Senator Murray Joins Colleagues in Holding Senate Floor All Night to Send Stark Warning Against Confirming Russ Vought to Lead OMB
Murray: “Why on earth would any one of us confirm someone whose entire game plan is to break the law and dare the world to stop him?”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, helped lead Senate Democrats in holding the Senate floor for a full 30 hours ahead of a final confirmation vote on Russell Vought to serve as Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Senator Murray delivered an hour-long floor speech and her remarks below touch specifically on Vought’s long history of extremism and advocacy for illegally blocking enacted funds due to go out to communities across the country. She warned her colleagues that as OMB Director, Vought would not implement the laws they pass, and that it will be much harder to work in a bipartisan way if Senators cannot trust OMB to respect enacted law and get duly passed funds to states and to programs families rely on.
Senator Murray has repeatedly warned of Vought’s extremism and the threat he poses. At a recent Senate Budget Committee hearing, she grilled him on his views and whether he would, as OMB Director, simply follow the law and ensure funding Congress passed makes it to the families and communities it intended. Vought repeatedly refused to commit to following the law despite admitting that no court in the land has ever found the Impoundment Control Act to be unconstitutional.
“The Senate should not vote to confirm as the head of OMB—or to any important role for that matter—someone who does not respect the constitutional authority of the Senate and, thus, the people we represent.
“We should not entrust someone to implement our laws who has made clear, time and again through his past actions in this same role during President Trump’s first term, through his work as head architect of Project 2025, and through his own words in hearings and meetings that he will not follow the laws—that he will not send our communities the funding that we all worked together to pass.
“We know if Russ Vought gets his way, and gets his hands on the nation’s funding again, he won’t just draw blood, he will cut programs families rely on to the bone: SNAP cuts that leave families hungry, policies to cut people off from their health care, cuts to disability benefits that veterans have earned through their service, thousands of public servants forced out of roles serving the American people—all while he works with Trump to dole out more tax breaks to billionaires and the biggest corporations.”
Senator Murray concluded her hour-long remarks by emphasizing, once again, that Vought would be a dangerous, lawless OMB Director.
“Before us, right now, is a nominee who has made clear he will not respect the authority of Congress and the people who voted us in—nominated by a President who is not respecting the authority of Congress and the people who voted us in.
“We have to say we will not stand for it. We have to say the law is the law. And one simple way we can send that message is by rejecting Russ Vought’s nomination outright. And so, I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in doing just that.”
The full text of Senator Murray’s remarks on Vought during her speech can be found below, and video can be found HERE.
“M. President, I rise to urge all of my colleagues to vote against Russ Vought’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
“The Senate should not vote to confirm as the head of OMB—or to any important role for that matter—someone who does not respect the constitutional authority of the Senate and, thus, the people we represent.
“We should not entrust someone to implement our laws who has made clear, time and again through his past actions in this same role during President Trump’s first term, through his work as head architect of Project 2025, and through his own words in hearings and meetings that he will not follow the laws—that he will not send our communities the funding we pass!
“Why on earth would any one of us confirm someone whose entire game plan is to break the law and dare the world to stop him?
“That’s it—that is how Russ Vought plans to run the OMB. It is not a secret, it is a very public fact—he has put this on the record time and again.
“Just look at what happened last time Russ Vought served as Director of the OMB. He tried to break the law to give President Trump unilateral authority he does not possess to hold up security assistance to Ukraine and override the spending decisions of Congress. And he has not given up on that idea! He has written about it many, many times in the years since.
“As a chief architect of Project 2025, Vought doubled down on lawlessness and charted a blatantly unconstitutional plan for the President to ignore the will of Congress—which led him to being named in the first Articles of Impeachment Against President Trump.
“He mapped out a lawless path that—as I will detail shortly—President Trump is already barreling down at full speed.
“But if you still weren’t convinced that Russ Vought will trample all over the separation of powers, will ignore the authority of Congress, will hurt the American people by holding back funds they rely on—well, you’re in luck, because, at our hearing with him, I asked Vought directly, point blank: ‘Will you follow the law?’
“That should not be a hard question. Even if you disagree with a law, you don’t ignore it. Maybe you don’t like the 25 mile-an-hour speed limit in a school zone, but unless it’s changed, or struck down, you still have to follow it. It’s true for speed limits—and it is certainly true for the Constitution.
“That is something almost every single American understands—except, apparently, Russ Vought and Donald Trump. Because, today the Impoundment Control Act is the law of the land. Despite Vought’s own wishes and feelings—it has not been changed and it has not been struck down in court.
“Despite what Vought pretends is true, the reality is the Constitution gives Congress—not the President—the power of the purse. And yet, Russ Vought will not say he will follow the law.
“And look, Vought is not just lawless—he is extreme. Let me just drive this home for a second. Let’s take abortion for example. Project 2025 already calls for ripping away birth control, allowing states to deny women life-saving emergency care, and effectively banning all abortion nationwide.
“That is already a dangerous Republican fever dream—far out of line, by the way, with the American people. But Vought wants to go further! On abortion, he is for, quote: ‘abolition.’ You know what that means?
“It means a national abortion ban without any exemptions or exceptions—even in cases of rape or when a woman’s life is at risk. That is as far right as it gets!
“And abortion is not the only issue where Vought has made statements that are deeply alarming. He has stated he believes the 2020 election was, quote: ‘rigged.’ That is not just out of touch with America—that is dangerously out of touch with reality.
“He has said he wants to ‘traumatize’ our federal workers—that means all the people who work really hard to help in our communities inspecting food, reviewing the safety of drugs, or keeping travel safe, or strengthening our infrastructure, or fostering innovation and small business, or getting care to veterans, or supporting to tribes, and so much more.
“Vought has even said we live in a, quote, ‘post-constitutional’ time. M. President, it really doesn’t get any clearer than that. A post-constitutional time. That’s what he believes we are in. Do my colleagues agree? Do they think it’s time to shred the Constitution? That’s what is at stake with this confirmation vote.
“Because Vought has made all too clear that as OMB director, he will put everything on the chopping block—from programs people rely on to the checks and balances our democracy is founded on. Again, he has put it down on paper—in black and white.
“We know he wants to cut Medicare, and in particular, Medicaid, by hundreds of billions of dollars.
“We know he wants to find ‘significant savings’ from eligibility changes to veterans’ health care and disability benefits. We don’t even need Project 2025 to see that! He laid some of that out in his budgets from Trump’s first term!
“Vought’s goals are not secret, nor are they subtle—we do not have to decipher anything here. There is no mystery. We know he is planning for cuts beyond anything this country has ever seen.
“And we know if Russ Vought gets his way, and gets his hands on the nation’s funding again, he will not just draw blood, he will cut programs families rely on to the bone—SNAP cuts that leave families hungry, policies to cut people off from their health care, cuts to disability benefits that veterans have earned through their service to America, thousands of public servants forced out of roles serving the American people—all while he works with Trump to dole out more tax breaks to billionaires and the biggest corporations.
“And here’s another thing—we don’t have to imagine just how painful and chaotic Vought’s lawless ideas would be in practice because Vought is actually already putting his agenda in place, which frankly raises another question: why should the Senate vote to confirm someone who is already secretly doing the job behind our backs?
“Because guess what—those Executive Orders that Trump still has in effect? Those orders which are, right now, illegally blocking money our communities need? That is right out of the Project 2025 playbook.
“Or the effort now to get rid of thousands of federal workers through illegal firings and now scam buyout offers that have no basis in law to carry out, or trying to illegally abolish entire agencies with the stroke of a pen? That has Project 2025 written all over it.
“And it’s not just a parallel in ideas here—when OMB issued its blatantly illegal guidance and attempted to block trillions in federal dollars Congress, all of us, passed, there were digital fingerprints all over that document linking right back to Project 2025. And in the chaos that followed—do you know who reportedly met with OMB staffers about how to respond? Russ Vought. So, let’s not pretend we have no idea just how lawless this guy is. Let’s not pretend we have no idea what sort of damage he will cause if he is put back in power.”
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“Now, Mr. President, before I conclude, I just want to hit once more on what is at stake with Mr. Vought’s nomination—we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending that Congress, us, passed, that our communities are counting on, and that Mr. Vought has made painfully clear he will not think twice about illegally blocking.
“Giving this man the power to enact his illegal schemes will do real harm to folks back home. It will cut people off from help getting groceries and making rent. It will cut families off from child care and health care. It will cut veterans and their survivors off from disability and education benefits they earned through their service to our country. It will cut off breakthrough medical research, and help for people struggling with opioid addiction. It will cut off communities working to build bridges, improve roads, and strengthen their energy infrastructure.
“That will have serious consequences we cannot overlook—we are here to fight for our families. But there is also another serious consequence here—one that cuts to the heart of what makes this Senate work, and that makes our democracy work.
“Confirming Russ Vought to OMB makes it that much harder to negotiate our spending bills. It is much harder to reach a bipartisan deal with my colleagues, whom I respect and trust and have worked with for years, if that deal is going to be implemented by someone in whom I have zero trust—someone who has made clear that despite our laws, he is going to block any funding we pass.
“And why should any Senator vote to confirm someone who has made it perfectly clear—he would undermine their authority to help their constituents.
“M. President, as I’ve said, our system of checks and balances does not work on its own—we have to actually do our part here in Congress to be the check on Presidential abuse of power. And we have an opportunity—no, actually it’s an obligation—right now, to do just that.
“Before us, right now, is a nominee who has made it very clear he will not respect the authority of Congress, of all of us, and all the people who voted us in—nominated by a President who is not respecting the authority of Congress and the people who voted us in.
“We have to say we will not stand for it. We have to say the law is the law. And one simple way we can send that message is by rejecting Russ Vought’s nomination outright. And so, M. President, I am here today to strongly urge my colleagues to join me in doing just that.”
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