House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has tamped down expectations for sending out so-called “DOGE stimulus checks” to United States citizens, an idea that President Donald Trump appears to be entertaining.
Johnson was pressed on the idea during a “fireside chat” with Newsmax anchor Rob Finnerty at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the Washington, D.C., area on Thursday.
“The president said that a percentage of DOGE savings could maybe go back to the American people in the form of what he called DOGE stimulus checks, something like 20%. How would that work?” Finnerty asked.
“I mean, politically, that would be great for us, you know. Send everybody a check, … but if you think about our core principles, fiscal responsibility is what we do as conservatives. That’s our brand,” Johnson said.
The speaker continued, “And we have a $36 trillion federal debt. We have a giant deficit that we’re contending with. I think we need to pay down the credit card. Right? I think that’s what we need to do.”
During a summit in Miami on Wednesday, Trump mentioned the possibility of sending out some of the money freed up via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort overseen by Elon Musk.
“There’s even under consideration a new concept where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying debt because the numbers are incredible, Elon,” Trump said.
Earlier in the week, Musk said on his social media platform X that he would “check with” Trump in response to Azoria CEO James Fishback proposing a “DOGE Dividend” that comes in the form of a tax refund check.
Trump also said on Wednesday “we’re just getting started” after DOGE “saved” $55 billion in one month. He added later, “We will rapidly grow our economy by dramatically shrinking the federal government.”
Johnson spoke approvingly of Musk and his work seeking to reduce federal spending through DOGE during an interview with Mark Levin, host of “Life, Liberty, and Levin” on Fox News, that aired Saturday night.
“The oversight job has been hindered because the deep state and the bureaucracy has not turned over the data. They wouldn’t give us the information we were seeking. We didn’t know all this because it was hidden,” he said.
“Now Elon has cracked the code. He is on the inside of the belly of the beast, Mark,” Johnson added. “And he is unveiling and revealing all these things that we knew intuitively were happening but we didn’t have the evidence.”
The speaker then emphasized, “This is a game changer. It is truly revolutionary and we’re going to restore ultimately through this process the federal government to the original intent of the Founders.”
