Nomination of Russell Vought

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Mr. Russell Vought is nominated to be the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. My view is, he has radically misguided budget priorities. He has long opposed bipartisan compromise. I am especially concerned about his well- documented history of inflammatory rhetoric. If confirmed, he would be the point person in charge of the President's budget. He is on record supporting an extreme fiscal strategy--one that would really threaten the full faith and credit of the country by engaging in debt ceiling brinkmanship, but I also oppose Mr. Vought's nomination because of his extreme vote on the budget and refusal to reach across party lines.

So we have an obligation to look at his extreme views, especially his vitriolic comments he has made, and to consider them among the recent examples of individuals who made similar comments and were deemed unfit for service.

Carl Higbie, a Trump surrogate during the 2016 campaign, was appointed as chief of external affairs at the Corporation for National and Community Service. He resigned from his taxpayer-funded post in shame after his history of hateful, bigoted rhetoric was brought to light. That history included saying he didn't like Muslims because he hated their religious ideology and even flatly admitted he was proud to be a racist if it meant being against Muslims.

Rev. Jamie Johnson was appointed last April to lead the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He, too, resigned in disgrace after media reports drew scrutiny to his use of racist rhetoric. During a 2008 interview, he said that African Americans had ``turned America's major cities into slums because of laziness, drug use, and sexual promiscuity.'' He also said extremist terrorist groups were representative of all people of the Muslim faith.

For a person taking a job intended to promote partnerships, it was certainly important to call his job performance into question.

William Bradford was appointed to lead the Energy Department's Office of Indian Energy in 2017. He resigned after the media drew attention to comments he made calling for the military to target Muslim women and children and equating American colleges to ``Jihadi training camps.''

None of these individuals resigned because of their religion. In the United States--and I feel this so deeply--every person is free to practice the religion of their choosing and hold any and all beliefs. The reason these three individuals resigned from their positions was because their intolerant comments cast serious doubt on whether they were capable of working on behalf of all Americans.

That brings me to Mr. Vought's nomination. He has a long history of using inflammatory rhetoric to demonize his political opponents, and he just seems to abhor compromise. He has said that if Republicans fail ``to beat back the forces of the left,'' then ``we will lose our country to tyranny.'' Addressing a group of conservative activists in 2014, he said: ``The left increasingly elects ideological storm troopers to Congress.'' After he was nominated, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized his nomination because he had previously claimed that Muslims had a ``deficient theology'' and flatly stated that all Muslims ``stand condemned.''

When I met with Mr. Vought, I asked him to clarify his inflammatory rhetoric. I always think it is important to give somebody a chance to break from the past, and I hoped to hear a softer approach. He chose to stand by what he said. In fact, he doubled down.

So I will close with this. In my view, nothing should have changed in the time since Mr. Higby, Reverend Johnson, and Mr. Bradford resigned in shame. This incendiary, vitriolic rhetoric is disqualifying.

One of the first requirements of nominees for public office is to respect Americans from all walks of life. This is true when you are talking about a position like the OMB Deputy Director which holds enormous influence over the Federal budget. Mr. Vought has a clear, documented record of disrespecting and demonizing those who think differently than he does, and I consider that disqualifying.

This administration may tolerate those who spew vile rhetoric, and maybe they believe it is right to reward them with powerful roles in government, but the Senate does not have an obligation to let the standards of decency and tolerance degrade in this manner.

For this reason, I oppose the Vought nomination.

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