Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Sounding The Alarm On Russell Vought’s Nomination As OMB Director As Democrats Hold The Senate Floor All Night In Opposition To Right-Wing Author Of Project 2025

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor alongside Senate Democrats to warn Americans about the dangers of confirming Trump nominee Russell Vought as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, emphasizing his role as the chief architect of Project 2025 and the devastating impact his policies would have on working families across the country. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota for her passion, representing the people of Minnesota and showing how terrible this nominee is. We're going to be speaking all night. We want Americans every hour, whether it's 8:00 pm or 3:00 am, 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 on the reckless and lawless things that Russell Vought will do to American families.

We want to sound the alarm on the chief architect of Project 2025.

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. They have rubber-stamped his nominees, no matter how unqualified, no matter how harmful to the American people.

And of all the harmful nominees, of all the extremists that Donald Trump has 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 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 and purposes, he will run the command center of the Trump Administration. His decisions will reverberate from one end of America to the other, in every city, in every town, every household, and every rural area.

And of all people Donald Trump could have picked to lead White House policy, he chose the godfather of the ultra-right.

Make no mistake, Russell Vought is Project 2025 incarnate.

Russell Vought is the chief architect of Project 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 Project 2025 at OMB than Russell Vought.

It's 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.

Now, remember during the campaign, Russell Vought put together Project 2025 with a bunch of other right-wing ideologues. Their goal? Slash the government, smash the government, break the government – not just eliminate waste.

They are so, deeply anti-anything government does, whether it's Social Security, or helping our veterans, or defending our country, that they're 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, so they 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.

Now, 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'd lose the election if he embraced Project 2025, and that an overwhelming number of Americans would be against Project 2025. He knew that. And so he said he knew nothing about it.

But the minute Donald Trump won the election, Russell Vought started to take over, and the pieces of Project 2025, already we have seen, have begun to be implemented.

It is such hypocrisy for Donald Trump to say he didn't know what Project 2025 was during the campaign, and now he's putting its chief architect in the most important position where it can be implemented with great harm to 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 cut to veterans and hospitals and people trying to pay for health care and housing.

There are so many bad things in Project 2025. Some are pretty obvious: to slash government programs.

Some are less obvious. One that really bugs me: we have so many people who need housing in America. It's 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 lower than they normally would have been for a young family that's looking to buy their first home, having their second little baby. They're so happy, and thinking they can have a home for their children.

And they want to get rid of that – in part, maybe so some private sector people can make some money doing it themselves, but mainly because they are so viciously anti-government that they'll slash anything, no matter the consequence, no matter who is hurt.

And that's what is on the brink of happening here.

We had hoped on this side of the aisle. Because we know how our colleagues on the other side 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're actually voting to implement Project 2025 when they vote yes for Russell Vought. Remember, he's the architect, and they're putting him in a position where he can take the plan and implement it – basically shove it down America's throat.

So, here we are. We've already begun to see the chaos that the Russell Vought philosophy, the Project 2025 philosophy, engenders.

A freeze of funding of all programs.

They didn't look at which programs were good and which programs were bad.

No, no, no, they froze them all.

Chaos erupted – daycare centers were not funded, Medicaid and hospitals were not funded, veterans' programs were not funded, mental health was not funded – so much that they had to back off for a period of time.

But that's 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're 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. It's one of the main things that bothers average working-class Americans.

Russell Vought’s fingerprints were all over this past week’s disaster.

Whether it's with federal workers, whether it's at USAID, whether it's hurting Justice Department prosecutors, all of that is Russell Vought at work. He's working to hurt you, Mr. and Mrs. America, even before he gets in office. Imagine how much more harm he'll do should he become the head of OMB.

Now, I want to ask Mr. Vought some questions.

Mr. Vought, how is freezing all of 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've never explained it. The just 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 of these funds is going to lower people’s costs.

How is privatizing Freddie and Fannie going to lower their housing costs?

How is cutting the programs that help us eliminate bird flu going to lower the price of eggs? It's going to raise it! People hate that – the price of eggs is so high. I don’t blame them. Five dollars, six dollars – wow.

So imagine this, folks. Imagine a world where Russell Vought and the DOGE team, team up, and it's a team that can bring 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’ll say it’s wasteful.

Or parents who struggle to pay for groceries. The things we do to keep costs down, they’ll say it’s wasteful.

Couples seeking a loan to buy a starter home, they’ll say it’s wasteful.

How about getting rid of Head Start?

Right now, in my state, even though the funding freeze has been rescinded, there are Head Start programs that are getting no money. 200 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's working or two parents who are working. What are they going to do? Do they have to watch the kids? Do they have to quit work? 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's nothing more cost effective than something like that.

And, 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. It’s just a preview.

I hate to say this, but unfortunately we ain't seen nothing yet, should Mr. Vought get into office in this powerful OMB position.

And let me just say it again, so people hear it.

So why does Mr. 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's 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 OMB and elsewhere, it all boils down to one end game: a broken, paralyzed government, that breeds corruption and self-dealing and self-interests, that ignores the public and caters to the ultra, ultra-wealthy.

That is the entire ballgame of Trump 2.0.

The only solace is that we are a democracy, and it will catch up with them all, with President Trump, with Russell Vought, with all 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 be rejected by the American people, and I'm confident that it will change the political fortunes of both parties as it is implemented. Those who support it on the Republican side, the American people will like them a lot less, and those who opposed it, on our side, the American people will understand we're on their side. But the damage that will be done in the interim is enormous.

Millions, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions of people will be hurt, and hurt in real, severe ways. It will be horrible. So, there's no solace. I do believe in our political system – with all its infirmities, with big money having so much power with Donald Trump and his Republican friends, even with all of that. I believe ultimately our democracy's roots are deep, and 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's not too late.

Maybe somehow you'll realize how damaging Russell Vought is. Maybe you'll say to yourselves, despite the fact that you might have President Trump angry with me, you’re doing the best thing for him by voting down Russell Vought ultimately politically.

Maybe. Unlikely. Forlorn hope. I always try to be an optimist. But maybe.

This is a very, very important vote – and as the way it's looking now it's a very awful and sad vote, one of the worst, if it passes – that I 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 Project 2025, and maybe, maybe, maybe, you'll realize it. Unlikely. Highly unlikely. It's a forlorn wish, but things are so bad if Mr. Vought gets in that you have to 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 Mr. 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've 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, 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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