The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the White House budget office despite Democrats delivering a marathon of speeches condemning the administration’s vision for slashing the federal government.
Lawmakers voted 53-47 Thursday evening to return Russ Vought for a second tour as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Republicans were in lockstep behind the man who could dramatically alter how federal dollars get spent, in part by taking the “power of the purse” away from members of Congress.
Democrats all voted against Vought, but it wasn’t enough. It had been clear for days that the GOP majority was united behind Trump’s pick for OMB director, even as the agency rocked Congress last week with an attempt to freeze congressionally approved funds.
But even with Vought’s path to confirmation clear, Democrats were under pressure from their party base to push back against Trump and his nominees in any way they could. While they couldn’t prevent the inevitable, they at least could slow it down by refusing to yield back 30 hours in procedural time that would have otherwise allowed for a more expedient vote.
They ultimately slow-walked proceedings up until the very end. As each Democratic senator cast their vote, they stood by their desk in the chamber and named a program or project in their state that may be impacted by OMB’s attempted freeze of federal funds.
It was the culmination of their first such protest of the second Trump administration. The previous afternoon, Democrats launched what became an all-nighter, providing programming on the Senate floor into the early hours of Thursday morning and throughout the day.
“Why doesn’t government run like a business?” asked Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in one floor speech. “Let me tell you why: because if you ran government like a business, you would shut down every rural hospital.”
Schatz, who was referring to a mantra of conservative budget hawks and the tech billionaire Elon Musk who has gained massive influence over executive branch decision-making, took multiple shifts on the floor over a 30-hour period — sometimes solo, sometimes in a buddy-act with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was also a frequent presence.
This was not a real talking filibuster, where one lawmaker must hold the floor for hours without rest in order to grind proceedings to a total halt. This 30-hour time clock would have expired whether or not anyone gave speeches.
But Democrats’ commitment to filling the time with anti-Vought rhetoric — not reading children’s books or other off-topic bloviating — was their attempt to amplify a message they have sustained since last year’s campaigns: that the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for Trump’s second term is a dangerous threat to democracy.
Vought authored a chapter on the “Executive Office of the President” in the Project 2025 document.
“Russell Vought and Donald Trump think they may be above the law,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Wednesday during his speaking turn.
Even before their speech-a-thon, Democrats made two attempts at the committee level to show how serious they were about their disapproval of Vought. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Democrats voted against him in committee on Inauguration Day. Senate Budget Committee Democrats later boycotted their panel’s vote on the nomination.
Senate Democrats also held multiple news conferences to call out the high stakes of Vought’s confirmation.
“I wish they had the strength, damn it, to vote him down. And I know the Senate was up all night,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said of Republicans in an interview on Thursday. “Russ Vought does not belong in public service. He really should be thrown out. He is a dangerous person to our government.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday she would be “concerned if the Trump administration is clawing back money that has been specifically appropriated for a particular purpose.”
But she, too, voted Thursday to confirm Vought. So did Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee who is deeply sensitive to perceptions of executive branch meddling in congressional business, including spending.
Overwhelmingly, Republicans on both sides of the Capitol have been enthusiastic about Vought’s rise to power, believing he’ll bring a heavy hand to spending cuts across the federal government.
“There’s no better mind for rooting out all of the nonsense,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in an interview this week. “And he’ll be working side by side with the DOGE guys and figuring out what we need to do to actually deliver.”
Vought’s installation follows two weeks of turbulence spurred by OMB’s move — under an acting director — to freeze congressionally approved spending, followed by a U-turn rescinding a key memo ordering the freeze.
Among his most controversial ideas is that the Impoundment Control Act, enacted more than 50 years ago to insulate the congressional appropriations process from intervention from the executive branch, is unconstitutional and the president should have more unilateral powers to cut spending.
The Senate’s confirmation of Vought could embolden the White House as the administration seeks to shirk that law, which requires the president to ask Congress to rescind or hold spending it has already approved.
Vought also has a history of holding back federal dollars approved by Congress, including the freezing of Ukraine aid during Trump’s first presidency — an episode that fueled Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.
“The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional,” Vought told lawmakers in his confirmation hearing last month before the Budget Committee. “I agree with that.”
Jennifer Scholtes and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
