting the bill.

Malliotakis and Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, also said they were still undecided when leaving the meeting.

Spartz is also expected to meet with Johnson at some point Monday to discuss her stance.

Burchett, however, told reporters he had no current plans to speak with Johnson about his opposition – but left room to be persuaded.

‘I would like to see a commitment that we’re going to go after [spending cuts],’ Burchett said. ‘When we say we’re decreasing the rate of growth, we’re still growing. And again, can we not just go back to pre-COVID spending levels?’

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., also signaled he was against the bill, writing on X, ‘If the Republican budget passes, the deficit gets worse, not better.’

House and Senate Republicans are aiming to use their majorities to pass a broad swath of Trump policies, from more border security funding to eliminating taxes on tipped and overtime wages, via the budget reconciliation process.

By leveling thresholds for passage in the House and Senate at a simple majority, reconciliation allows the party in power to pass fiscal legislation without any support from the opposing side. The Senate has a two-thirds majority threshold to advance most measures. 

The bill aims to increase spending on border security, the judiciary and defense by roughly $300 billion, while seeking at least $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending cuts elsewhere.

As written, the bill also provides $4.5 trillion to extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) provisions, which expire at the end of this year.

A handful of President Donald Trump administration officials are publicly listing their top accomplishments for the previous work week following Department of Government Efficiency Chair (DOGE) Elon Musk announcing federal employees must provide a bullet-point list of work successes before midnight on Monday or risk losing their jobs. 

‘Mr. President, 5 things I did last week:’ Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted to X Monday morning. ‘1. Terminated NYC elitist, anti-worker congestion pricing. 2. Launched an investigation into the $16 billion in taxpayer dollars wasted on a high-speed rail project that, after 17 years, has yet to lay a single mile of track. 3. Saved $10 million a year by eliminating redundant and outdated landlines.’ 

He continued: ‘4. Visited the Air Traffic Control Command Center in Virginia to see the critical tech upgrades we need to make our air traffic system the envy of the world. 5. Toured Burbank, California traffic control tower and heard from air traffic controllers about how to improve conditions and retain and recruit more controllers.’

Musk announced Saturday that federal employees would receive an email directing them to list their accomplishments from the week prior, with the DOGE leader adding later that day that the assignment should take less than five minutes to accomplish. 

Employees have until 11:59 p.m. on Monday to send the list or lose their employment, according to emails regarding Musk’s directive that were sent by the Office of Personnel Management.

A handful of Trump administration officials also have provided their accomplishments lists for the past work week, including Kelly Loeffler, the head of the Small Business Administration. 

Loeffler listed her accomplishments in a comment provided to Fox News Digital, which led with her empowering ‘the Office of the Advocate to work across agencies to cut burdensome regulation imposed on small businesses.’ 

‘Established the Office of Manufacturing and Trade to promote President Trump‘s America first agenda; created a Fraud Working Group to crack down on loan fraud across all portfolios; ended voter registration MOUs with state governments, rejecting Biden-era efforts to turn SBA into a vehicle for partisan voter registration; canceled all employee telework agreements in accordance with the president’s return to work presidential memorandum, enabling the agency to better deliver results for job creators; Met with governor’s from around the country to discuss SBA’s services at the state level and presence across the country,’ the list continued. 

The White House also provided five examples on Saturday afternoon on its Rapid Response X account.  

‘Just got this email. Where do we begin?’ the White House’s Rapid Response X account posted Saturday evening, accompanied by a screenshot of the OPM email informing employees to comply with the accomplishment directive. 

The White House listed: Trump signing an executive order expanding access to in vitro fertilization treatments, another executive order that works to ​​stop taxpayer benefits landing in the hands of illegal immigrants, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks reporting Trump’s policies have led to a 94% drop in illegal border crossings, Apple announcing a $500 billion investment in U.S., and the Trump admin working to ensure ‘Maine does not allow men in girls’ locker rooms and sports’ through an investigation of the state’s Department of Education. 

Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins posted his list of five accomplishments at Veterans Affairs, including identifying and eliminating ‘wasteful contracts.’ 

Ahead of Musk’s announcement informing federal workers list their accomplishments, other agencies posted their wins for the first month in office, including Collins posting a Friday video of the department’s accomplishments for the first month on the job, while the Department of Defense launched a rapid response account on X to celebrate accomplishments while also ‘Fighting Against Fake News.’

A handful of federal departments that deal with sensitive and classified information told their staffers to ignore the order to list their accomplishments, which President Donald Trump said on Monday was a ‘friendly’ rejection due to the sensitive materials some government employees handle on a regular basis. 

‘That was done in a friendly manner,’ Trump said Monday while speaking with the media alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. ‘Only things such as, perhaps Marco at State Department, where they have very confidential things. Or the FBI, where they’re working on confidential things. And they don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon. They’re just saying there are some people that you don’t want to really have them tell you what they’re working on last week.’

FBI Director Kash Patel, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security were among the agencies and departments that informed staff to not respond to the email. 

‘FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information,’ Patel told employees in an email over the weekend. ‘The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.’

Trump lauded the directive Monday, arguing that it will expose government employees who aren’t actually carrying out tasks. 

‘There was a lot of genius in sending it,’ Trump said Monday from the White House. ‘We’re trying to find out if people are working. And so we’re sending a letter to people. Please tell us what you did last week. If people don’t respond, it’s very possible that there is no such person or they’re not working.’ 

Some unions and Democratic lawmakers have lambasted the directive, including Illinois Rep. Sean Casten calling on federal employees to flout the order, arguing it is a ‘a good opportunity for mass civil disobedience.’ 

As the Trump administration’s DOGE efforts continue to have an impact across government agencies, over 12,000 employees at the General Services Administration are being notified in an agency-wide email Monday evening that a ‘reduction in force’ is underway.

In the memo from acting GSA administrator Stephen Ehikian, according to a draft obtained by Fox News Digital, the agency thanked those employees who decided to be part of the ‘first step’ of staff reduction on Friday by resigning from GSA and previewed the ‘next step of this process in support of the Presidential Executive Order: Implementing The President’s Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative, The White House, dated February 11, 2025.’

‘This serves as notice that the agency will be conducting a Reduction in Force (RIF) and is seeking approval from Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to also obtain a Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA),’ the email states. ‘More information to impacted business units and employees will be forthcoming.’

The letter ends by thanking the employees that will be affected for their ‘service to this nation.’

‘I promise you that GSA will continue to do everything in our power to make your departure fair and dignified,’ the letter concludes. 

Fox News Digital was told by a source familiar with the situation that 30-40 employees will be affected by the reduction at first, as the agency starts with a focused number meant to ensure the plan is executed well with minimal mistakes.  

The GSA, which performs a variety of tasks including managing federal real estate and procuring goods and services, is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has 11 regional offices. 

A GSA senior manager familiar with the process told Fox News Digital that the first actions will be targeted on select offices rather than the entire agency and that bargaining unit employees are not anticipated to be affected. 

Additionally, the agency is looking for an additional Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, as outlined by the OPM, and will be offering severance or discontinued services annuities as appropriate. 

‘GSA realizes that a Reduction in Force, while necessary to meet the administration’s mandate to rightsize the federal government, reduce waste and redundancies, and deliver a more cost-effective service to the taxpayer, will impact our workforce,’ a GSA spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

‘GSA is committed to treating all of our employees respectfully and fairly, in accordance with all applicable laws and bargaining unit agreements, during this process.’

The executive order from earlier this month cited in the memo stated that it was intended ‘to restore accountability to the American public’ and ‘commences a critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy.’

‘By eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity, my Administration will empower American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of Government itself,’ the executive order states.

Elon Musk is taking his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for a victory lap, touting a new poll that suggests massive support for the Trump administration initiative.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll revealed a majority of Americans support reducing wasteful government spending. Most voters agree there should be a government agency dedicated to efficiency and that DOGE is helping to make major spending cuts, the nonprobability-based poll found. 

‘Polls show that @DOGE is overwhelmingly POPULAR and that government spending should be reduced by at least $1 trillion!!’ Musk wrote on X. 

The White House and Musk have shared the results on social media, pointing to the new polling as evidence that ‘reducing government waste & fraud is strongly supported by the people,’ as Musk wrote in an X post. 

President Donald Trump shared the favorable poll on his Truth Social account, and Musk shared a screenshot of Trump’s post on his X account. 

The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found a majority of voters believe the government’s debt is unsustainable and that the government should try to cut expenses. A vast majority agreed ‘government expenditures are filled with waste and agree with cutting $1 trillion in expenses.’

Most people polled said DOGE employees should not have access to Americans’ sensitive information and that court challenges to DOGE are based on the law and are not politically motivated.

Recent national polling suggests Musk and DOGE have garnered the support of Republicans and the disapproval of Democrats.

The Feb. 13-19 Washington Post-Ipsos poll was less favorable for Musk and his ‘DOGE boys’ as approval split along ideological lines, with 70% of Republicans and 6% of Democrats approving of Musk’s job. Fewer Republicans, at 56%, approved of Musk halting federal government programs.

Further, 55% of voters said Musk has too much power, according to the Quinnipiac University poll released Feb. 19. Once again, the results fall upon party lines, with 78% of Republicans polled saying Musk has the right amount of power and 96% of Democrats saying he has too much power. 

The AP-NORC poll released Jan. 24 also found Republicans are more likely to favor DOGE than Democrats. However, the poll found the majority of the public ‘believe corruption, inefficiency and red tape are major problems in the federal government,’ which is consistent with the new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll.

A CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that 54% of voters said Musk’s prominent role in Trump’s administration is a ‘bad thing.’

Musk’s posts celebrating his new favorable polling come on the heels of his latest DOGE initiative: Federal employees received an email on Saturday instructing them to respond with ‘what they got done last week’ or lose their job.

‘Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,’ Musk said.

‘To be clear, the bar is very low here. An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write,’ Musk added. 

Darin Selnick of the Department of Defense and Kash Patel of the FBI told their employees they did not need to comply with Musk’s request. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy followed the assignment, submitting his accomplishments in a post.

‘Mr. President, 5 things I did last week… Looking forward to another week of fighting for Americans,’ Duffy wrote. 

Trump, in a Truth Social post ahead of Musk’s new email directive, said the DOGE leader is ‘doing a great job,’ adding he would ‘like to see him get more aggressive.’

DOGE’s jarring revelations about where American taxpayer dollars are going have dominated headlines during Trump’s first month back in the White House. Republicans have embraced Musk’s commitment to government efficiency as many new Cabinet members and Republican governors establish their own DOGE departments. 

Meanwhile, Musk’s massive layoffs of government employees and department cuts have created outrage among Democrats in Washington. Democrats have led weekly protests against DOGE and Musk’s political power, calling Trump’s executive actions a ‘constitutional crisis.’

President Donald Trump’s White House is warning that a key Democrat’s move to end the president’s energy national emergency would kill hundreds of jobs and cost $3.6 trillion in higher prices and lost energy output. 

‘Tim Kaine wants to impoverish Americans. President Donald Trump’s executive order brings America into the future and unleashes prosperity. Senator [Tim] Kaine wants to cost the economy trillions and risk losing nearly a million jobs,’ said deputy press secretary Anna Kelly in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital. 

The White House’s statement is in response to Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., filing a joint resolution to end Trump’s energy national emergency and teeing up a vote on the Senate floor this week.

Ending the energy emergency would lead to the loss of 869,800 jobs, according to a White House document obtained by Fox News Digital. 

The White House emphasized that ending the emergency would usher back in the Biden administration’s policies. The document stressed that under those policies, during Biden’s first two years, families spent an additional average of $10,000 in energy costs, citing a study published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. 

The document cited that estimates of liquefied natural gas growth in the new administration were projected to bring in half a million jobs annually and boost U.S. GDP by $1.3 trillion through 2040, per a study by S&P Global in December. 

‘The Trump Administration is living in a fantasy land,’ Kaine and Heinrich told Fox News Digital in a joint statement. ‘Energy demand is high and only getting higher, which is why it’s great that America is producing more energy than at any other point in our history. Decreasing the supply of American-made energy when demand is high is the quickest way to raise prices—and that’s exactly what President Trump’s sham energy emergency will do. By tampering with the market to favor some forms of energy over others and making it easier for fossil fuel companies to take Americans’ private property, Trump’s emergency declaration will benefit Big Oil, but leave American consumers with fewer choices and higher bills.’

‘At the same time, Trump’s decision to illegally halt investments appropriated by Congress in energy projects that are creating jobs in communities across the country is costing Americans valuable, good-paying jobs,’ they added. 

The two Democrats unveiled their privileged legislation against Trump’s order earlier this month.

‘Senate Democrats are yet again attempting to block President Trump’s efforts to secure cheaper, more reliable energy—just when America needs it most,’ Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘Their message to families is clear: pay more, expect less. Luckily, President Trump is committed to unleashing American energy and rescuing the country from the energy crisis that they have perpetuated. Senate Republicans won’t let Democrats delay and obstruct any longer and will ensure the President has the tools necessary to deliver the results the American people expect.’

Kaine and Heinrich’s introduction of the resolution will force a vote on the Senate floor, which is expected to occur on Wednesday. 

The measure is likely to fail, with Republicans vocally supportive of Trump’s energy agenda. The GOP has a 53-seat majority in the upper chamber.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who’s slashing wasteful government spending with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said federal workers who fail to respond to his productivity email may be given another chance, but warned if they fail to respond a second time, they’ll be terminated.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent an email titled, ‘What did you do last week?’ to federal employees, calling on them to submit five bullet points detailing their accomplishments over the past week, or face possible termination.

Several agencies, including the Department of Defense (DOD) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), responded to the request, telling their employees to ignore the OPM email.

Musk appeared to be fired up by the lack of response to the request, turning to X to express his frustration just hours before the 11:59 p.m. Monday deadline.

‘The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!’ he wrote. ‘Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers. Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent? Makes old Twitter look good. Didn’t think that was possible.’

Musk responded to a post by Matt Walsh, host of ‘The Matt Walsh Show,’ saying the government should fire any federal worker who did not answer the email, complained publicly or privately about the email or did anything other than answer it promptly.

‘Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,’ Musk responded. ‘Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.’

When Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he called on the social media giant’s former CEO Parag Agrawal to detail what he accomplished during the work week — years before he employed the same tactic on federal employees while serving in his capacity as chair of DOGE under the Trump administration.

‘What did you get done this week,’ Musk texted Agrawal in April 2022.

Musk helped resurrect the text exchange over the weekend on X, when he responded to an account that shared a ‘how it started, how it’s going’ post that showed a screenshot of Musk’s text to Agrawal, accompanied by a screenshot of a post on X from Musk on Saturday, directed at federal employees.

In the post, Musk wrote, ‘Parag got nothing done. Parag was fired.’

‘Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,’ Musk wrote on X on Saturday. ‘Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.’ 

‘To be clear, the bar is very low here,’ Musk wrote. ‘An email with some bullet points that make any sense at all is acceptable! Should take less than 5 mins to write.’ 

Musk’s DOGE is in the midst of auditing various federal agencies in search of wasteful spending, corruption and mismanagement. 

DOGE’s work comes as President Donald Trump ordered the federal workforce to return to the office after five years of remote work stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, and has vowed to clean house of bad actors within the government and axe overspending.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

The Trump administration’s Friday evening shakeup at the Pentagon saw the firing of six senior officers as Secretary Pete Hegseth made good on promises to upend the agency’s leadership. 

President Donald Trump and Hegseth fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. C.Q. Brown, and replaced him with a relatively unknown figure in Lt. Gen. Dan Caine. 

The choice of Caine shows the president’s preference for irregular warfare and special operations: Caine was among a group of military leaders who met with the president in December 2018 at the Al Asad airbase in Iraq. Trump was there to deliver a Christmas message and hear from commanders on the ground, and there Caine told Trump they could defeat ISIS quickly with a surge of resources and a lifting of restrictions on engagement. 

”We’re only hitting them from a temporary base in Syria,” Trump said Caine told him. ”But if you gave us permission, we could hit them from the back, from the side, from all over – from the base that you’re right on, right now, sir. They won’t know what the hell hit them.” 

‘It was a different message than [Trump] had gotten from leadership at the Pentagon, and I think that really made an impression,’ according to Rob Greenway, a former National Security Council official who was on the trip and has known Caine since they graduated from Virginia Military Institute together. 

Trump, on picking Caine Friday, lauded him as ‘an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.’

He’d plucked the retired general from relative obscurity to serve as his senior military adviser after accusing his predecessor, C.Q. Brown of pushing a ‘woke’ agenda at the Pentagon. Brown had been behind a 2022 memo laying out diversity goals for the Air Force. 

Caine does not meet the position’s prerequisites, such as being a combatant commander or service chief, and will require a waiver to be confirmed to the position. 

But the choice leaves Pentagon watchers curious on what direction Caine will take at his new high-level post. 

‘Caine hasn’t written much, we’re sort of trying to read the tea leaves here,’ said Mark Cancian, a senior defense advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Greenway called Caine ‘an absolutely inspired pick, a tremendous officer with a remarkable background, and he has the confidence in the president.’ 

Trump was undoubtedly attracted to his reputation as an aggressive fighter pilot that earned him the nickname ‘Razin’ Caine. But Caine’s nontraditional path throughout the military ranks and the business world was surely a selling point, according to Greenway.

‘It’s a priority of the president to have the Pentagon pass an audit, to have someone who knows what a balance sheet looks like, and can hopefully help the department get to the right side of it.’

The Pentagon has failed seven straight audits and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has set its sights on budget cuts at DOD. 

Caine, an F-16 pilot by background, spent time as the top military liaison to the CIA, an Air National Guard officer and regional airline founder in Texas. He was a White House fellow at the Agriculture Department and a counterterrorism specialist on the White House’s Homeland Security Council.

From 2018-19, he was deputy commander of Special Operations Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, which has been fighting the Islamic State since 2014, though little is publicly known about his role in that operation. The role of airstrikes, however, grew during that time, including clandestine ones, and Trump designated airstrike approval to commanders rather than the White House. 

But critics say Caine, like Hegseth, does not have the command experience for the role as Trump’s top military advisor. 

‘Trump sees [the role] as somebody who has the ability to move forces and direct funding, and it just doesn’t work that way. That’s not what the role is. So now you have a president who has people around him who are his principal advisors, [Hegseth] and this new chairman, who really have limited qualifications at the more senior levels,’ said Gene Moran, former advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and founder of lobbying firm Capitol Integration. 

The administration also relieved Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations – who Hegseth believed had been given the job because she was a woman – Gen. Jim Slife, Air Force vice chief of staff, and the judge advocates general of the Army, Navy and Air Force. 

‘If naval operations suffer, at least we can hold our heads high. Because at least we have another first! The first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – hooray,’ Hegseth wrote in his 2024 book, ‘The War on Warriors.’ 

‘The Navy, in particular, has been unable to complete a procurement program on time and on budget and notoriously has decommissioned more ships than it’s made,’ said Greenway. ‘So I think the message there was accountability has to be restored.’ 

The switch-up of judge advocates general could be the biggest signal of policy change, where Hegseth has looked to grant greater authority to forces on the ground without having to worry about legal constraints. 

The judge advocates general, the top uniformed attorneys of the Army, Air Force and Navy, oversee the legal advisors for each branch and the defense counsel and prosecutors for courts-martial. 

Hegseth has spoken out against what he sees as an ‘obsessive’ prosecution of war crimes. ‘He wants to give the benefit of the doubt to the warfighter, if there’s not, you know, an absolute massacre,’ one source familiar with the defense secretary’s thinking said.  

‘Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything that happens,’ the Pentagon chief told Fox News on Sunday. 

‘Hegseth has said the troops should do what they need to achieve victory and not feel constrained by the lawyers,’ said Cancian. ‘But then you could have some actions that are contrary to international law or treaties, that could make a huge controversy, both domestically and with our allies.’

But the advancement of Caine, with his covert operations background, and the removal of the top lawyers would signal a new focus on covert operations – a push that would line up with new terrorism designations for cartels in Latin America – and could set the military up for covert counter-narcotics strikes south of the border. 

‘We could definitely see a change in troop postures in some of these regions we’ve been in for too long, and new missions in Mexico going after the cartels,’ another Hegseth ally said.