The Congressional DOGE Caucus’ plans for cutting government waste are shifting into focus after the group’s second-ever closed-door meeting on Wednesday.

Caucus leaders are splitting lawmakers into eight working groups focused on different sectors for waste-cutting. Those will focus on retirement, social and family safety nets, emergency supplemental funding, energy permitting, homeland security, defense and veterans, the workforce, and government operations, according to a document viewed by Fox News Digital.

Co-chairs Aaron Bean, R-Fla., and Pete Sessions, R-Texas, challenged lawmakers in the room to introduce at least one bill related to government efficiency in the 119th Congress.

Both told Fox News Digital that it was just one of the coordinated efforts the caucus is planning as it seeks to be the legislative support for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being co-led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

‘We’regoing to aim for a day where we will drop pieces of legislation, a day where we will go on the floor and speak to the American people,’ Sessions told Fox News Digital.

Bean expounded on the idea, labeling it ‘DOGE Days.’

‘We’re going to have a day where we hopefully can draw up 20, 30 bills and all the DOGE members come forward, boom, we’re on them,’ Bean said. ‘We’re going to have great team work and great synergy and momentum.’

They asked attendees to fill out a survey, a copy of which was obtained by Fox News Digital, designating which working groups they would like to be a part of. 

During the closed-door meeting, lawmakers took turns to discuss their own ideas for cutting government waste as well.

Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., called for a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to balance the federal budget.

And Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., suggested cutting off child tax credit eligibility for illegal immigrants.

‘Currently, we’re not nearly careful enough… where illegal aliens are getting a child tax credit, childcare tax credit. That’s ridiculous. You know, so those are my point was those are the easy things to do, the low-hanging fruit,’ Van Drew told Fox News Digital when asked about his meeting comments.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who is leading the DOGE effort on the Senate side and also attended the Wednesday House meeting, urged lawmakers there to work with their counterparts in the upper chamber on bicameral bills.

Lawmakers have been enthusiastic about the goals laid out by Musk and Ramaswamy’s new panel. Commissioned by President-elect Trump, the group is an advisory panel aimed at recommending where the executive branch can cut government waste.

The DOGE Caucus is a bid to make Trump’s cost-cutting initiatives permanent through legislation.

The group opened and email tip line which Bean and Sessions said has already received over 15,000 emails.

Bean said he was surprised but pleased at the enthusiasm.

Sessions added, ‘I’ve gotten probably 200 letters here that were really typed out, and some were written, that said, ‘Thank you for doing this. I’d like you to hear from me.’ And this is an acknowledgement back to the American people who have skin in the game also.’

President Biden delivered his farewell address to the nation on Wednesday evening, taking a victory lap for the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas and warning Americans about an ‘oligarchy’ in the U.S. that ‘threatens our entire democracy.’

‘My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from the Oval Office. Before I begin, let me speak to important news from earlier today. After eight months of nonstop negotiation, my administration –  by my administration — a cease fire and hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas. The elements of which I laid out in great detail in May of this year,’ Biden said in his opening remarks. 

‘This plan was developed and negotiated by my team, and will be largely implemented by the incoming administration. That’s why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed, because that’s how it should be, working together as Americans,’ he continued. 

Israel and Hamas came to a ceasefire agreement on Wednesday that also ensured the release of hostages. A recent meeting between Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly played a pivotal role in the deal, sources told Fox News Digital.

The president in his farewell address also warned Americans that there is a ‘dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people.’

‘I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. … That’s a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people. The dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked,’ he said. 

‘Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy. Our basic rights, freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,’ he continued.

Biden will officially exit the Oval Office on Jan. 20, when President-elect Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president around noon that day. 

Biden’s speech also focused on the American dream and the ‘most powerful idea’ that ‘all of us are created equal.’

‘The very idea of America was so big, we felt the entire world needed to see. The Statue of Liberty, a gift from France after our Civil War. Like the very idea of America, it was built not by one person, but by many people, from every background and from around the world. Like America, the Statue of Liberty is not standing still. Her foot literally steps forward atop a broken chain of human bondage. She’s on the march and she literally moves,’ he said. 

‘A nation of pioneers and explorers, of dreamers and doers, of ancestors native to this land, of ancestors who came by force. A nation of immigrants came to build a better life, a nation holding a torch. The most powerful idea ever, in the history of the world, that all of us, all of us are created equal. That all of us deserve to be treated with dignity, justice and fairness. That democracy must defend and be defined and be imposed, moved in every way possible. Our rights, our freedoms, our dreams,’ he said. 

Biden continued to call for a series of policies U.S. leaders should implement in the coming years, such as reforming the tax code to ensure billionaires ‘begin to pay their fair share’ and to ‘amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president, is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office.’

‘We need to get dark money, that’s that hidden funding behind too many campaign contributions. We need to get it out of our politics. We need to enact an 18-year … term for the strongest ethics reform … for Supreme Court. We need to ban members of Congress from power, from trading stock while they’re in the Congress,’ he said. 

Biden has spent more than 50 years in public office, making his mark on the national map in 1972, President Richard Nixon’s landslide re-election year, when he beat a Republican incumbent in a long-shot Senate race in Delaware at the age of 29. 

Biden served 36 years in the U.S. Senate, one of the longest Senate careers in the chamber’s history, before joining former President Barack Obama’s ticket during the 2008 election and serving as vice president for eight years. 

‘After 50 years of public service, I gave you my word. I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands. A nation where the strength of our institutions, the character of our people, matter and must endure. Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it too. God bless you all. May God protect our troops. Thank you for this great honor,’ Biden concluded. 

The 46th president defeated Trump during the 2020 election, and was set to square up against him again last year, but abruptly dropped out of the presidential race as concerns surrounding his mental acuity mounted. Vice President Kamala Harris was soon quickly endorsed by Biden and other high-profile Democrats to take up the mantle as the party’s presidential nominee, but lost the election as Trump swept all seven battleground states. 

Biden has been an outspoken and repeated critic of Trump’s, calling him a ‘genuine threat to this nation,’ but vowed to ensure a peaceful transfer of power and that ‘of course’ he will attend Trump’s inauguration.

A Fox News Poll released Wednesday found Trump is the most popular he’s ever been.

The poll found that 52% of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the transition, while 46% disapprove, which is a reversal from 2017 when just 37% approved and 54% disapproved. 

While a CNN poll conducted by SSRS found 36% of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing in the White House, and 64% reporting they disapprove.  

Fox News’ Breck Dumas, Victoria Balara, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. 

Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sailed through his confirmation hearing with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, all but assuring he will assume the role of top diplomat under the new Trump administration later this month.

Rubio’s confirmation hearing — a process usually full of verbal diatribes, strong political agendas and illusive answers — was full of pleasantries, with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers applauding his work in the Senate and his in-depth knowledge of complex issues across the globe.

Here were the top moments from Rubio’s hearing.

PROTESTERS

While Rubio may have been welcomed by his Senate colleagues, his hearing wasn’t entirely contention-free.

The secretary of state-hopeful’s opening remarks were interrupted by several protesters affiliated with a group known as Code Pink, who were protesting the Israel-Hamas war and wore pink shirts that read ‘stop killing the children of Gaza.’

Two of the demonstrators forced to leave the chamber were male, before a female protester also stood up and yelled out in Spanish. 

She was quickly escorted from the room and the hearing promptly restarted.

‘I get bilingual protesters,’ Rubio said to the panel of senators with a grin before resuming his remarks.

IN JEST

Rubio’s quip about the protesters appeared to set the tone for his hearing.

Though Rubio faced tough questions about detailed geopolitical issues on nearly every continent, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also joked around with their Senate colleague.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduced Rubio at the top of the hearing and quipped that ‘finally’ he will get to be the senior senator of Florida after the duo have served together in the upper chamber since 2019.

Sen. Cory Booker , D-N.J., drew chuckles when he said, ‘Sen. Rubio, the President [elect] made a great decision in choosing you. You’re a thought leader in foreign policy. I, however, don’t think most Americans know how great of a thought leader you are in NCAA, NFL and high school football, and I’m a little disappointed that you’re not going to the head of the NCAA right now.’

To which Rubio replied, ‘Not yet,’ garnering laughs from the room.

In another bipartisan moment rarely seen during Cabinet nomination hearings, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., told a touching story from one of her first encounters with Rubio — a stark contrast to her questioning of defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth the day prior. 

In 2018, not only was Duckworth relatively new to the upper chamber, but the soon-to-be new mom was also pushing the congressional body to change its rules and allow new parents to bring their infant onto the Senate floor during a vote.

Duckworth, who is physically disabled after surviving a 2004 RPG attack on her helicopter in Iraq, described rolling across the Senate floor in her wheelchair when she heard someone call out her name. 

‘And you came running down from the top back of the Senate chambers to tell me, ‘I’m with you. I will support you’,’ she said. ‘And I just want to thank you for that kindness… It was a moment of true bipartisanship.’

Rubio responded and said, ‘I think what I exactly said is, ‘What’s the big deal? This place is already full of babies,” once again drawing laughs.

SERIOUS MATTERS

The five-hour hearing wasn’t all fun and levity, as Rubio was pressed on issues with major security implications like the war in Ukraine, China, NATO and Artic security.

Rubio surprised no one with his tough-on-China approach and his commitment to remaining a strong ally of NATO’s.

However, one area senators may have hoped Rubio would have come out more definitively was over what continued support for Ukraine may look like and how the incoming Trump administration will handle the question of Ukraine becoming a NATO member. 

Both Ukraine and Russia have signaled they are open to negotiating a cease-fire. But securing a lasting peace deal could be difficult as Ukraine entering the NATO alliance has been deemed a non-negotiable by both Kyiv — who wants the alliance’s security — and Moscow — which has fervently opposed Ukrainian NATO membership.

‘The truth of the matter is that in this conflict there is no way Russia takes all of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are too brave, and fight too hard, and the country is too big,’ Rubio said.

But he added that ‘there’s no way Ukraine is also pushing these people [Russians] all the way back to where they were on the eve of the invasion.’

Rubio pointed out that Ukraine will not be able to keep up with the sheer number of bodies that Russia can throw in to the war.

‘It’s important for everyone to be realistic. There will have to be concessions,’ he said. ‘This is not going to be easy. ‘[It’s] going to require a lot of hard diplomacy.’

THE CHINA PROBLEM

The security threats surrounding China came up in nearly every issue Rubio was asked to address, including its growing presence in Africa and Latin America, its oppressive practices in the South China Sea, concerns over trade, human rights abuses, tech and its growing relationships with other adversarial nations.

But one issue newer to headlines as of late is China’s involvement in the Panama Canal.

‘This is something that’s existed now for at least a decade in my service,’ he said, referring to a 2017 trip he took to Panama. ‘Chinese companies control port facilities at both ends of the canal — the east and the west. And the concerns among military officials and security officials, including in Panama, at that point, [was] that could one day be used as a choke point to impede commerce in a moment of conflict.’

‘This is a legitimate issue that needs to be confronted,’ Rubio added.

The issue of Chinese control over the major waterway resurfaced earlier this month when Trump refused to say whether he would rule out military intervention in the Panama Canal.

Rubio was pressed on the subject multiple times, though he was clear that he was not yet at a point where he knew enough about the legal parameters of U.S. intervention in Panama to give a thorough response. 

KAINE GUSHES 

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., applauded Rubio for being ‘extremely well-prepared’ for his confirmation hearing as the next secretary of state — a stark contrast to his tense engagement with Hegseth during the hearing a day prior.

‘We’re used to seeing nominees who know a lot about a couple of things, and sometimes, who know very little about virtually everything,’ he said. ‘But I think you’ve seen a hearing with a nominee who — agree or disagree with the points he’s made — he’s not talking out of a briefing book.

‘He’s not having a thumb through a binder to decide how to answer a particular question,’ Kaine continued. ‘I’ve always been struck by working with Sen. Rubio on this committee, since I came to the Senate in January 2013, that he has a very well-developed sense of the world and a passion in all corners of it.’

Kaine’s sentiment appeared to be shared by the entirety of the committee, and many of the senators expressed confidence that Rubio will be unanimously confirmed for the top job.