Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t endorsing the slash-and-burn campaign White House budget director Russ Vought has planned for the federal government during the pending shutdown.
But he says Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves.
“This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,” the Senate majority leader said in an exclusive interview Wednesday in the Capitol, adding that “there should have been an expectation” among Democrats that Vought’s Office of Management and Budget could broadly target government workers and programs in a shutdown.
Thune spoke on the same day that several Republicans aired discomfort with Vought’s moves after the shutdown went into effect. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York spoke out against his decision to hold up major transportation projects in his state, while Reps. Blake Moore of Utah and Brian Babin of Texas spoke up on a private House GOP call with Vought raising qualms about potential mass layoffs.
Vought’s actions also risk being a distraction for Republicans, who have sought to stick to a simple message putting the onus on Democrats to reopen the government. Pressed on whether Vought was muddying the waters, Thune said, “The only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don’t control what he’s going to do.”
The White House has made no secret that its strategy is to inflict maximum political pressure on Democrats to try to get them to reopen the government. Vought warned ahead of the start of the shutdown that OMB would take aggressive steps beyond typical furloughs, where employees are brought back to work after the government reopens.
The budget office directed agencies in a memo first reported by POLITICO last week to put together plans for reductions-in-force — or firings — of federal employees. Vought himself told House Republicans during the Wednesday call that those firings would start in a “day or two.”
“I can’t control that,” Thune said about decisions made by OMB. “But the Democrats ought to think long and hard about keeping this thing going for a long time, because it won’t be without consequence, I’m sure.”
Ten Democrats helped advance a GOP funding bill in March over concerns that a shutdown would only empower Vought and Trump. And one member of the Senate Democratic caucus, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), said he voted for the House-passed, GOP-led stopgap bill this week because he believes a shutdown would empower the administration to do grave damage to the federal bureaucracy.
But most Democrats have said Vought’s tactics are a bluff and that he is targeting funding that the administration would have otherwise targeted outside of a shutdown.
“President Trump has spent the year hurting families, killing jobs, and raising people’s costs, and now he and Russ Vought are gleefully using the shutdown they have caused as a pretext to inflict even more pain,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement Wednesday.
“If Donald Trump and Russ Vought think these ugly intimidation tactics will work, they are sorely mistaken,” added Murray, the top Democratic appropriator in the Senate.
