DeSantis: DOGE Fought The Swamp, The Swamp Won
Charlie Kirk Staff
05/29/2025

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is furious with the Republican Congress for not codifying any of the suggestions made by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Inflation is a tax. When your money becomes less valuable, that’s no different in outcome than if Congress were to simply just directly tax you. It’s less transparent, it’s more indirect, but it’s having the same exact impact,” the Republican governor said.
“And so when they do deficit spending of $2 trillion, and they say, “Well, you know, we don’t want to raise taxes”—and I’m not arguing for that either. I’m arguing for lowering spending, but just understand that a $2 trillion deficit is a tax on you. It works its way through the economy. There’s no free lunch, and that’s what ends up happening,” he said.
“And it’s a little frustrating. You know, Elon Musk went into this DOGE effort. He was getting lampooned. I mean, like, they’re firebombing his Tesla dealerships, media smearing him relentlessly, his businesses suffered—all this stuff—because he basically said, ‘Look, we can’t keep doing this, and we need to moderate and reduce the amount of money that the federal government is spending,’” DeSantis said.
“And yet we have a Republican Congress, and to this day (we’re at the end of May, past Memorial Day) and not one cent in those cuts has been implemented by the Congress. That’s one of the reasons why we need a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It’s another reason why we need term limits for members of Congress. But I think what you’ve seen with how—and I kind of said this early on—that DOGE and Elon were on a collision course with the swamp. And the question is, what would happen?” the governor said.
“And I don’t think there’s any question that DOGE fought the swamp—and so far, the swamp has won. And that’s just unfortunate, but I don’t think you can look at this any other way. So this is hardwired into how the people in Washington are borrowing and spending your money. But it has huge implications for the viability of our economy—our country,” he said.