Commerce Secretary Lutnick: Trump's goal is to abolish the IRS

• Trump has also floated the idea of abolishing federal income taxes as part of his plans of "tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens."

Driving the news: Lutnick said on "Jesse Watters Primetime" that Elon Musk, in his capacity as a senior White House adviser leading DOGE, was "going to cut" $1 trillion "and then we're going to get rid of all these tax scams that hammer against America, and we're going to raise a trillion dollars of revenue."

• Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Lutnick if he'd give the savings from DOGE cuts back to the American people.
• "Think about it, Donald Trump announces the External Revenue Service, and his goal is very simple ... his goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay," Lutnick replied.

Zoom out: While the reported mass firings were not discussed during the interview, an official with a Kansas City, Mo., union that represents IRS workers in the area said she had been notified on Wednesday about the layoffs, which are part of a DOGE-led drive to slash federal workforce numbers.

• Shannon Ellis, president of the city's National Treasury Employee Union chapter, said in a Facebook video they "received notification" that workers in the agency's Small Business/Self Employed Division "who are on probation are scheduled for termination" as early as Thursday.

• Representatives for the White House, Commerce Department and IRS did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment in the evening.

Go deeper: Musk's DOGE dismantles the job security of federal work

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.