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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota for her passion for representing the people of Minnesota and showing how terrible this nominee is.
We are going to be speaking all night. We want Americans, every hour--whether it is 8 p.m. or 3 a.m.--to hear how bad Russell Vought is and the danger he poses to them in their daily lives if he were put as head of OMB. We want to sound the alarm--sound the alarm--on the reckless and lawless things that Russell Vought will do to American families; to sound the alarm on the chief architect of Project 2025; to sound the alarm on Russell Vought because Russell Vought--sadly, alarmingly, outrageously--stands on the brink of confirmation as Director of OMB, thanks to Senate Republicans who have fallen in line one right after the other behind Donald Trump and have rubberstamped his nominees, no matter how unqualified, no matter how harmful to the American people.
And of all of the nominees, of all of the extremists that Donald Trump elevated, of all the hard right ideologues who have come before the Senate, none of them hold a candle to Russell Vought. He is far and away the one most dangerous to the American people.
Most people have never heard of Russell Vought before. But make no mistake about it, my fellow Americans, he is the most important piece of the puzzle in Donald Trump's second term. He will be the quarterback of White House policy.
For all intents, he will run the command center of the Trump administration. And his decisions will reverberate from one end of America to the other, every city and every town and every household and every rural area.
And of all the people--of all the people--Donald Trump could have picked to lead the White House policy, he chose the godfather of the ultraright. And make no mistake about it, Russell Vought is Project 2025 incarnate. Russell Vought is the chief architect of 2025, its intellectual inspiration. And now he will have the ability, as head of OMB, to put these awful ideas into effect. And who will suffer? Not the billionaires who seem to be running the Trump administration, but the average American--the tens of millions, the hundreds of millions of average Americans.
Let me say this: There can be no worse proposal for the American people than Project 2025. There can be no position more able to implement this terrible proposal than Director of OMB, and there could be no person who would be worse for running 2025 from OMB than Russell Vought.
It is a triple loser--the worst program, the worst place to put it because it does the most danger, and the worst person to run it all rolled up into one in this vote.
Remember during the campaign, Russell Vought put together 2025 with a bunch of other rightwing ideologues. Their goal: slash the government, smash the government, break the government--not just eliminate waste. Oh, no, that is not what they wanted to do. They are so, so deeply anti-anything government does--whether it is Social Security or helping our veterans or defending our country--that they are against it.
Why? Well, their ideas really started with this small group of hard- right people who felt they didn't want to pay any taxes and they didn't want any regulation: We don't need a government. And they gained strength on the hard-right side of the Republican Party that became the MAGA part of the Republican Party. And Donald Trump embraced it.
He hid it during the campaign. When Project 2025 became public, Donald Trump said ``I don't know anything about it'' because he knew that he would lose the election if he embraced 2025; that an overwhelming majority of Americans would be against 2025. He knew that, and so he said he knew nothing about it. But the minute he won the election, Russell Vought started to take over and the pieces of Project 2025, already, we have seen, are begun to be implemented.
It is such hypocrisy for Donald Trump to say he didn't know what 2025 was during the campaign and now is putting its chief architect in the most important position where it can be implemented to the great harm of America and the American people.
Americans don't want to see Social Security or Medicare cut. They certainly don't want to see Medicaid cut. They certainly don't want to see help to veterans and hospitals and to help people pay for healthcare and to afford housing--there are so many bad things in 2025. Some of them are pretty obvious--just slash government programs. Some are a little less obvious.
One that really bugs me: We have so many people who need housing in America. It is one of the greatest needs. And over the years, the wisdom of the American people, administrations--Democratic and Republican--said: Let's give a little help by having the Federal Government back mortgage loans, Fannie and Freddie. And it made interest rates be lower than they normally would have been for a young family that is looking to buy their first home. They are having their second little baby and they are so happy and they can have a home for their children.
And they want to get rid of it--in part, maybe, so some private sector people can make some money doing it themselves. But mainly because they just are so viciously anti-government that they will just slash anything no matter the consequence, no matter who is hurt. That is what we are on the brink of happening here.
We had hoped on this side of the aisle--because we know how our colleagues feel. If you asked the 53 Senators on that side of the aisle to vote yes or no on Project 2025, my guess is of the 53, probably 50-- at least 45--would vote no. But they are actually voting to implement Project 2025 when they vote yes for Russell Vought.
Remember, he is the architect, and they are putting him in a position where he can take that plan and implement it--basically, shove it down America's throat.
So here we are. We have already begun to see the chaos that the Russell Vought philosophy, the Project 2025 philosophy, engenders: A freeze--freeze--on funding of all programs.
They didn't look at which programs were good, which programs were bad. No, no, no. They froze them all. Chaos erupted. Daycare centers were not funded, Medicaid hospitals were not funded, veterans' programs were not funded, mental health--so much that they had to back off, at least for a period of time.
But that is Project 2025 at work.
And now, the Treasury payment system--which in one sense is a lifeblood of how government works, of how we help people because we are giving money to things that people need--is being infiltrated by DOGE.
What is DOGE's view? Let's cut $2.5 trillion. They don't say how. They don't really care, as long as they can just slash government and hurt Americans so that their billionaire friends can pay even less taxes than they do now, despite the fact that income inequality in America is getting worse and worse. That is one of the main things that bothers average working-class Americans.
His fingerprints are all over this past week's disaster--whether it is at Treasury, whether it is with Federal workers, whether it is at AID, whether it is hurting Justice Department people, prosecutors--all of that is Russell Vought at work. He is working to hurt you, Mr. and Mrs. America, even before he gets into office. Imagine how much more harm he will do should he become the head of OMB.
I want to ask Mr. Vought some questions.
Mr. Vought, how is freezing all 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 never explained it. The fanatical hatred of government without rhyme or reason, without looking at its effect, without distinguishing between programs just permeates everything.
So, Mr. Vought, explain how freezing all these funds is going to lower people's costs? How is privatizing Fannie and Freddie going to lower their housing costs? How is getting rid of--I mean an example we talked about, it is small but it is indicative, it is knowledge-- cutting the programs that help us eliminate bird flu and lower the price of eggs. They raised it. People hate that. The price of eggs are so high, I don't blame them--6 bucks, 5 bucks--wow.
So imagine this, folks. Imagine a world where Russell Vought and the DOGE team, team up, and it is a team that can do such, such harm and 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 will say it is wasteful. Or parents who struggle to pay for groceries and the things we do to try to keep food costs down? They will say it is wasteful. A couple seeking a loan to build a starter home; they will say it is wasteful.
Getting rid of Head Start. Right now--right now--in my State, even though the funding freeze has been rescinded, there are Head Start programs that are getting no money. Two hundred kids in rural Cattaraugus and Wyoming Counties had to be left out of Head Start; 200 families struggling during the week because so many of them have either one parent who is working or two parents who are working. What are they going to do? Who is going to watch the kids? Will they have to quit work for a few days? Will they get fired? Will they get demoted?
All painful, really painful.
Head Start provides dental and medical care for little kids. What a waste, Vought would say. When we know that when kids have bad teeth at a young age, it hurts their learning, it hurts their ability to become productive citizens. There is nothing more cost-effective than something like that.
Folks, bad news--bad news. What we saw this past week with the beginning of Russell Vought's ideas and programs and philosophy and ideology to be implemented is just the beginning, just a preview. I hate to say this, but, unfortunately, we ain't seen nothing yet should Vought get into office in this powerful OMB position.
Let me just say it again so people hear it: Why does Vought want to do this, the average person would ask? Why does he want to hurt so many people? Why is he being so mean and cruel and heartless and uncaring?
Very simple: So Republicans can give tax cuts to Donald Trump's billionaire friends and supporters. Of course, it is cloaked in some kind of ridiculous ideology that was paid for by the hard right. They set up think tanks for 30 years to come up with this libertarian-type philosophy. But it has no basis in reality. Where it comes from is not what would make America better but, rather, would make a few rich people richer. And the harm is amazing. Everything we see happening today--the flurry of Executive orders, all of the awful things happening at the Treasury Department and at OMB and elsewhere--all boils down to one endgame: a broken, paralyzed government that breeds corruption and self-dealing and self-interest; that ignores the public and caters to the ultra-ultrawealthy. That is the entire ball game of Trump 2.0.
The only solace I can take is we are a democracy, and it will catch up with them all--with President Trump, with Russell Vought, with all of the Republicans who vote for these things. That happens. The roots of democracy are deep. We saw little sprouts of it this week when President Trump had to back off tariffs and back off a funding freeze because so many people were going to be hurt.
But it will--it will--be rejected by the American people, and I am confident that it will change the political fortunes of both parties as it is implemented. For those who support it on the Republican side, the American people will like them a lot less. And for those who oppose it on our side, the American people will understand we are on their side.
But the damage--the damage--that will be done in the interim is enormous. The number of the millions--of the tens of millions, probably of the hundreds of millions--of people who will be hurt and hurt in real, severe ways will be horrible. So there is no solace.
I do believe that the political system, with all its infirmities-- with all the big money, with having so much power with Donald Trump and his Republican friends--that even with all of that, I believe, ultimately, our democracy's roots are deep. Ultimately, I believe those who support Russell Vought--he himself, the President, who put him in, the Republicans who voted for him--will be rejected by the American people for doing it. But the damage in the interim will be enormous-- worse than almost anything we have seen.
So I say to my colleagues on the Republican side: Maybe, it is not too late. Maybe, somehow, you will realize how damaging Russell Vought is. Maybe, you will say to yourselves: Despite the fact that I might have Trump angry with me, I am doing the best thing for him by voting down Russell Vought, ultimately--ultimately politically. Maybe. Unlikely. A forlorn hope. I always try to be an optimist--but maybe.
This is a very, very important vote. The way it is looking now, it is a very awful and sad vote--one of the worst, if it passes, that I will have seen in this body in the many years I have been here.
For those who think Russell Vought won't be so bad, read his book. See what he has done. I mean, read his Project 2025. It is a project, not a book, I don't think. Maybe, maybe, maybe we will realize--it is unlikely, highly unlikely; it is a forlorn wish--when things are so bad if Vought gets in, and we will cling to that forlorn, highly unlikely hope.
Twenty years ago, it would be hard to believe that somebody as hard right, as narrow-minded, as vicious in his philosophy as Vought would get a single vote on the floor of the Senate. But, now, he may get a majority.
We are warning the American people how bad this is. We will see the consequences in the weeks and months ahead. There are very few votes I have cast with greater fervor than this ``no'' vote for Russell Vought.
He is, as I said, a danger to working people, a danger to America's beliefs and ideals, and a danger to the unity, cohesiveness, and beauty of this great America. I proudly, strongly, and with complete conviction will vote no on this awful, awful nominee.
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