Posted on 03/15/2026 4:22:21 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
One year after Elon Musk began an unprecedented attempt to eliminate swaths of the federal government, newly released deposition videos are providing a never-before-seen look at two of the people responsible for the largest mass termination of federal grants in the National Endowment for the Humanities' history.
In lengthy depositions, two DOGE employees -- Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh -- defended the effort to cut "useless agencies" as part of DOGE's attempt to reduce the federal deficit.
"You don't regret that people might have lost important income ... to support their lives?" an attorney asked Cavanaugh about the grant cancellations.
"No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero," Cavanaugh said.
"Do you think it's inappropriate in any way that someone in their 20s with no experience with grants for the federal government was making personal judgment calls about what grants to cancel?" an attorney asked.
"Um, no. I don't think it's inappropriate," Cavanaugh said, arguing that he did not need formal education or experience to make informed judgments.
"So presumably you read some of these books that would have informed you on how to cancel a grant based on DEI," the attorney asked.
"Um, I did not read a book, um, on how to discern whether a grant includes DEI or not. I read the actual description of the actual grant," Cavanaugh said.
Fox said they instead turned to OpenAI's ChatGPT to help sift through the thousands of grants awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Both Fox and Cavanaugh defended the funding decisions, arguing the cuts were necessary to reduce the deficit, though they never achieved their goals.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.com ...
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Every single taxpayer loses when fraud, waste, and abuse take over a government that is supposed to be serving them.
>> people responsible for the largest mass termination of federal grants in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ history
OH NO! How could they do such a thing? HOW SHALL WE PUNISH THEM??!?
(My suggestion is to give them the American Freedom Medal.)
Why should we pay people to sit around and twiddle their thumbs.
>> ?
Pretty obvious to me what he is saying. What’s your question with it?
Funding the humanities, while worthy, is not something the federal government should do.
I see this all the time and it makes my blood boil………we got this grant to do X, isn’t it wonderful???!!
It is not the function of the Federal Government to supply citizens with income, you miserable twit.
It is the function of government to insure that the citizens have a safe environment where they can provide their own income free of violence, fraud or theft.
When it becomes the job of government to supply citizens income, fraud is ensured.
What was the deficit reduced to?
Let the Soros foundation fit the bill!
Let the rich pay!
>> What was the deficit reduced to?
No clue, and I don’t intend to look it up, but it’s irrelevant.
He didn’t say he did, or would, reduce it to any particular number. He said it was more important to do it, and he’s absolutely right. GOD bless DOGE for WORKING on the problem!
Meaning: they were working toward that as a goal
I consider goals and objectives to be pretty important. They had at least a general idea of what they were trying to do. So that was good.
And one of the staffers being deposed answered the question on if their work helped reduce the deficit.
He said it hadn’t.
“Income” taken from taxpayers by threat of gunpoint? Uh, no.
Unfortunately, however, the Trump admin is arranging MORE immigration to “lower (American) wages”: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/us/politics/farm-labor-trump-migrant-workers-h2a.html
There should be no national endowment for anything, as long as it uses extorted tax dollars.
The private sector will take care of worthy causes, all on its own.
There is a precedent for the private sector doing more when Federal dollars stop.
PBS and NPR.
With that Federal funding now gone, private has stepped up and filled most of the void.
So it can be done.
So many people grift from the forced-to-pay taxes people. Of course these parasites feel that it is their right to receive “funding” for their usually BS project whatever it may be.
DOGE should get praised for their work...and supported moving forward.
The parasite class munching on the piles of taxpayers’ money have no shame and feel self-entitled.
There's such a lovely spin there, eh? In "important income" goes along with government paying it, why not just PAY EVERYONE with government money?
After all, "people" do "something" and its all "important."
How about the law firm spouting this nonsense make up for the "important income" lost by paying for it themselves?
I feel bad for the taxpayers working honest jobs to fund government fraud, waste and abuse. They have families too.
I do not feel bad for the looters.
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