mr. vought, welcome. mr. vought: thank you. sen. kennedy: in my judgment, i don't know a single person in washington or outside washington who knows more about the federal budget then you do. -- than you do. i used to read your suggestions during president trump's first term. many of which congress ignored. we should not have. i am delighted that the president picked you. i have read that since 2019, the population of america has increased 2% and are spending has increased 55%. under president biden, i wish him well, if we had discovered life on mars, he would have sent it money. is that sustainable? mr. vought: it is totally unsustainable. the problem is that you go on these trajectories we are currently on and you don't know when you will get to the point of which you have some major, major problems as an economy and country. we know that historically. sen. kennedy: i hope you will start with the low hanging fruit. there's a lot. when we sent out stimulus checks to save our economy, $1.6 billion went to dead people. and the checks

mr. vought: sure. mr. moreno: there is been a lot of comments especially from the ranking member about betraying working americans. let me ask you a question. when the government forgives the debt of people who paid, took out a loan for college debt, does that help working americans like my technicians, my sales consultants, my receptionist, my drivers, my car wash guys who didn't go to college, does it help them when student debt is illegally forgiven? mr. vought: it doesn't. sen. moreno: when you have insane government spending that unleashes generationally high inflation, that makes going to taco bell a luxury, does that help working-class americans? mr. vought: it doesn't. sen. moreno: when you spend hundreds of billions of dollars to fight endless wars in foreign countries that most americans don't even know where they are, does that help working-class americans? mr. vought: no. sen. moreno: when you have policies that all of them voted for, every single one of them voted for electric vehicle subsidie

mr. vought. five years ago mr. vought helped the president cut off legally appropriated funds to america's allies. five years later, five years later mr. vought has helped the president cut off legally appropriated funds to the american people. five years later it's clear the failure to hold the president and mr. vought to account didn't mark the last time that some people in this body surrendered their principles to appease donald trump. it was not the end of the indignities that this body would be asked to tolerate. it was barely the beginning. it only encouraged more. that is of course the danger of lawlessness. that is the danger of the winding road towards authoritarianism. once one act of lawlessness is tolerated, it becomes easier to tolerate another. until we arrive to where we are today, we're pointing out illegality from our public officials sometimes seems like little more than an afterthought. it should not be too much to ask. it should not be too much to expect that those who have the privilege to help

mr. vought, however, is the ultimate yes man. in trump's first term, as acting omb director, vought wrote a budget that, among other things, would have cut nearly $1 trillion from medicaid, slashed nearly $300 billion from social safety net programs like food assistance, eliminated $170 billion from student loans, and zeroed out programs like liheap and community development block grants to help with housing assistance and building community infrastructure. just like for families, where we spend our money reflects our priorities and our values. mr. vought's 2021 budget demonstrated that he sees no value in helping the american people. this time we know it will be even worse because he is going to be in charge at omb. and like trump, mr. vought will do whatever he wants, regardless of the law or the constitution, from forcing out civil servants to appropfunds appropriated by congress. we know the story of robin hood. on the other hand, mr. vought is a robber baron who wants to steal the tax dollars of hardworking americans to line

mr. vought do it. during mr. vought's time as omb director during president trump's first term, the agency withheld roughly $214 million in security assistance to ukraine, which the government accountability office later found violated the impoundment control act. i know it can be difficult to flout the party line, but we are not just talking about party politics anymore. we're talking about our constitution. so many of my republican colleagues declare themselves to be originalists when it comes to our constitution, sworn supporters of the interpreting of this document as our founders intended when it was written. well, i can tell you if there's one thing that was crystal clear when our founders conceived this nation, it is that no one person should have absolute power. the repeated brazen power grabs that we've seen by this administration could not be more out of step with the foundational checks and balances laid out in our constitution. while my words might not matter to you, i hope the voices of your constitue

mr. vought and his plans. mr. ht was the lead architect of the heritage foundation's project 2025, the blueprint for trump's dismantling of the federal government. he has spent years crafting plans to circumvent congress, our constitution, and, of course, the law. let me read to you directly from mr. vought's statements in his own words. in a private speech last year at his far-right center for renewing america think tank -- air quote oz deny -- mr. vought stated again that he would blake to put career civil servants, quote, in trauma. mr. vought said we want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. when they wake up in the morning, we want them not to want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as villians. we want their funding to be shut down so that the epa can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. he laid out how he would do this in his chapter of the heritage foundation project 2025 playbook for the incoming trump administration

mr. vought some questions. mr. vought, how is freezing all of these funds supposed to lower people's costs? yeah, it may lower the taxes on your wealthy friends, but how is it going to help the average american? you've never explained it. the just fanatical hatred of government without rhyme or reason without distinguishing between programs just permeates everything. so, mr. vought, explain how lowering these funds going to help people. how is provide privatizing freddie and fannie going to help? this is small but it is it indicative, how is cutting the programs that help us eliminate bird flu, how will it help? it raises it. the price of eggs is high. $5, $6, wow. so imagine this, folks. imagine a world where russell vought and the doge team team up and it's a team that can be such, such harm, pain for america. they team up to eradicate the funding they allege is wasteful. what would it mean for kids at school who struggle to get a good meal? they'll say it's wasteful, or parents who struggle to get groceries, they

mr. vought or the people that mr. vought deems loyal enough to the president to bring on board, the protections our founders envisioned to prevent the cor corrupting influence of power and the corrupting power of that influence will completely override any ability to make change for the rest of us. and we're seeing this in real time right now. this leads me to my third question -- what is the impact of this corruption and these attacks on our neighbors and our national security? mr. president, the nf calls and e-mails and visits to my office i've gotten over the past weeks has been overwhelming. first of all, i want to thank everybody who has reached out to express their opinions and their concerns. we would be better off if we have that kind of consistent engagement from the american people paying attention to the work that is being done in government, and having their voices heard. and i want to thank my team for their service in being responsive to those concerns. now, starting with a memo from omb, freezing federal

mr. vought couldn't even do that. he refused to commit to following the law, as it pertains to implementing the spending plans and priorities established by congress, including us, colleagues. we are the united states senate. why would he refuse to commit to that fundamental premise? because if he were to do that, he'd be lying under oath. he made it abundantly clear that, as director of omb, he has every intention of ignoring the laws passed by congress, including the spending plans. he's been very explicit about that. now, if this was any other nominee by any other president and he refuseded to make such a commitment, we might be left wondering why what his true priorities are, what his true agenda is. but, for better and for worse, russell vought has already shown us exactly what he intends to do. we don't need to deal in hypothetical scenarios when it comes to him. for starters, he has served as head of the office of management and budget before. you'll recall during the first trump administration, in that time, i

mr. vought will help lead that charge. mr. president, one of my top priorities for the senate the beginning of this year was processing president trump's nominees. i'm very pleased to say that mr. vought's confirmation will bring the total number of nominees confirmed since the inauguration to 13. that's roughly twice as fast as nominees were confirmed at the start of the two previous administrations. the senate will take up additional nominees next week and will maintain an aggressive pace to get the president's full team in place as soon as possible. mr. president, while our falks in the senate -- while our focus has been on nominees, we've worked in votes on a few pieces of legislation. the laken riley act, which the president signed last wednesday, is congress' first installment in our work to combat illegal immigration. it is not, of course, a comprehensive bill, but it will ensure that illegal immigrants who steal, assault a law enforcement officer, or kill or seriously injury another person are detained by immigration a

they see mr vought as being at the heart of president trump's agenda.e is one of the most influential positions administration of the $6.75 trillion federal budget. up federal spending. it was rescinded amid legal challenges. longer have to pay. complaining of excessive fees and claiming that china controls it. that wasn't true. neither the government nor the panama canal authority proposal for a so—called buyout for federal workers until at least monday. of "deferred resignation". "we are grateful to thejudge for extending the deadline during that period. illinois is one of several us states rejecting donald trump's plans for mass deportations. as well as chicago. federal immigration agents. and is challenging illinois state laws, as well as chicago city laws, that hamper police from cooperating with ice. chicago has a vast immigrant population , some of whom have democratic congressman jesus "chuy" garcia of illinois represents a district covering parts of chicago. if state, county the city are in full compliance with federal law as it exists today, t

mr. vought thinks is a good idea. en that happened, the director was in an incredible bind. for a dental appointment the will likely be confirmed still at the end of the 30 hours of allowed protests later today, democrats are hoping to draw attention to their concerns. vote, who's a coauthor of the conservative blueprint project 2025, has been widely linked to last week's memo that led to a freeze of all federal funding. democrats have also sounded the alarm over his insistence that the 2020 election was rigged. take a listen to one democrat's warning about vote. >> when you put. >> into the office of management and budget, an individual who willfully avoids. >> and rolls. >> over the laws of the country and. says he. will not. abide by the separation of. >> powers. >> that is. >> a fundamental. >> danger that. >> all of. >> us, having. >> taken an. >> oath to the. >> constitution, must stop. >> he is. >> donald trump's. >> most dangerous nominee. >> joining us now, white house reporter for bloomberg, akayla gardner akayla. why all of this for russ vote. he's not someone who

mr. vought? i'm sure that there are progressives who are wondering why didn't senate democrats do this for rfk jr. or pete hegseth or tulsi gabbard? >> well, there's one thing about being at omb you are the hub of all these spokes. there may be hhs. labor defense. those are the spokes. the hub is the office of management and budget. and this man was a coauthor. and i think the lead author. of project 2025, we warned about those 900 pages before the election of most people that i talked to, uh, didn't think it would ever come to pass. now we know there's not a single thing that we've seen in the last two weeks. that was not foretold in project 2025. i referred to it as the national democratic convention. that project 2025 was jim crow 2.0. and now we see it. it is a it is wrong to talk about the achievements of african americans in this country, even trying to whitewash the pictures on the walls, the stuff they said about the tuskegee airmen. look, that's the kind of stuff of which autocracies are

mr. russ vought is the head of this thing. according to the document itself, according to the document itself, he views this job, which, let's be honest, nobody knows who the omb director is, right? nobody even knows what omb is. but that's why this thing is so important, is that this guy has decided this is the document that is governing how the trump administration is going forward, and this guy has a very specific view of this job, which is everything goes through omb. it is the consolidating place for presidential power. he represents the power in all things. and so we are getting very, very close to this person being able to realize every single aspect of project 2025. some of it, by the way, what they're doing with usaid, is even worse than the document. they actually call for reform of usaid in thisdom. what they're doing is actually eliminating the department, and i'll yield to the -- mr. schumer: i'm just going to ask the gentleman to yield for a question. well, we've seen just this shadow government sort of trying to

mr. schumer, you should. >> know, pursuant. >> to rule. no. >> i don't know my vote. >> russell vought is an author of the controversial project 2025. that is what mirrors many parts of trump's new agenda. vote would have the power in his new position. will have the power to oversee trump's entire budget and help carry out his policies. it is a crucial power position, and thanks to secretly recorded video a vote before the election, it isn't a secret what he wants from trump's new term. kyung lah is out front our father, who art in heaven. >> hallowed be thy name. >> you are. >> looking at. secretly recorded. >> video of russell vought, president trump's pick to lead the largest and one of the most powerful offices in the white house. this video was captured just months ahead of trump's 2024 election win. >> i want to be the person that crushes the deep state. i think there's a lot of different ways to do that. it is defunding it. it's impoundment, the ability to not spend money. it's getting rid of their independence. >> so help you god. >> i do. >> thank you. >> as director of the of