DOGE cuts did nothing to reduce federal deficit, admits team lead

One of the DOGE officials leading Elon Musk’s DEI purge of US government departments says he does not regret costing people their incomes despite it having no effect on the federal deficit. Nathan Cavanaugh was part of a young team brought in to examine the National Endowment for the Humanities for requests which contravened Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order banning anything considered to promote diversity, equity or inclusion. Cavanaugh, in a deposition filmed as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Council of Learned Societies and others, was asked if he experiences any regret that people may have lost income because of their actions. “No,” he said. “I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero.” When asked if they had achieved that aim, Cavanaugh said “no, we didn’t.”