A congressional vote to codify DOGE’s spending cuts into law wouldn’t just be a victory for Elon Musk. It could end up being an even bigger win for the Republicans who have expressed unease with DOGE’s massive layoffs across federal agencies.

The renewed effort, led in part by Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has attracted attention from GOP senators who are particularly vulnerable to the political backlash over these layoffs and the haphazard nature of the DOGE operation.

The process, known as rescission, would allow Hill Republicans to directly address the problems that DOGE is creating for them back home. It would give GOP lawmakers the final say on whether a certain program or initiative should be cut, a key reprieve for the Republicans raising alarms about cuts to essential services.

“We started off good but we’re losing altitude,” Graham said. “Politically, now’s the time to start putting in legislation the accomplishments of DOGE and deal with the problems.”

In a brief interview, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there’s “a lot of interest” in a rescissions vote within his conference. But Thune noted that it needs to originate from the White House, which needs to “prove they’re real,” referring to the proposed cuts.

Graham told us he spoke with a White House official Wednesday night, just hours after Musk attended a Senate GOP lunch. Graham said “we’re onto something,” but he declined to elaborate.

A win-win? Musk was jumping for joy on Wednesday when he learned during the closed-door lunch that Republicans could vote to codify proposed spending cuts without requiring Democratic votes.

For Musk, this would ensure some level of permanence for the spending cuts and possibly shield DOGE from the myriad of lawsuits challenging its legal authority.

And as Graham alluded to, crafting a rescission package would create an oversight mechanism for DOGE, which is run by young and inexperienced staffers who, for example, errantly cut an Ebola prevention program, as Musk recently admitted.

“We’re all looking for ways for us to do our job,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said. “I also think it’s important for people who are a little bit confused about [Musk’s] role — to better define whatever his role is.”

Later Thursday, President Donald Trump nodded to some of those concerns by telling his Cabinet officials that they, not Musk, have ultimate decision-making power on layoffs at their departments and agencies. Thune was among those suggesting Musk shouldn’t be overruling Cabinet secretaries.

Drawbacks:By definition, rescissions would reverse funding that has already been appropriated. But such a vote wouldn’t come without risks. And success isn’t guaranteed.

First, it could be a politically difficult vote for vulnerable Republicans. Their Democratic opponents could use a “yes” vote to tie them directly to DOGE. And they’d still have to answer for the programs they vote to cut. Senate and House GOP leaders will have to consider this.

Another risk is that it could create a dispute between the White House and the Hill if GOP leaders try to veto certain proposed rescissions. It also adds yet another tricky task to the Republican leadership’s plate at a time when they’re already facing headwinds with budget reconciliation.

But as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) noted, approving a rescission package could make it easier to pass a reconciliation bill because it could obviate deficit hawks’ complaints that the bill doesn’t cut enough spending, a key divide between the House and Senate.

The last time a GOP-controlled Senate tried to pass a rescission package, the effort failed because two Republicans voted against it. But that was back in 2018 when Senate Republicans had a smaller majority. Today, they could only lose up to three GOP votes. But with such thin margins in the House, getting near-unanimous support would be exceedingly difficult.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who voted against that 2018 package, said identifying spending cuts requires “a careful analysis” rather than an “across-the-board approach.”

Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse.

Musk met with Republican senators at a luncheon to give them an overview of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team’s work to root out waste, fraud and abuse across an array of federal programs.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who largely supports Musk’s mission, told him DOGE’s efforts to cut spending and reduce the federal workforce reductions won’t pass muster with the courts unless Congress codifies them by passing a spending rescission package.

“To make it real, to make it go beyond the moment of the day, it needs to come back in the form of a rescission package,” Paul said after the meeting, pointing to 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning rejecting the Trump administration’s argument that billions of dollars in foreign aid should remain frozen.

“I love all the stuff they’re doing, but we got to vote on it. My message to Elon was: Let’s get over the impoundment idea and let’s send it back as a rescission package,” he said.

“Then, what we have to do is get to 51 senators or 50 senators” to vote “to cut the spending,” he added. “We talked a lot about, how do we make these things permanent? Rescission was a big part of the discussion.”

Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said there’s broad desire within the Senate GOP conference for a vote on DOGE’s recommended cuts.

“Yes, yes, 100 percent, and we should be doing it, like, yesterday,” Graham said.

“You could do regulatory reform without us, but anything that doesn’t fit within [budget] reconciliation has to be done through rescissions,” he explained.

Graham and other Republican lawmakers said Musk’s proposed cuts cannot be codified through the special budget reconciliation package they plan to move to address border security, energy reform and tax reform.

“My understanding is, since the budget reconciliation deals with mandatory spending [and] that the DOGE cuts would be primarily from discretionary, the way we’d do that procedurally is for the White House to request us to take up a rescissions package,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “We could pass it with 51 votes here and a majority in the House.”

GOP lawmakers say Musk’s failure to brief them in advance about impending cuts and funding freezes — or to respond to their questions and concerns about actions taken by DOGE — reflected his belief that he thought the administration could largely bypass them by simply impounding funds lawfully appropriated by Congress.

Musk, for example, revealed Wednesday he wasn’t aware that Congress could pass a rescissions package through the Senate with a simple majority vote, rather than the 60-vote threshold usually needed to pass controversial bills through the upper chamber.

At least one Republican senator at Wednesday’s meeting said there needed to be better communication with Musk and his team and wanted to know what else DOGE is planning.

Many Republican senators have complained publicly and privately about being blindsided by Musk’s proposed funding freezes and reductions in workforce.

“Every day’s another surprise,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said last week of the frequent news bombshells from DOGE.

Collins said a methodical approach to reforming government would be better than what she called Musk’s “sledgehammer approach.”

Senate Steering Committee Chair Rick Scott (R-Fla.) invited Musk to the lunch meeting to speak to GOP senators directly after several of them voiced their complaints about what they thought was a lack of transparency and accountability at DOGE.

Several GOP senators vented their frustrations over Musk’s operating style — especially his team’s failure to respond promptly to their concerns — at a meeting last week with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Wiles told frustrated senators they should contact her directly with their concerns over funding freezes and reductions in force pushed by Musk and his team of young engineers.

Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said the GOP senators who complained about Musk and his methods last week were much more cordial when they met with him face-to-face in the wood-empaneled Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor.

“Senators were much nicer to him in person than they have been. A week ago, people were pretty cranky: ‘They’re shutting down stuff, we’re not being told.’ They were much more polite to him in person,” a person familiar with Wednesday’s lunch said.

With Musk in the room, GOP senators phrased their concerns about DOGE’s spending cuts and freezes much more diplomatically.

“The way people phrased it was, ‘When DOGE is being blamed for something, how can we verify whether it’s true or not?’ It’s a nice way of saying, ‘If I want to complain, how can I do it?’” the source said.

GOP lawmakers were vexed last week by a surprise announcement that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had decided to dismiss 1,400 probationary employees. That came on the heels of the dismissal of 1,000 VA employees on Feb. 13.

Faced with pushback from Congress, the department later announced it had mistakenly rescinded job offers to staff the Veterans Crisis Line, explaining that was due to “an administrative error.”

Musk told the senators he would set up a process to respond quickly to their concerns and questions, something that appeared to please the Republicans sitting around the room.

While a number of GOP senators have complaints about Musk’s aggressive tactics and lack of collaboration with Congress, they are leery of confronting him directly, fearful he could pour tens of millions of dollars into backing Republican primary challengers next year.

Musk spent at least $288 million to help elect President Trump and other Republican candidates in 2024, and he warned House Republicans during a visit to Capitol Hill in December that he was keeping track of a “naughty list” of members who buck Trump’s agenda.

Musk vowed after Election Day that his PAC would “play a significant role in primaries” next year.