S/V Sundance: Russ Vought

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Russ Vought

Faith, with Elon Musk completely ransacking our government right now, Democrats cannot be operating business as usual.

So starting last night, during a standard procedural session to debate Trump's nomination of Russ Vought — the author of Project 2025 — for head of the Office of Management and Budget, Democrats took every second of our 30-hour allotment to hold up his nomination.

The session went overnight, and I spoke for one hour to call out the serious consequences of Vought's nomination.

I reviewed just a small fraction of the alarming proposals that he authored in Project 2025, including:

Firing civil servants.
Weaponizing the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Unleashing force onto protestors and targeting political opponents.
Restricting abortion nationwide.
Ripping retirement and health care benefits from seniors.
Dismantling public education.
And funding tax cuts for the rich by raising taxes on America's middle class.

Again, just to name a few.

Despite Trump claiming over and over again during the campaign that he knew nothing about Project 2025 and had nothing to do with it, he still nominated its author to a powerfully important position. It's a job that might be less high-profile than other roles in the administration, but still carries enormous weight.

The leader of the OMB oversees the creation of the federal government's budget, oversees the policies and rules set by federal agencies, and supervises the funding and spending of federal agencies.

In other words, it puts Vought in the position to execute Project 2025.

We've already received a sneak peak of the devastating effects of Vought's plan for America.

He was the puppet master behind the funding shutdown that threw this country into chaos last week. I saw how this hurt real people in Massachusetts. Parents didn't know if their toddlers' day care would be open. Seniors didn't know if the hot meal that they were expecting from Meals on Wheels would be available. Workers at nursing homes funded by Medicaid who didn't know if their paychecks would come through.

With Russ Vought at the helm of the OMB, he can operationalize Trump and Co-President Musk's unconstitutional plans to gut funding that families rely on.

That's why Democrats are holding the floor. That's why I'm doing everything I can to stop this extremist from joining ranks with Trump and Musk — while also pulling every lever I can to get Musk's ransacking under control.

More soon.

Elizabeth