Budget Pick Shows Trump’s Serious About Firing Civil Servants

Russell Vought, President-elect Donald Trump‘s choice for budget director, is poised to use his deep expertise on the inner workings of government to fire federal employees that disagree with his boss.

If confirmed, Vought would help X Corp. CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy carry out Trump’s promise to “dismantle government bureaucracy.” Unlike Musk and Ramaswamy, Vought would have formal power through the federal budget process to implement their plans to reduce the federal workforce. Vought has argued that the president has the authority to limit agency spending without congressional approval, a position that Democrats are expected to challenge.

“Nobody knows more about how government works, or doesn’t work, than Russ Vought,” said Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s acting chief of staff during his first term, on Bloomberg TV. Mulvaney had been running the Office of Management and Budget when Trump selected him for the job.

The Office of Management and Budget, which Vought would lead if confirmed, prepares the president’s budget request to Congress, sets standards for federal contracts, and signs off on agency regulations.

Vought didn’t immediately return a call from Bloomberg Government.

Vought told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview last week that Trump’s budget director should be as “aggressive” as possible to eliminate agency employees.

He is one of the authors behind Project 2025, the 900-page Republican policy blueprint that Democrats demonized during the presidential campaign. Vought, in the section on OMB, recommended the next president shift control of “granular” policy decisions to political appointees, away from career staff at agencies across administrations.

Toward the end of Trump’s first term, Vought penned an executive order to make it easier for the White House to fire career civil servants and quickly hire replacements that share the president’s political views.

“The only reason they were stopped the first time was because Joe Biden won the presidency and rescinded the executive order,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), whose constituency includes thousands of federal workers. “With Donald Trump back in the White House, Russ Vought will have free rein.”

Vought is more fiscally conservative than Trump, Mulvaney said. He has spent decades studying, writing, and implementing federal policy, with stints as a staffer at the Heritage Foundation and the Republican Study Committee. The committee in March proposed cutting federal workers’ retirement benefits.

In Project 2025, Vought wrote that independent agencies should be required to get White House approval to write policies. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are two of the agencies that have historically been considered independent. As advisers to the president, Ramaswamy and Musk wouldn’t have the formal power to implement that recommendation.

“It’s one thing to be in an advisory role, it’s another thing to have delegated legal authority,” as Vought would have if confirmed, said William Resh, a University of Southern California professor that researches civil servants.