Russ Vought
Appearances
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Thanks for having me, Charlie. President Trump and the White House are sending up to Congress when they get back in two weeks a proposal to get cut a billion dollars for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. That's predominantly NPR, PBS, which isn't just leftist indoctrination.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
where you're not covering the Hunter Biden laptop or the fact that the Wuhan lab leaked the coronavirus, but you're actually on the forefront of the cultural revolution in this country and pushing programmatic coverage to children about drag queens, dividing us, doing documentaries about white privilege and reparations.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
And then on the other hand, we have $8.3 billion in doge cuts to USAID, which is all the things that we've heard that shock the conscience of waste, fraud, and abuse there.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Everything from paying for Sesame Street in Iraq to voter ID in Haiti to just flat-out pushing of an LGBTQ movement in all of these countries, strengthening the resilience of these movements, programs like Being Gay in the Caribbean,
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Over and over, when you scratch the surface of all of these programs, literally, development assistance, economic support, all of the programs at USAID, you found this funding of a leftist NGO operation that was pushing a very, very woke cultural agenda. We're sending that up to get rid of it, make these cuts permanent. They've been on hold.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
We want to make them permanent, and we need Congress's vote in this particular set of funds to do so.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Sure, and this is just the first of a series of rescissions bills. As we get comfortable with what's the annual amount of permanent savings that can be done, and if it's multi-year money, we're going to go ahead and send those up, so long as Congress is actually going to be passing those. That's critical.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
We have executive tools that we can use if Congress is not going to pass these bills, but they've been demanding them. The process is one of an exception –
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
or a a procedure in the impoundment control act and you and i know and are not big fans of the impoundment control act and how it has bound the president correct but there is a there is a process it's called a fast track procedure to give an up or down vote in both the house and the senate without concern with regard to the filibuster that will allow this to be voted on in the house and the senate leadership of both parties has said look we're going to get this thing passed
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
we're going to send that up when they get back formally. They need to be there to receive it, and then we'll start working with them to get the votes to get this thing through.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Well, I think the reality of these rescissions is that I think we all think that government is too big, and it has been for quite some time, decades. But when you see the fine print, when you see what the contracts are and you see what we're funding –
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
You come away with this aha moment, this realization, of course these countries think worse of us and dislike us because we're funding this kind of garbage in their countries. We would not accept or we shouldn't be accepting, and part of the Trump administration is to push back and make sure domestically we're not funding this as the Department of Education. Or USDA.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
But then you add the fact this was our foreign policy. This is our foreign policy to fund, quote unquote, the resilience of the queer and trans sex movement in other countries. Like what on earth are we doing? And of course, that's going to have an implication as to whether these countries are listening to what our interests. And of course, it has led to great.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
We would be concerned if we were their citizens with it. And so one after another, all we did, Charlie, is we took straight doge cuts, contracts, grants saved. We added them up and we sent this first tranche – we will be sending this first tranche over. So I think the debate is very simple on the Hill. Do you stand with us against these ridiculous items? The president would call them fraudulent.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
And or not, or are you going to say that there's some issue with regard to these cuts that we should actually be in the business of this? And I think it's going to be a very important debate. It's the first in a series of rescissions packages that we will, in fact, send. And depending on how successful it goes, we'll send more.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Final thoughts is that obviously economic growth and tariffs, but spending reductions and spending restraint is an enormous part of what's necessary to balance the budget. That's in two components, right? That's the first part is going after the woke and weaponized and wasteful bureaucracy. That is what we're doing with these doge cuts. That's what we'll be doing with rescissions.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
And that will be over a 10-year period, incredible amounts of money. And I think the most important, because that's the federal government that you and I interact with. That's the one that is kind of aimed at us, increasingly less so with President Trump. But we want to make sure that the bureaucracy... can't reconstitute itself later in future administrations.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Secondly, there are reforms to welfare and to we will call them mandatory programs that have made the social safety net a benefit hammock. And that is keeping people out of the workforce and leading to less growth. And that's the kind of thing that we will need to tackle within the construct of reconciliation.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
So when we do the one big, beautiful bill, there'll be a conversation about extending the tax cuts and securing the president's new tax cut commitments from the campaign, also designed to get people to be able to work more and not be penalized for it. But we will also be pushing for
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
mandatory savings, reforms to these programs that generate a ton of money that I think will unlock the votes to be able to get to. And that's what really we're working on last week. We were pushing the House to pass the Senate budget resolution because we thought it was an opportunity to go big. And so we're looking forward to that beginning now once the members come back.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
While America's roots are soaked in bloodshed, violence in the country today is mostly from right wing extremism. From Oklahoma City to Charlottesville to January 6th, there is simply no equivalent on the left.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Defunding Harvard + NPR + PBS ft. Russ Vought
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News in Complete Panic as Trump Screws Them
Well, look, Larry, the president has recognized that 200 years of presidents had the ability to impound funds. And as a result, we're able to do a far better job of being able to control costs. And what we see at the end of fiscal year is agencies have the normal bureaucracy approach to use it or lose it.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News in Complete Panic as Trump Screws Them
what the impoundment control act does is come on and say look if you're trying to save money in the end of the fourth quarter and do things smartly oh my gosh that's that that's something that is a violation of the impoundment control act and what we see at the end of the fourth quarter is flat screen tvs and copy machines in the halls of every agency because they're just trying to push it out the door
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News in Complete Panic as Trump Screws Them
The president is well aware of the authority that other presidents have had, and he has put forward on the campaign trail ideas on that front. We don't have anything to announce today, but this is certainly something he's well aware of the power that should exist with the executive branch.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News in Complete Panic as Trump Screws Them
Well, it defies common sense. It defies the Constitution. But the reality is this has been a key pillar of the Democrats' administrative state. And one of their principles is that career individuals and not political appointees are the ones that they want to rely on making decisions and shielding those of us who are political appointees from the actual information that we need
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News in Complete Panic as Trump Screws Them
to make decisions based on what the president would do if he was in our shoes. And you can't do that if you don't have access to the information and you don't have the tools at your disposal to make sure everything's going across your desk that you need to know to be a sound representative of the president.