people|Budget cuts

Russell Vought

Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under Donald Trump and a former fellow of the Claremont Institute. Vought has long-held goals of gutting government programmes and reducing the federal workforce.

During the October 2025 government shutdown, Vought used his powers as OMB director to decide which agencies close and what spending to prioritise. He froze $18bn allocated for transit programmes in New York, the home state of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the two top Democrats in Congress, and cancelled $8bn in green-energy projects, nearly all of which were in states that had voted Democratic. In total the administration froze at least $28bn in funds earmarked for Democratic cities and states. Democrats argued that these moves were illegal, given that funding was already appropriated by Congress.

Vought's office also circulated a memo urging heads of departments to consider getting rid of all employees working on parts of the budget covered by discretionary spending and which do not align with the president's priorities. No law explicitly provides agencies with the power to fire workers due to a lapse in government funding—but none says they cannot, either. Two of the biggest federal labour unions filed a lawsuit to block any layoffs during the shutdown. Vought then upped the ante: on October 7th a leaked OMB memo claimed that 750,000 furloughed federal workers may not be entitled to automatic back pay once the shutdown ends, unless Congress passes a new law that explicitly funds it.

John Thune, the Republican Senate leader, said of Vought's plans: "We don't control what he's going to do." It did not sound like a battle cry.

During the shutdown Vought tried to fire 4,100 federal workers and planned to slash at least 10,000 government jobs overall.

In February 2025 Trump fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and designated Vought acting director. Vought immediately ordered a sweeping pause in the CFPB's activities—suspending investigations, enforcement, rulemaking and even the drawing of additional funding. As Vought put it: "Personnel is policy."