{"id":13982,"date":"2025-10-02T15:02:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-warns-democrats-about-russ-vought-we-dont-control-what-hes-going-to-do\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T15:02:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:02:41","slug":"thune-warns-democrats-about-russ-vought-we-dont-control-what-hes-going-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-warns-democrats-about-russ-vought-we-dont-control-what-hes-going-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Thune warns Democrats about Russ Vought: \u2018We don\u2019t control what he\u2019s going to do\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> isn\u2019t endorsing the slash-and-burn campaign White House budget director Russ Vought has planned for the federal government during the pending shutdown.<\/p>\n

But he says Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,\u201d the Senate majority leader said in an exclusive interview Wednesday<\/a> in the Capitol, adding that \u201cthere should have been an expectation\u201d among Democrats that Vought\u2019s Office of Management and Budget could broadly target government workers and programs in a shutdown.<\/p>\n

Thune spoke on the same day that several Republicans aired discomfort with Vought\u2019s moves after the shutdown went into effect. Rep. Mike Lawler<\/a> of New York spoke out against his decision to hold up major transportation projects in his state, while Reps. Blake Moore<\/a> of Utah and Brian Babin<\/a> of Texas spoke up on a private House GOP call<\/a> with Vought raising qualms about potential mass layoffs.<\/p>\n

Vought\u2019s 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, \u201cThe only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don\u2019t control what he\u2019s going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The budget office directed agencies in a memo first reported by POLITICO<\/a> last to put together plans for reductions-in-force \u2014 or firings \u2014 of federal employees.Vought himself told House Republicans during the Wednesday call that those firings would start in a \u201cday or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t control that,\u201d Thune said about decisions made by OMB. \u201cBut 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\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> (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.<\/p>\n

But most Democrats have said Vought\u2019s tactics are a bluff and that he is targeting funding that the administration would have otherwise targeted outside of a shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has spent the year hurting families, killing jobs, and raising people\u2019s costs, and now he and Russ Vought are gleefully using the shutdown they have caused as a pretext to inflict even more pain,\u201d Sen. Patty Murray<\/a> (D-Wash.) said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Donald Trump and Russ Vought think these ugly intimidation tactics will work, they are sorely mistaken,\u201d added Murray, the top Democratic appropriator in the Senate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn\u2019t 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. \u201cThis is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}