Trump denies political agenda behind DOGE's data collection efforts

US President Donald Trump has rejected claims from some politicians and critics suggesting that the collection of personal data from ordinary Americans by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, is being carried out for political purposes.

“That’s inaccurate, as you know. I mean, it’s a crazy question. We just want to find fraud, abuse. We want to find who's on the rolls that shouldn't be, who's getting paid every month by the government that shouldn't be paid. Do these people exist? In many cases, they don't, in some cases, even worse, they do. They've been getting money, and they shouldn't be,” Caliber.Az reports, citing Trump’s interview with Time.

Earlier, reports surfaced that DOGE had gained access to the databases of numerous US federal agencies, which were previously maintained separately. These include records from the Social Security Administration, the US Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, the Immigration Court's administrative system, and other government bodies.

Some Democratic lawmakers have accused President Trump and Elon Musk of consolidating vast amounts of data about ordinary Americans in one place, creating a so-called “God-mode” view that has never existed before, which they claim could serve political agendas.

In the interview, President Trump also dismissed the idea that the data collected by DOGE would be used to track and detain immigrants as part of a mass deportation effort. “We’re just trying to find fraud and abuse, that’s all,” he reiterated. Trump praised DOGE's efforts, stating that it had uncovered instances of waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal budget totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. 

“DOGE has been a very big success. We found hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. Billions of dollars being given to politicians, single politicians based on the environment. It's a scam. It's illegal, in my opinion, so much of the stuff that we found, but I think DOGE has been a big success from that standpoint,” he added.

The president emphasised that the primary goal of his administration is to reduce government spending by cutting out excessive and legally questionable expenditures, underscoring his commitment to fiscal responsibility.

By Naila Huseynova