‘A shell of our former self’: How Trump and Musk’s spending cuts are hampering US government readiness amid the Iran war | CNN Politics

President Donald Trump began his second term with a promise to cut “billions and billions of dollars” in government spending, empowering Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to eliminate programs and fire workers it deemed wasteful. One year later, cuts to programs and personnel at federal agencies that had been declared unneeded mere months ago have hampered the US government’s abilities to prepare for domestic emergencies; monitor terror threats; guard against cyber-attacks; broadcast US information into Iran; and quickly help US citizens stranded abroad, current and former government officials told CNN. Democrats and a handful of Republicans have long criticized the way that DOGE and the Trump administration slashed government programs, warning it harmed the US domestically and abroad. Now the cuts, which continued even after Musk left government last spring, are again being scrutinized as US strikes on Iran have sparked a war that’s spilled out across the Middle East. “I think it went overboard. I thought it was too aggressive, too fast, too soon,” GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said of the DOGE cuts. A former FBI special agent and federal p