Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) lambasted Donald Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, over his defense of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) accomplishments.

The fiery exchange took place during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing after Tillis asked Vought to name a single successful initiative the Musk-led agency brought to the table, warning Vought he did not “want a world salad answer.”

“I am not DOGE,” Vought answered.

“I’ve heard a lot of people, including you, talk about the DOGE savings,” Tillis said. “I’ve worked in the business world. My understanding is that the last time you worked in the business world was at B. Dalton Books when you were putting yourself through law school. But you don’t have this experience.”

Tillis added that no member of the DOGE team had experience.

The senator slammed DOGE for repeatedly firing federal workers before recalling them after learning their work is critical.

“All that stuff is amateur stuff that would have gotten me fired in my job at Price Waterhouse in a week,” Tillis said. “I love the idea of DOGE, but what I don’t love is the idea of DOGE shit that we’re picking up because people did it wrong.”

Tillis demanded that Vought present him with a written consultation outlining which government agencies saved the most money from DOGE cuts.

“Because right now, I’m picking up a lot of bags of — people, some of the most experienced people leaving, scientists leaving the NIH [National Institutes of Health], these random, ‘You were fired. Oh, I’m sorry, you weren’t. Wrong email address,’” he added.

DOGE claimed to have saved taxpayers up to $215 billion, or even $1,335.40 per taxpayer, by cutting federal contracts and firing federal workers. However, independent budget watchdogs and analysts widely refute these numbers, finding that the actual savings are a fraction of the claimed amounts.