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A long-awaited audit from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has delivered a damning assessment of the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), concluding that most of the body’s claimed taxpayer savings lack verification and contain multiple false or overstated figures.

Launched at the opening of former President Donald Trump’s second term in January 2025 and led in its early months by Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE was framed as a bipartisan-style initiative to root out waste, fraud and mismanagement in federal spending. But the initiative shuttered unexpectedly last month, just 18 months after it began operations. Its centerpiece public-facing tool, the so-called Wall of Receipts, publicly claimed $110 billion in total savings across federal contracts, grant agreements and property leases, with DOGE’s final self-assessment inflating that figure to an estimated $214 billion — far short of Musk’s opening pledge of $2 trillion in annual cuts to federal spending via mass layoffs of federal workers and elimination of entire government programs.

The GAO’s Thursday report, requested by Senate Democratic leaders Gary Peters and Richard Blumenthal, reviewed all DOGE savings claims reported between its launch and July 7, 2026. Auditors identified widespread transparency failures and methodological flaws that undermine nearly all of DOGE’s cost-saving assertions. “While DOGE provided some information about estimated savings, several issues limit the transparency and reliability of these reported savings,” the report noted, adding that DOGE failed to share sufficient verification details for 96% of its claimed savings.

Among the most high-profile inaccuracies unearthed by auditors: 108 of the 264 property leases DOGE claimed to have terminated to generate savings were already scheduled for cancellation before DOGE was even established, accounting for roughly $15.3 million of the $53.5 million in claimed lease savings. The GAO also found the Wall of Receipts provided no clear explanation for how savings from terminated leases were calculated, and flagged a $1.7 billion claimed savings from canceling a Defense Department IT services contract that was never actually terminated, meaning no savings were realized at all. Overall, the audit concluded the public-facing tool failed to disclose critical limitations that erode data quality and accuracy.

Musk, who stepped down from his leadership role at the unofficial advisory body in May 2025, did not immediately issue a response to the GAO’s findings. In a statement following the report’s release, a White House spokesperson noted that the administration had informed the GAO that all DOGE personnel were required to complete standard ethics training and adhere to all federal financial disclosure rules.

Senator Gary Peters, one of the requesters of the audit, called the initiative a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American public. “Everyone supports rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, but DOGE was a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American people while doing real damage to the government’s ability to serve them,” Peters said Thursday.

Under Musk’s direction, DOGE pushed for extreme cuts to the federal workforce and pushed for the elimination of entire federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development. Many of the group’s most controversial cuts were met with immediate legal challenges or reversed by the administration itself. In one high-profile example, dozens of U.S. Department of Agriculture officials tasked with monitoring and responding to avian influenza (bird flu) were laid off as part of DOGE’s cost-cutting push, forcing the Trump administration to rehire the workers just days later amid rising public health concerns.

In its public announcement of the body’s closure last month, DOGE struck a defiant tone, framing its formal end as a stepping stone for long-term reform. “While the formal mission of DOGE has come to an end, the mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse will continue,” the group said in a social media post. “Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and accountable government are not temporary initiatives.”

Weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his first sweeping effort to eliminate longstanding birthright citizenship protections, former and current President Donald Trump has launched a new push to roll back the 150-year-old policy, signing two new executive actions focused on narrowing eligibility and cracking down on the controversial practice of birth tourism. The Thursday signing, held in the Oval Office, comes as the Trump administration continues its aggressive campaign to restrict immigration and rewrite the rules of citizenship for people born on U.S. soil.

The first of the two orders expands existing legal carve-outs that deny birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents. Under the new framework, any child born in the U.S. to two non-citizen parents will not receive automatic citizenship if one parent falls into specific high-risk categories: members of foreign terrorist organizations, employees of foreign governments, individuals who have previously attempted to obtain U.S. citizenship through fraudulent means, or people residing in U.S. territories where citizenship is not already mandated by federal statute. Currently, birthright citizenship for people born in U.S. territories including Puerto Rico is explicitly codified in federal law.

The second executive order targets birth tourism, the practice where pregnant foreign nationals travel to the U.S. specifically to give birth, granting their children automatic U.S. citizenship under the longstanding interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Speaking at the signing, Trump defended the new restrictions, arguing that reform of birthright citizenship should have been enacted decades ago, and criticized the Supreme Court’s June ruling that struck down his earlier 2025 effort to end the policy entirely. He called the high court’s decision a “bad decision, very unfair decision” that harmed the U.S., noting that his administration is now pursuing its goals through a revised legal approach. “Our country suffers because of it, and we’re ending it in a different way,” Trump said.

The text of the first executive order frames the new restrictions as a necessary safeguard against exploitation of U.S. immigration policy. “My Administration has guarded against the risks posed by malign foreign actors who attempt to swindle American citizens by taking advantage of the generosity of our Nation,” the order reads.

Trump and senior White House officials have repeatedly targeted birth tourism in public remarks, repeatedly claiming that adversarial nations including Russia and China encourage the practice to let their citizens infiltrate the U.S. Trump claimed Thursday that hundreds of thousands of children are born in the U.S. through birth tourism each year, a figure that contradicts independent research from nonpartisan policy analysts. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that even the most generous census-based calculations put the annual number of births from birth tourism between just 22,000 and 26,000. Government data analyzed by MPI puts the 2024 number even lower, at roughly 9,600 births to foreign women listing non-U.S. residential addresses.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, a key architect of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies, joined the president for the announcement, arguing that birth tourism allows foreign visitors to exploit U.S. benefits systems. “The idea is that people come here pretending to be a tourist, pretending to be a visitor. But the real reason they’re here is to have a child, to make that child an automatic citizen, leave our country and then have a U.S. citizen child,” Miller said, adding that these children would then gain access to public welfare benefits, voting rights, and “all the other rights and privileges that belong solely to Americans.” Miller also asserted that the president holds clear legal authority to restrict birth tourism under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which grants the sitting president power to set entry exceptions and limitations for people seeking to enter the U.S.

This latest effort follows a high-profile legal battle over Trump’s first executive order on birthright citizenship, which he signed just days into his 2025 second term. That order sought to end the birthright citizenship protections guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Legal challenges quickly made their way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in June that Trump’s 2025 policy was unconstitutional, leaving the existing birthright citizenship framework intact. The ruling represented a major legal setback for the Trump administration’s broader goal of restricting immigration and reshaping citizenship eligibility for people entering or born in the U.S.

Long-serving U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has completed his inpatient rehabilitation program and been discharged, announcing Thursday that he will continue his recovery process from his residence. The 84-year-old Kentucky GOP politician first faced a health scare in mid-June, when he was admitted to a hospital following an accidental fall and a diagnosis of mild pneumonia. By last month, he transitioned from acute hospital care to an inpatient rehabilitation facility, noting at the time that he had not received medical clearance to resume his regular duties on the Senate floor.

In his official statement released Thursday, McConnell laid out his plans for the next phase of recovery: at his home, he will stick to a rigorous schedule of physical therapy to rebuild his strength, while still remaining connected to his policy and political work. The senator emphasized that he will continue to collaborate with his senior staff and fellow congressional colleagues on critical Senate business, pushing back against early assumptions that his absence would put a full pause on his engagement.

McConnell also expressed public gratitude for the widespread support he has received throughout his recovery. “Elaine and I are grateful for the many well wishes and support from friends, colleagues, and Kentuckians, and for the attentive care I’ve received from excellent doctors, nurses, therapists, and hospital staff,” he said in the statement.

McConnell’s extended absence from Capitol Hill has ignited consistent public speculation about both his short-term health status and his long-term political future. Over nearly four decades in Senate leadership, McConnell has established himself as one of the most influential power brokers in modern U.S. Republican politics, shaping federal judicial appointments, legislative priorities and party strategy for generations. His current health episode has prompted widespread questions about when — or if — he will return to his post as the top Senate Republican, and what a prolonged absence could mean for the chamber’s agenda ahead of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.