After weeks of Democrat and liberal media hysteria, the Department of Government Efficiency suggested reforms are being discussed in the Cabinet and will be coming to the Department of Transportation, according to Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday.
"This takes a little bit of time, but we're on the pathway to making sure that the greatest market and the greatest workers and the greatest companies are treated fairly — and, by the way, this can be really hard stuff," Duffy told Newsmax's "National Report" from the White House before a Cabinet meeting to discuss DOGE, tariffs, and governmental reforms, including at DOT.
"Weak presidents have never done it. Donald Trump is not weak. He's not afraid to take on challenges. And he's not afraid to put America first, which is what these tariffs have actually done."
Elon Musk was not expected to be at Thursday's Cabinet meeting, but he did wind up showing and his DOGE work remains, according to Duffy.
"Elon Musk won't be in the room this time, but you know Elon has helped build out an amazing team, and a lot of them, you know, were people that he had worked with in his companies," Duffy said. "Now we've broken that out and expanded it.
"We have really smart people who've done well in their careers that are willing to give back to their government and use their expertise to make the American government work better and be more efficient."
DOGE has set DOT on a path to implement massive reforms and improve America, according to Duffy.
"I have quant [quantitative analyst] who's in my office at DOT, a brilliant numbers guy, helping us look at how we're spending money," Duffy said. "We have great lawyers that are coming in to make sure that our contracts are more effectively and efficiently written and better for the American taxpayer that drive products and not just spending.
"And so Elon may not be there, but the conversation about government efficiency, I think, is still going to be there as if Elon was in the room."
When it was suggested "even Democrats" want the government to work more efficiently, Duffy demurred.
"I'm not so sure they do; you're giving them a lot of grace; sometimes they're complaining about DOGE," he warned.
On the reforms, Duffy pointed to the Biden-era electric vehicle charging stations proving to be a slow-walking waste of government effort and spending.
"I don't think the federal government should actually build charging stations," Duffy said. "I think the private sector could do it, but the Congress sent the money to DOT to build charging stations here.
"The reason you don't have charging stations — I think we have 66 now — is because of the crazy rules and regulations, the social justice, and the green requirements that were put in to the money that was sent to states: They couldn't build with the money," Duffy lamented. "They spent money but didn't actually build charging stations for it.
"So what we've done at DOT is we've actually said, you know, hold on, we're going to pause and we're going to rewrite the guidelines on how this program should work. If you're going to spend money — and the Congress says we have to unless they claw back — if we're going to spend it, let's then build charging stations.
"This is liberalism at its finest: Spend lots of money and don't deliver for the American people."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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