The White House is pushing back against a report from the Associated Press claiming that nearly 40% of the federal contracts that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) canceled aren’t expected to save the government any money.
The AP first reported that 40% figure on Tuesday, saying it was derived from the Trump administration’s own data.
DOGE, run by Elon Musk, published an initial list last week of 1,125 contracts that President Donald Trump’s signature cost-saving program terminated in recent weeks across the federal government.
The AP said the data published on DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” shows that more than one-third of the contract cancelations, 417 in all, are expected to yield no savings. The publication assesses that, in most cases, that’s because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, meaning the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so.
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A White House official told Fox News Digital, however, that many of the contracts were on auto-renewal, suggesting DOGE would still be saving taxpayers money in the long run by canceling the contracts it deems wasteful.
“DOGE is identifying waste that most Americans never knew existed. That is a good thing,” the official said. “Also, many of these contracts were also on auto-renew – so DOGE is preventing tax dollars from being wasted on these scams in the future.”
Then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, left, claps as Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk prepares to depart after speaking at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The AP cited an unnamed administration official as saying on condition of anonymity that it made sense to cancel contracts that are seen as potential dead weight, even if the moves do not yield any savings.
A government contracting law expert was more critical.
“It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective,” Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore law professor, told the AP. “Their terminating so many contracts pointlessly obviously doesn’t accomplish anything for saving money.”
“It’s too late for the government to change its mind on many of these contracts and walk away from its payment obligation,” added Tiefer, who served on the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tiefer told the AP that DOGE appeared to be taking a “slash and burn” approach to cutting contracts, which he said could damage the performance of government agencies. He said savings could be made instead by working with agency contracting officers and inspectors general to find efficiencies, an approach the administration has not taken.
President Donald Trump speaks as Elon Musk, joined by his son X Æ A-Xii, in the Oval Office at the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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It’s not the first time the White House has clashed with the AP in recent weeks.
A federal judge on Monday declined to immediately order the White House to restore the AP’s access to presidential events. U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden allowed to stand the two-week ban implemented over the AP continuing to refer to the “Gulf of America” as the “Gulf of Mexico” despite Trump’s executive order renaming the body of water. The judge did warn government attorneys the law was not on the administration’s side in the long term.
Of the listed contracts canceled by DOGE, dozens were for already-paid subscriptions to the AP, Politico and other media services that the administration said it would discontinue. The AP assessed that other canceled contracts “were for research studies that have been awarded, training that has taken place, software that has been purchased and interns that have come and gone.”
In all, DOGE data says the 417 contracts in question had a total value of $478 million. The AP said dozens of other canceled contracts are expected to yield little if any savings.
The canceled contracts were to purchase a wide range of goods and services.
Protesters rally outside the Treasury Department in Washington on Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded a contract in September to purchase and install office furniture at various branches. While the contract does not expire until later this year, federal records show the agency had already agreed to spend the maximum $567,809 with a furniture company, according to the AP.
The U.S. Agency for International Development negotiated a $145,549 contract last year to clean the carpet at its headquarters in Washington. But the full amount had already been obligated to a firm that is owned by a Native American tribe based in Michigan. Another already-spent $249,600 contract went to a Washington, D.C., firm to help prepare the Department of Transportation for the recent transition from the Biden to the Trump administration.
Some of the canceled contracts were intended to modernize and improve the way the government works, according to the AP.
One of the largest, for instance, went to a consulting firm to help carry out a reorganization at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, which led the agency’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The maximum $13.6 million had already been obligated to Deloitte Consulting LLP for help with the restructuring, which included closing several research offices.
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DOGE has estimated that the overall contract cancelations are expected to save more than $7 billion so far – a figure that some critics have challenged.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
