Tesla (TSLA+3.47%) CEO Elon Musk’s promise to cut trillions of dollars in government spending has found some helping hands among Democrats – some being the keyword.

President-elect Donald Trump gave Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy control of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an “outside government” group that will recommend ways to cut federal spending. That’s what they plan to do aim on remote work for federal employees, non-governmental organizations and regulations they find burdensome.

“DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural cuts in the federal government,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in one Editorial in the Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared for the attack from entrenched interests in Washington.”

The business couple visited At the invitation of House Speaker Mike Johnson, Capitol Hill will host closed meetings with lawmakers on Thursday.

DOGE has been embraced by Republicans – including Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – while Democrats are somewhat cooler about the idea. Some Democrats agree with the mission but have chosen narrower priorities that they believe DOGE can be used for. Others want to make sure Republicans don’t try to cut programs they care about, like Medicare or Social Security, and that they have a voice in the discussions.

“Why don’t you want to be in the room? Why don’t you want to work together?” Rep. Greg Landsman of Ohio said on Tuesday. “So there are occasions where I think both parties would say, ‘Yes, that’s abuse’ or ‘that’s a waste of money’ or ‘that’s duplication of effort’.”

Landsman is the second Democrat to announce he will be joining the Congressional DOGE Caucus, following Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida. The caucus is led by Ernst and Senator Rick Scott in the Senate and Republican Representatives Aaron Bean and Pete Sessions in the House. Punchbowl news Reports that at least 40 members had signed up to join the caucus as of Wednesday afternoon.

Landsman is the second Democrat to announce he will be joining the Congressional DOGE Caucus, following Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida. The caucus is led by Ernst and Senator Rick Scott in the Senate and Republican Representatives Aaron Bean and Pete Sessions in the House. Punchbowl News reports that at least 40 members had signed up to join the caucus as of Wednesday afternoon.

It is unlikely that Democrats and Republicans will agree on most ways to cut federal spending.

Ramaswamy said it expected “Certain agencies, including the Department of Education, should be defunded entirely in accordance with DOGE’s recommendations.” He also wants to cut funding to groups generally supported by Democrats, such as Planned Parenthood. criticized the recent loans from the Biden administration’s $400 billion clean energy loan program and raised questions about federal spending that currently lacks congressional approval, including Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Services.

During a conversation with NPR on Thursday, Moskowitz dismissed Musk and Ramaswamy’s calls to defund the Department of Education and cut veterans’ benefits on the grounds that they would not receive support from Congress. He would rather focus on moving the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency out of the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security.

“So my sole focus is to get these two agencies out of DHS and make them report directly to the White House,” he told NPR. “At the same time, if there are tens or hundreds of billions of dollars we can save in agencies and still provide the same services, then why wouldn’t we talk about it?”

Other sympathetic Democrats have turned their attention to the Defense Department and its huge budget. More than 16% of the federal budget for fiscal year 2024, almost $2 trillion, was allocated to the ministry.

Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, will not join the DOGE caucus but has said Musk is right about waste in the Defense Department. The Pentagon has regularly failed Audits of its $824 billion budget, and Musk has explicitly done so called the Pentagon’s expensive F-35 program.

“We need a strong military, but we don’t need all the waste, profiteering and fraud that currently exists in the Pentagon,” Sanders said said Business Insider this weekHe noted that Musk is “absolutely right” to call for the first independent audit of the Pentagon in more than seven years.

California Rep. Rho Khanna, who represents the district where Tesla’s Fremont factory is located, joined Sanders on Thursday. Write to X that he is ready to work with DOGE and its leaders to ensure that “Americans get their money’s worth from DOD spending.” Khanna praised his work on the House Oversight Committee, which helped advance defense contractor TransDigm (TDG-1.38%) To generated excess profit of $16.1 million to the Ministry of Defense in 2019.