The News
A growing number of Republican senators say President Donald Trump and his administration will need to coordinate with Congress more closely as the Department of Government Efficiency bears down on federal agencies.
Republicans stomached Trump’s ongoing nationwide layoffs of federal workers — albeit with some complaints — based on the rationale that he has wide latitude to reshape personnel. DOGE’s emerging pivot from layoffs to more structural changes at agencies, however, has some GOP senators urging the White House to talk to the legislative branch before moving ahead.
“The president’s within his purview of doing what he’s doing on personnel,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who serves on the committee that oversees banking regulators, told Semafor. “But when you get into structural reform — for example, consolidating the regulators for banking — that’s a whole different story.”
“That will require congressional consent, and I think the president would consult with us anyway,” Kennedy added.
Congressional Republicans’ relative compliance with Trump’s deployment of executive power has become a defining theme of his first weeks in office. DOGE aims to ultimately lay off hundreds of thousands of government workers and has already dismantled the US Agency for International Development as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all without major pushback from GOP lawmakers.
And despite the louder Republican calls for consultation on aggressive, forthcoming DOGE moves, it’s still not clear when and how senators might be willing to force the administration to loop in Congress. Across the Capitol in the House, GOP members have shown less appetite than senators for weighing in.
But Republican senators told Semafor that the broader overhaul of banking regulators Trump is eyeing — including a consolidation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — is the type of reorganization that will necessitate more involvement by Congress.
“Obviously, it will have to be a more consultative relationship for big policy changes,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told Semafor.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the regulatory agency plans, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, or on any plans to consult Congress.
Senate Republicans are also increasingly eager for more coordination on DOGE’s claimed spending cuts in order to finalize them. For all the savings that Elon Musk and his allies have touted, several conservatives are pointing out that the spending cuts won’t be tangible without congressional action.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, for example, told Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday that the Trump administration needs to send the DOGE cuts to Congress in the form of a “recissions” package. That would allow Congress to approve them with simple majority votes, avoiding a guaranteed Democratic filibuster in the Senate and giving them the force of law.
“There’s no doubt Congress will be involved. At the end of the day, the power of the purse is with Congress,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Semafor. “I think what DOGE is doing is terrific — and it will be a joint effort.”
Musk has likened Trump’s current sweeping government overhaul to a similar one under former President Bill Clinton. But Clinton’s downsizing was preceded by a lengthy review and efforts to get buy-in from Capitol Hill. That hasn’t happened yet under Trump.
And any permanent changes for USAID and the CFPB will likely require new laws from Congress, even as they face multiple legal challenges.
“He’s testing the limits of his authority under the Constitution as the chief executive officer of the country,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said of Trump. “We’re going to have to wait until the courts sort this out.”
Know More
The FDIC, CFPB and OCC are all independent agencies that were created by Congress, which makes any attempts to unilaterally overhaul them legally murky at best. Hollowing out their workforces — whether through transfers, layoffs or buyouts — could be a back-door way for the administration to more easily consolidate them without seeking a vote on the Hill.
Already, the FDIC has lost about 10 percent of its staff to layoffs and buyouts. The administration’s attempts to slash most of the CFPB’s staff are on pause after the National Treasury Employees Union sued the agency.
Republicans have largely gone along with the president’s frantic reshaping of the government, but they’re also regularly blindsided by cuts or personnel moves as Musk and Trump move quickly. The result is a chaotic process that has led to individual GOP senators urging the administration to rethink curbs on health care research or the halting of international food aid.
Kennedy said he would like DOGE to put out reports every two weeks on personnel and spending cuts, then have Musk, Trump and their teams brief the media. That would result in a more “orderly” understanding of Trump’s bid to remake the government, Kennedy said.
So far, some Republicans acknowledged, orderliness is not the top priority.
“Are there going to be some unintended consequences that they should have looked around the corner and seen? Yes,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “And we’re just going to have to deal with that, because [that’s] the way the administration wants to ramp up.”
Meanwhile, banking groups are urging the White House to proceed cautiously.
Eleanor and Burgess’ View
Congressional Republicans are generally happy to cheer the Trump administration’s elbow-throwing approach to layoffs and shakeups at federal agencies.
But the yellow light that some senators showed on Wednesday suggested that they’re not as comfortable with a sudden overhaul of banking regulators that underpin much of the US financial system — as popular as the broad idea of consolidating those agencies may be.
It’s unclear, for instance, what any Trump-blessed merger of financial regulators would do to the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund, which backstops money deposited across the country in the event of a bank failure.
Room for Disagreement
Not all Republican senators saw a role in the possible remaking of banking regulators. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Semafor that he thinks lawmakers should stay out of the administration’s way until the White House asks them for help.
“I was very involved with a community bank for 20 years; I think there’s a lot of duplication of what’s going on,” Marshall said. “I think they need to be merged, wherever possible.”
“The job of DOGE is to identify the opportunities — where the waste, fraud, abuse and incompetence is,” he added. “If the president can’t take care of that with executive orders, then Congress should step in there and do it.”
Notable
- DOGE has made some notable errors as it claims huge cuts, per CBS.
- The administration appears to be preparing to transfer FDIC and CFPB employees to the OCC, according to Bloomberg Law.
Kadia Goba contributed to this report.