Roy hails Musk, Ramaswamy influence on spending as Hill GOP looks toward cuts

DOGE co-chairs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will have significant influence in how Congress slashes spending, Rep. Chip Roy said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday.

“When the DOGE guys came in, Elon and Vivek, I pointed to my Republican colleagues and I said, ‘You know what the problem is, right here in this room,’” Roy said. “We have Republicans and Democrats who never met a program they didn’t want to promote for some sort of political gain.”

Roy, the Freedom Caucus policy chair, added that Musk and Ramaswamy were working to identify spending waste, and the two businessmen could use their platforms to shine a light on the issue. Roy also floated potential examples of spending cuts, including the restricting the use of food stamps and repealing the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Texas Republican, a member of the important Rules Committee, has vowed to oppose measures that would increase the debt limit without significant spending cuts. He was a staunch opponent of President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to increase or eliminate the debt ceiling before he took office, which earned him the threat of a primary challenge from Trump.

When asked whether he had spoken to Trump since his comments, Roy declined to discuss private conversations but said he had “certainly been in contact with Mar-a-Lago broadly and with Republican leadership.”

“Politics is a rough and tumble business,” he said. “President Trump knows exactly what he wants. He wants the debt ceiling pushed aside.”