Key Republican governor applauds Trump frenetic pace, says DOGE needed to ‘right size’ Washington

One month into President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is giving Trump a thumbs up for “moving fast and quick.”

Trump has kept up a frenetic pace during his opening weeks back in the White House, with an avalanche of executive orders and actions. His muscular moves – applauded by Republicans and criticized by Democrats – have pushed the limits of executive power as the president has quickly put his stamp on the federal government.

“It’s good to see somebody that just brings common sense policy back to the White House, but also is just doing what they promised the American people they would do,” Kemp, the popular conservative two-term governor of Georgia, emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview.

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Kemp, the chair of the Republican Governors Association, faced political jabs earlier this decade from Trump over perceived grievances, but Trump made peace with the governor of the key southeastern battleground state last summer as he ran to win back the presidency.

“From my perspective, it’s good to have somebody that we could work with back in the White House on a lot of things that we care about,” Kemp added.

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Kemp is also applauding Trump’s creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with a mission to overhaul and downsize the federal government.

Trump named Elon Musk – the world’s richest person and the chief executive of Tesla and Space X – to steer the organization.

DOGE has swept through federal agencies since Trump was inaugurated a month ago, rooting out what the White House argues was billions in wasteful federal spending. It has also taken a meat cleaver to the federal workforce, resulting in a massive downsizing of employees. The moves by DOGE have triggered a slew of lawsuits in response.

“I think everybody agrees that, you know, we needed some right sizing in the federal government,” Kemp said when asked about DOGE’s efforts. ” We cannot continue to spend like we’ve been spending, when you look at where interest rates are, debts and deficits, and there’s going to have to be some hard choices made. But that’s what they [Trump] campaigned on, so I applaud them for doing what they said.”

Some of the cuts implemented by DOGE have affected the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which is based in Atlanta.

“The CDC has 13,000 employees, so I think this is talking about dealing with 1,000 people. So, you know, in the realm of things, it’s not a tremendous cut,” Kemp argued.

The governor added that “even Elon Musk himself said, ‘look, we’re going to make mistakes along the way.’ When we do that, we’re going to admit those and fix those.’ But they’re also going to find a lot of efficiencies, and I think that’s what they’ll do at the end of the day.”

Kemp emphasized that “I think everybody understands there needs to be a right sizing in government, even at places like the CDC.”

Kemp also spotlighted that the cost-cutting efforts by DOGE are similar to what Republican governors have been doing for years in their states.

“That’s been going on in the States for a long time, especially in Republican states, where…great Republican governors have been making state government efficient, balancing our budgets,” he noted. “It’s been going on for a long time, just maybe wasn’t the same name.”

Additionally, Kemp stressed that GOP governors “have prided ourselves on making government smaller, more efficient, making sure that we’re working for the people in our state.”