Videotaped depositions released in March 2026 in a federal lawsuit over DOGE's cancellation of National Endowment for the Humanities grants showed two former DOGE staffers, Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh, defending the cuts as deficit reduction. ABC News reported that both men argued the cuts were necessary to reduce the deficit, “though they never achieved their goals,” and that Fox “acknowledged the deficit was never reduced.” Cavanaugh was deposed on Jan. 23, 2026. Asked, “You don't regret that people might have lost important income ... to support their lives?” he answered: “No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero.”
DOGE initially claimed it could cut up to $2 trillion from the federal budget. In December 2025, Elon Musk conceded it had saved only $200 billion in “zombie payments,” and Fortune reported that a recent estimate of DOGE's overall impact found its savings did little, if anything, for the deficit.
The depositions also showed that DOGE relied on ChatGPT to identify more than $100 million in diversity, equity and inclusion grants that were later canceled. On March 13, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon ordered the videos taken down after the Justice Department cited harassment, including death threats, against Fox. On March 23 she lifted that order, writing, “Here, the testimony in the videos concerns the conduct of public officials acting in their official capacities — a context in which the public interest in transparency and accountability is at its apex.”
The Pentagon estimated in a closed briefing that the first six days of the Iran war cost at least $11.3 billion, according to Reuters, more than the $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding that Congress clawed back in the July 2025 rescissions package. DOGE eliminated the roles of more than 300,000 federal employees during its roughly 10 months under centralized leadership, Fortune reported.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry previously said the depositions were taken March 14-16, 2026; Cavanaugh was deposed in January and the videos were released in March. It said the judge ordered the videos removed without noting that she reversed that order on March 23. It said both staffers said “no regrets” and “no, we didn't”; the record shows Cavanaugh answered “No” when asked about regret, and ABC reported Fox acknowledged the deficit was never reduced. It gave the rescissions package as $9.4 billion in DOGE savings; Congress passed $9 billion. An unsourced claim that DOGE cut food assistance was removed.