OMB director Russell Vought on "I don't even know what that chapter says" about Project 2025 and the Fed

CBS News

5 days ago

White House budget official Russell Vought, one of the authors of Project 2025, indicated Sunday that President Trump's focus on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is because the president wants lower interest rates, not because it is one of the suggested targets of an overhaul suggested in the conservative blueprint.
"I don't even know what that chapter says," Vought, the Office of Budget and Management director, said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" when talking about Project 2025 and the Federal Reserve. "All I know, in terms of the president, the president has run on an agenda. He's been very clear about that. All that we're doing is- in this administration is running on- is implementing his agenda."
Overseen by the conservative thinktank Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 was a massive, multi-prong initiative for how a Republican president can introduce sweeping right-wing policy. Mr. Trump insisted on the campaign trail that he had "nothing to do" with Project 2025, and a 2024 CBS News analysis found that at least 270 of the nearly 700 policy proposals matched either campaign proposals or his first-term agenda. Since he took office, many of his policies have matched ones laid out in Project 2025.
Project 2025 lays out an overhaul of the Fed, saying "monetary dysfunction is related in part to the impossibility of fine-tuning the money supply in real time, as well as to the moral hazard inherent in a political system that has demonstrated a history of bailing out private firms when they engage in excess speculation."
"To protect the Federal Reserve's independence and to improve monetary policy outcomes, Congress should limit its mandate to the sole objective of stable money." Project 2025 says. Vought is not listed as one of the authors of that chapter, but he was one of the key intellectual drivers of the overall project and its recommendations.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has sharply criticized Powell and has indicated he wants to fire Powell, but Mr. Trump has also said he didn't think it was necessary. The Fed chair can only be fired "for cause," and Mr. Trump has zeroed in on an extensive renovation project to two of the Federal Reserve's buildings under Powell's watch. Vought sent a letter on July 10 to Powell alleging the "ostentatious" office renovation project may be "violating the law."
Mr. Trump visited the Fed on Thursday, where he and Powell clashed over the cost of those changes. Federal law gives the Fed the power to make decisions about acquiring and remodeling buildings in Washington to serve as its office spaces. The Fed is self-funded, so taxpayer dollars are not appropriated for their costs.
Powell's term is up in 2026, and House Speaker Mike Johnson told CBS News last week that he expects a "rocky road" ahead for Powell.
Mr. Trump wants Powell to lower interest rates, but Powell has said the Fed wants to see how the economy responds to Mr. Trump's sweeping tariffs, which Powell says could push up inflation. Further, the decision to raise or lower interest rates is not Powell's alone — eight times a year, the Federal Open Market Committee, which has 12 members, votes on monetary policy.
Despite the pressure from the Trump administration, the Fed is expected to hold steady on interest rates at its meeting this week.
Vought said Sunday that Mr. Trump has been "very clear that all he's asking from the Fed is lower interest rates, because he thinks it's important."
"When you look across the globe, and you have countries lowering rates, and yet we don't see that in this country, given all of the positive economic indicators that we're seeing," Vought said. "And then we have fiscal mismanagement at the Fed with regard to this building renovation that I'm sure you will ask me about. Those are the kinds of things that we want to see from the Fed. This is not part of an existential issue with regard to the Federal Reserve."Joe Walsh
contributed to this report.