WATCH: Trump claims DOGE has cut 'appalling waste' | 2025 Trump address to Congress

President Donald Trump on Tuesday listed alleged wasteful spending cut in recent days by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

“Everybody here, even this side appreciates it, I believe,” Trump during his March 4 address to a joint session of Congress, referring to congressional Democrats. “They just don't want to admit that. Just listen to some of the appalling waste.”

He claimed that millions of dollars had been cut that had previously been providing housing to “illegal aliens,” diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma, and improvements to “the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants,” Trump said.

He also said that $8 million had been appropriated to promote LGBTQ+ inclusion “in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.” Lesotho is a small country with a population of around 2.3 million people, landlocked entirely within South Africa.

Recent reports have shown that DOGE’s cost-savings are not as large as Musk and the department claim; an AP report found that nearly 40 percent of contracts canceled by DOGE will produce no savings.

The first speech of Trump’s second term in office, while not officially a State of the Union address, is a chance for the president to lay out legislative priorities and tout early achievements.

Trump has moved to deliver on some of his campaign promises at breakneck speed, signing more than 75 executive orders in little more than a month. Thousands of federal workers have been fired at the direction of Musk and DOGE.

Close to half of Americans in the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll disapprove of Trump’s job performance so far, but his approval rating, at 45 percent, is higher than at any point of his first term. While 54 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, 45 percent believe the country is on the right track, a 10-point jump from December 2024.

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