Vought says Trump may not need Congress's approval to cut federal workforce

The Guardian

2 days ago

Russell Vought, the director of the office of management and budget (OMB), on Sunday cast doubt on the constitutional obligation of the White House to ask Congress to sign off on Donald Trump's massive cuts to the federal workforce spearheaded by Elon Musk.
Vought indicated the White House preferred to rely on 'executive tools' for all but a 'necessary' fraction of the cuts instead of submitting the whole package of jobs and agency slashing that took place via the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge), to the congressional branch for its official approval.
The White House budget director, in an interview with CNN on Sunday, also defended the widespread future cost-cutting proposed by the US president's One Big Beautiful Bill act that was passed by the House last week, which covers budget proposals for the next fiscal year starting in October.
But, as Dana Bash, CNN's State of the Union host, pointed out, Doge cut 'funding and programs that Congress already passed'. And while those cuts, cited by the departing Musk as being worth $175bn, are tiny compared with the trillion or more he forecast, Vought said OMB was only going to submit about $9.4bn to Congress this week for sign-off. That amount is understood to mostly cover the crushing of the USAID agency and cuts to public broadcasting, which have prompted outrage and lawsuits.
Leaders of Congress from both parties have pressed for the Trump administration to send details of all the cuts for its approval. 'Will you?' Bash asked Vought.
'We might,' Vought said, adding that the rest of the Doge cuts may not need official congressional approval.
As one of the architects of Project 2025, the rightwing initiative created to guide the second Trump administration, Vought is on a quest to dismantle the federal workforce and consolidate power for the US president, and to continue the Doge cuts.
Vought said that one of the executive tools the administration has is the use of 'impoundment', which involves the White House withholding specific funds allocated by Congress. Since the 1970s, a law has limited the presidency from engaging in impoundment – typically requiring the executive branch to implement what Congress signed into law.
Bash said: 'I know you don't believe that that is constitutional, so are you just doing this in order to get the supreme court to rule that unconstitutional?'
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Vought said: 'We are not in love with the law.' But he also said, in response to criticism from some on Capitol Hill: 'We're not breaking the law.'
Meanwhile, on the Big Beautiful bill, the Congressional budget office (CBO) and many experts say it could swell the US deficit by $3.8tn, and business tycoon Musk said it 'undermines the work the Doge team is doing'.
Vought disagreed. 'I love Elon, [but] this bill doesn't increase the deficit or hurt the debt,' he said.
Vought – and later on Sunday, the House speaker Mike Johnson on NBC – argued that critics' calculations don't fully account for extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts and slashing regulation.
Vought also chipped in that Trump is 'the architect, the visionary, the originator of his own agenda', rather than the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for the administration, Project 2025, although he did not deny that the two have dovetailed.