“We all want to cut the Executive Branch of government, but we want to do it more like a surgical approach, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told the Washington Examiner. “I think that they’re finding that out right now.”

Musk has gone a step further than Trump’s pledges not to cut Social Security or Medicare by saying they are rife with as much as $700 billion annually in waste despite internal government audits of improper payments showing the figure is but a fraction.

“The waste and fraud in entitlement spending — which most of the federal spending is entitlements — so, that’s the big one to eliminate,” Musk told FOX Business‘s Larry Kudlow, Trump’s first-term National Economic Council director, on Monday. “That’s the sort of half-trillion, maybe $6-700 billion a year.”

Musk told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that DOGE would “be very careful” with benefits, that targeting waste may “actually preserve those programs for the future,” and advocated privatizing more government jobs.

Trump, flanked by Musk, added, “The country will be much stronger.”

Democrats said the rhetoric is a guise for taking an axe to benefits that tens of millions of Americans receive each year, the vast majority of who are senior citizens.

“The richest man on Earth repeated again a bevy of lies that entitlement programs tens of millions of people rely on are riddled with fraud and abuse,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said. “That’s a pretext to slashing them, but it’s false.”

The White House has vehemently denied that Musk’s comments extend beyond vaguely defined waste, fraud, and abuse — terms that Democratic critics have said the administration has overly broad meanings for. Officials have also reaffirmed Trump’s opposition to altering benefits. Trump’s first-term budget proposals sought to slash Social Security’s disability program but left intact its benefits for retirees.

“What kind of a person doesn’t support eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending that ultimately costs taxpayers more?” an unnamed White House official said in a press release sent Tuesday morning.

Still, Republicans are making clear that their support for Musk and DOGE is not without limits. The tech icon sought to smooth over rough edges with GOP senators last week during a private meeting about his role in slashing federal workers and government spending. Some Republicans have grown impatient with the administration’s attempts to unilaterally dismantle agencies, programs, and contracts by revoking funds. Congress has already appropriated it, but there remains broad approval for most of the administration’s efforts to root out wasteful spending.

“I think it was pretty clear that they were listening to what we had to say with regard to anecdotally if you make a mistake, it can make your ongoing process much more difficult, and you could hurt somebody personally,” Rounds said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a staunch defender of Medicaid, the government-run healthcare for lower-income Americans, noted Congress would need to approve any benefit changes to Social Security or Medicare.

“If the fraud is significant and it’s going to folks who don’t qualify for the program, it’s taking away funds from people who do qualify. I’m all for that,” Hawley said. “But I’m not for cutting benefits in any way, shape, or form, and I absolutely will not vote for that.”

Social Security and Medicare are the federal government’s costliest programs. They account for 21% and 15% of the budget, respectively.

The government watchdog for the Social Security Administration concluded last year that there were nearly $72 billion in improper payments from 2015 to 2022 or less than 1% of total benefits paid during the time period. A 2023 audit found almost 19 million Americans more than 100 years old still listed as alive in the SSA’s system, with 44,000 of them still receiving payments. Social Security is estimated to go insolvent by 2035.

Improper payments for Medicare were far higher on a percentage basis. They totaled more than $54 billion for fiscal 2024, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or almost 15% of total benefits.

TRACKING WHAT DOGE IS DOING ACROSS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) suggested Musk should “step into the technology side” to weed out improper payments. Government agencies for both programs have said such payments, which are defined as overpayments, underpayments, or payments with insufficient information, do not necessarily equate to waste, fraud, or abuse.

“If you’re able to identify, like [DOGE] did with Treasury, lots of accounts that have no direction, we don’t know where the money’s going at all, everybody agrees with that,” Lankford said. “But before you shut down offices — Social Security offices, for instance — we need to find out, is that actually a necessary office? How is it used? What’s the history of that?”