Democrats grill Project 2025 co-author over ‘illegal’ Trump funding move

Democrats on Wednesday grilled Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee Russell Vought over recent executive orders made by President Trump they say “illegally” target funding authorized by former President Biden.

As Vought testified before the Senate Budget Committee, Democrats pressed him about orders announced earlier this week that “pause the disbursement of funds” appropriated through two major pieces of Biden’s agenda: the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Democrats have been sounding alarm over the orders, which they argue could result in the illegal impoundment of federal funding.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, raised the issue at the top of the hearing on Vought’s nomination on Wednesday morning, asking the nominee whether he “send a rescission message to Congress” or “use the illegal impoundment strategy.”

In response, Vought defended the executive orders, calling them “pauses” that “ensure that the funding that is in place is consistent and moves in a direction along the lines of what the president ran on.”

Merkley argued that the Vought was advocating for an “impoundment strategy” that he called unconstitutional.

Other Democrats also raised the issue on Wednesday, including Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, who asked Vought, if confirmed, whether he would “faithfully follow” the Impoundment Control Act (ICA).

That law, enacted during the Nixon administration, put guardrails on the president’s powers to cut funding approved by Congress.

It’s been cited more frequently by Republicans in recent months as conservatives have ramped up calls for its repeal. GOP critics say the measure is unconstitutional and say its rollback would help Trump pursue further cuts to government spending – a push that Democrats have criticized as a threat of executive overreach.

Vought said the administration will “faithfully uphold the law,” but added that, “The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that.”

He also argued that the recent moves by Trump “are not impoundments,” but instead “programmatic delays,” and added that the president will be exploring “the parameters of the law with regard to the Impoundment Control Act.”

“He hasn't developed a strategy that he's announced as it pertains to how he would approach it,” he said. “There are pieces of legislation that have been proposed by members of this committee.”

Murray later noted the funding process by which lawmakers craft annual government spending legislation, and asked how lawmakers can be expected to come to an agreement in the future if “a president, whoever he or her may be in the future, has say over that, saying, ‘Nope, never mind, I'm not going to pay for this part of it.’”

“We have to have agreements. It is the law of the land, and I have to say that your answer to this should be disconcerting to every single member on this committee,” she added.

Democrats also seized Vought’s ties to Project 2025 and his past work as founder of the think tank Center for Renewing America. Vought sought to distance the work from his nomination during the hearing.

Vought said in founding the center that the aim was to “continue to work on policies that were based on the principles of President Trump running for office in his first term,” but he said he was present not “here on behalf of the center” and instead is testifying “on behalf of the president's policies that he ran on.”

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is also a member of the Appropriations Committee, said on Wednesday that the committee will hold a later markup hearing on Vought’s nomination, where he said he will also have remarks on the ICA.

“I have concerns too and I will share those with you there,” Grahamn said.

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