Latest News: Donald Trump appoints Elon Musk to ‘efficiency’ role and Fox News host as defence secretary…. Check In

It’s no coincidence that the team announced to slash government spending is called the Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge.

Doge started off as a meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog, which then gave its name to a crypto currency – Dogecoin – both of which have been frequently referred to by Elon Musk online.

Now these internet in-jokes are being referenced in something much more serious – an advisory body that intends to make hugely important decisions about public spending.

Dogecoin has increased in value by 250% over the past month, buoyed by Donald Trump’s pledges to deregulate cryptocurrency during the election.

Reflecting the enduring unpredictability of crypto, however, the coin’s value actually went down overnight, dropping around 10% at one point

As Doge, the government “department”, gears up, it could point to the kind of instability that many other bodies and institutions will also have to brace themselves for.

Pete Hegseth: We ‘Brexit’d before it was cool’
published at 10:46
10:46
A vest worn by Pete Hegseth in a TikTok advocating for “Veteran-owned, American-made, anti-woke companies” earlier this year caught the eyes of some viewers.

In reference to America’s independence in 1776, Hegseth’s vest shows an illustration of George Washington – one of the country’s Founding Fathers and the first US president – holding up a “peace” sign and surrounded by text reading “Brexit’d before it was cool”.

The current and incoming US presidents are due to meet at the White House later today.

US President Joe Biden will welcome president-elect Donald Trump for an Oval Office visit, a traditional part of the transfer of power.

It’s a ritual that Trump declined to participate in four years ago when he lost the 2020 election to Biden.

That means that their meeting will be the first time, external since 1992 that an outgoing president sits down in the Oval Office with an incoming one he competed against in the election.

Trump also plans to meet with Republicans from Congress as they focus on his Day 1 priorities and prepare for the possibility of a unified government, where the party controls Congress and the White House.

US media is reporting that Florida Senator Marco Rubio is the likely pick to be Donald Trump’s secretary of state.

CBS, the BBC’s US reporting partner, has confirmed reports on Rubio’s expected appointment – but the Trump camp has yet to comment.

Some in the campaign and transition team are not fond of Rubio.

Presidential hopeful turned Trump supporter Robert F Kennedy Jr. is among those sceptical of the senator. Kennedy reportedly “expressed opposition” about Rubio having a major foreign policy role.

Some more conservative members of the party have also expressed concern that Rubio is too hawkish on foreign policy.

Trump also eyed Rubio as a possible running mate ahead of 2024. The pair have not always had a rosy relationship: Rubio was an outspoken critic of Trump in 2016 and ran against him for the Republican presidential nomination.

The president-elect, known to be fond of assigning his opponents nicknames, referred to Rubio during the 2016 campaign as “Little Marco”.

In addition to Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy will co-lead Donald Trump’s new “Department for Government efficiency”. But who is he?

Age: 39

Background: He’s a biotech multi-millionaire who ran to become the Republican presidential nominee earlier this year, before dropping out of the race in January and endorsing Trump

Beliefs: During his presidential bid, he said “faith, patriotism, and hard work” were being replaced by “new secular religions like Covid-ism climate-ism and gender ideology”. He has also called for Ukraine to make “major concessions” in order to end the conflict with Russia.

Experience: He has no previous experience of political office. But he put forward plans to scrap a number of federal departments including the Department of Education, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI during his presidential campaign.

US President-elect Donald Trump has selected Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defence. He is a Fox News commentator and military veteran with no experience in government.

Here’s what else you should know about the incoming defence head:

Hegseth studied at Harvard and Princeton
The 44-year-old was commissioned as an infantry captain in the Army National Guard in 2003, serving in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay
In 2019, Hegseth urged Trump to pardon US service members accused of war crimes – and in 2021 he left the military, saying he was side-lined for his political and religious views
He’s criticised Nato allies as “outdated, outgunned, invaded and impotent”, and described the US as “the European ’emergency contact number’ for the past century”

He’s also expressed disdain for what he calls the “woke” policies of Pentagon leaders, including its top military officer

Five key takeaways from the Doge announcement
published at 09:20
09:20
The statement announcing the appointments of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy was published by Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign press secretary, on X, and by the president-elect on Truth Social.

Here’s a summary of the key lines:

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”
Trump says it will be “The Manhattan Project” of our time – the US government programme during World War Two which developed the atomic bomb
The advisory board will “provide guidance from outside of government”

It will “drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 trillion of government spending”
Trump says Musk and Ramaswamy’s work “will conclude no later” than 4 July 2026

As we’ve been reporting, Elon Musk has been appointed to co-lead Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” – or Doge for short – set up to slash government spending.

We know very little about exactly what the body will do, where it will sit against formal government structures, and how much power it will wield – but in an hours-long posting spree on X, Musk offers some sweeping indications.

He’s calling Doge “America’s last chance” and claims the country will go bankrupt without it, adding: “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”

One post, that Musk re-shared, alleged that $750,000 of tax is used for the New York Metropolitan Opera fire alarm.

In another, Senator Rand Paul’s claim that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases spent $477,121 “to study HIV in transgender monkeys” is cited.

Musk says Doge’s actions will be posted online for transparency, and there will be a leader board for the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars”.

He claims 99 federal agencies is “more than enough” – there are currently over 400 agencies and sub-agencies.

In summary, Musk promises this is “Making Government Fun Again!”

Donald Trump is making clear that he intends to entirely reshape the American government, by appointing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to drastically reduce government spending, slash regulation, and dismantle government bureaucracy.

Trump describes the body as the new Manhattan Project – the US programme to develop nuclear weapons in the 1940s.

That’s an indication of how dramatic he hopes the impact of their work will be.

Trump has also named Pete Hegseth as defence secretary, an army combat veteran with no experience in government, who spent the past eight years working as a presenter on Fox News.

Hegseth may run into opposition from senior military leaders, and might struggle to have his appointment confirmed in the Senate.

But the president-elect is demanding the next Republican Senate leader should call recesses, during which he can side-step the usual confirmation process for his candidates.

Last month, Musk said there were “too many people” in the government sector and they could be “more productive elsewhere”.

“We will reduce a lot of government headcount, but we’re gonna give very long severances. Like I mean two years, or something like that,” he said in an event in Philadelphia.

“Look, just go do something else, is what we’re going to say. And you’ll get paid for two years. So, you’ve got a lot of time to go and figure out something else to do. The point is not to be cruel.”

The SpaceX founder and Tesla chief executive will lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), working with Vivek Ramaswamy.

Last year, while running for president, Ramaswamy said he would fire more than 75% of the federal work force and close down several major agencies.