How DOGE is giving Trump credibility with rebellious House GOP fiscal hawks

Since the House Freedom Caucus was founded in 2015, it has bedeviled a succession of Republican speakers, from John Boehner to Paul Ryan to Kevin McCarthy to current gavel-wielder Mike Johnson.With Republicans holding a slim 218-214 House majority through the end of March, the Freedom Caucus has more influence than ever — and could trip up President Trump‘s agenda before it even has a chance to make its way through Congress.But Trump — and, by extension, Johnson — has a new ally in the usual Republican intramural sniping: the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose bull-in-a-china shop approach to shrinking government is helping GOP fiscal hawks get on board.“I think that’s an important part of it,” Chip Roy (R-Texas) told The Post this week when asked about DOGE’s burnishing the administration’s credibility on spending cuts.“DOGE is basically right now a great big magnifying glass … I think that’s step one of many.”Roy is one of the most prominent fiscal hawks among House Republicans, reluctantly voting to approve a blueprint for Trump’s agenda package last week despite calling the proposed spending cuts “weak.”Recently, Roy signaled openness to doing something almost unthinkable for him — support a continuing resolution (CR) needed to avert a partial government shutdown at 11:59 p.m.March 14, on the theory that Republicans will work to codify DOGE’s savings during the fiscal year 2026 appropriations process.In both cases, Roy noted the work that’s been done by the controversial executive branch agency.

And he’s not alone in doing so.“The bottom line is that DOGE has made it pretty clear that what we’ve been saying all along is pretty true,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.).“We need a closer look at every single dollar that the federal government spends.”Like Roy, Harris has signaled support for the stopgap CR measure, suggesting that if GOP leadership is forced to court Democrats t...