Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) threw down on Wednesday with Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, over his past comments
Vought, a key contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda, made the comments in private speeches, which were made public by ProPublica in October 2024. Trump nominated Vought, who has advocated for replacing the federal workforce with Trump loyalists, saying he “will dismantle the Deep State.”
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said, adding, “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.”
Kaine sought additional context for those remarks, asking, “Were you talking about the federal workforce?”
“I was talking about the bureaucracy that I experienced and– at the federal level,” replied Vought, who also ran the OMB during Trump’s first term.
“You were not talking about state employees?” Kaine pressed.
“I have no experience with the states,” Vought replied as Kaine added, “You are not talking about local employees?”
“I was not,” Vought said.
“Your mother was a public school teacher, correct?” Kaine added.
“Yes, senator,” replied Vought.
“And so you were talking about you want the federal workforce to be traumatized?” Kaine pressed again as the two spoke over each other.
Kaine continued, “I like a lot of presidents. I’m a Lincoln fan. Are you a Lincoln fan?”
“Yes, senator,” Vought replied.
“Lincoln spoke to a nation at war and he said with ‘malice towards none and charity towards all.’ And he was saying that to the north and the south. He didn’t say, we want you to be traumatized. He was a bridge builder and a unifier. And that’s what public servants should be. They shouldn’t gleefully be wishing trauma on people who are trying to serve their fellow man,” Kaine fumed before moving on.