Vought says Trump may not need convention approval to reduce federal workforce | American policy

Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), threw doubts on Sunday on the constitutional obligation of the White House to ask the Congress to sign the massive cups of Donald Trump in the federal workforce led by Elon Musk.

Vought said that the White House preferred to rely on “executive tools” for all, except on a “necessary” fraction of the cuts instead of submitting all jobs and the reduction of agencies which took place via the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), at the branch of the congress for its official approval.

On Sunday, the director of the White House budget, in an interview with CNN, also defended the reduction in the widespread future costs proposed by the Big Bill Act of the American president who was adopted by the Chamber last week, which covers the budgetary proposals for the next exercise from October.

But, as Dana Bash pointed out, the host of the CNN Union State, Doge has cut “the funding and the programs that Congress has already adopted”. And while these cuts, cited by musk at the start, worth $ 175 billion, are tiny compared to the trillion or more than it was planning, Vought said that the OMB would only submit 9.4 billion dollars to congress this week to sign. This amount mainly covers the crushing of the USAID agency and the public broadcasting, which caused indignation and prosecution.

The leaders of the Congress of the two parties put pressure for the Trump administration to send details on all the cuts for its approval. “Do you want?” Bash asked Vought.

“We could,” said Vought, adding that the other Doge cuts may not require the official approval of the Congress.

As one of the architects of the 2025 project, the right initiative created to guide the second Trump administration, Vought is looking to dismantle the federal workforce and consolidate power for the American president and continue the Doge Cups.

Vought said that one of the administration’s executive tools is the use of the “restraint”, which implies that the White House retains specific funds allocated by the Congress. Since the 1970s, a law has limited the presidency to engage in restraint – generally obliging the executive power to implement what the Congress has signed.

Bash said: “I know you don’t think it’s constitutional, so do you just do this for the Supreme Court to this unconstitutional?”

Vought said: “We are not in love with the law.” But he also said, in response to the criticisms of some on Capitol Hill: “We do not influence the law.”

Meanwhile, on the Big Beautiful Bill, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and many experts say that it could inflate the American deficit of 3.8 TN, and the Musk affairs magnate said that “undermines the work that the Doge does”.

Vought did not agree. “I love Elon, [but] This bill does not increase the deficit or harm the debt, “he said.

Vought – And later Sunday, the president of the Mike Johnson room on NBC – argued that the calculations of criticisms do not take into account the extension of Trump 2017 tax reductions and the reduction of the regulations.

Vought also created that Trump is “the architect, the visionary, the origin of his own agenda”, rather than the plan of the Heritage for the Administration, Project 2025, although he did not denote that the two have concluded.