Russ Vought
speaker
409 appearances
6 recordings
5 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 18 Apr
Russ Vought’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And think of that often for all of our political appointees. They are surrounded by people that have no idea about what the reasons and the agenda that the president has been put in office. And they're just bombarded with reasons of how can you do this? What are you thinking? Did you know that you can't do this? Most of the time, that's not true. And so you have to cut through all of that
and to have the courage of your convictions, and quite frankly, Tucker, the know-how to know, to have read the law, to get in the granular details yourselves, to not be staffed by the people working for you. This notion that you can just come in and preside is not true.
You have to be in the weeds and to drive these agencies to be able to fix where we have the undergrowth and the muscle memory that we've had for decades.
You've got to know how to fire them. And there are tools to do that. And the president was innovating in that space himself with what's called Schedule F of essentially saying, if you work for me in your policy, a career official, think your attorneys who are writing regulations, then we're going to create a new classification for you.
And you are going to be what most of the country is, which is at-will employee. That's where we're headed.
It should be. And this is one of the mountains of the administrative state. You know, this is how they have built their institution by essentially having it be incredibly difficult to hire and fire employees. And so I'll get another example. When the president decided to take money from defense to build the wall... We had clear legal grounds to do it that Congress had given us.
It's called transfer authority. And I told this to the Hill, and obviously this was controversial. It shouldn't have been controversial. Congress had given us very clear transfer authority. I must have had at least three times someone relitigate that decision from the career staff who work at OMB. Are you sure? Are you sure? I think we should oppose. I think this, because guys,
The decision has been made. Execute the decision. And you see that everywhere, right? And if you don't drive it, you're going to get better. You're not going to be able to accomplish what the president needs you to accomplish.
You can do that increasingly when you move towards a Schedule F system. And there are other tools in the toolbox. But under the current system, what would happen if you tried that?
Look, you've got a lot of tools on the table. It's just so infuriating. Look, it is one of the most infuriating things that you could possibly imagine. But I think that the good news and this is, I think, the good news, not just in hiring, firing. The good news at large is that. Most of the time, they have been able to get as far as they can because of just it is the way it is.
It's precedent and laws that are not drafted precisely but purposely vague. And as a result, we can then do it in reverse. You can have a president who steps in and says, you know what, there's no constitutional amendment for me to take control of the administrative state. I'm going to do in reverse everything that you have done. And I think that is the great hope.
What you need is people who are able to absorb political heat. They don't have a fear of conflict. They can execute under withering enemy fire. They are up to speed and they are no nonsense in their own ability to know what must be done. And they are unbelievably committed to the president and his agenda and truly believe in their bones that They're not there for their own agenda.
They're there for what President Trump was elected to do. And so his commander's intent matters a great deal. And that's the view that I always had, Tucker, is how do I get in the minds of the president to think through what is he trying to accomplish? And then I'm going to go figure out how to do it.
Well, I think, number one, they are always framing narratives and messages that both are lies and are also designed to destabilize the Republicans in control who want to be for however that narrative is being framed. You used one already with democracy, right? If you're not aware that when they say democracy, they mean oligarchy, you're like, I don't want to be anti-democratic.
And, you know, if you have a plan to deal with the administrative state and then they frame it as authoritarian, you don't want a cast of your own allies saying, I don't want to be anti-authoritarian. We saw this in COVID, right, where – We if they decide if they define something as anti-science or anti-public health, it causes our political appointees to just completely wilt. Right.
And so that's I think the beauty of President Trump is he's kind of immune to these these media generated narratives that conflict with common sense reality. That I think is the main one, because that is controlling the skies from a military standpoint, right? Like that is their ability to shape the conversation in such a way that it makes it very hard.
Number two, they're obviously working in conjunction with leakers and individuals with know-how to know when a hold has been put on Ukraine to be able to send that and have it explode in the public arena. And so you have to prevent leaks. You have to govern well from the get-go to be able to manage all of that as best you possibly can.
But I also think there's an opportunity there because they will report on conflict. They will report on confrontation. And when they do that, you can get the word out as to what you're doing. At least you can get the word out on shows like this and in the new and developing ecosystem. Well, that's kind of it right there.
The whole ballgame has shifted, right? Like, I don't even know why you would do many of these interviews at all, because if you can't get... You know, you've got to be able to get your words out without just complete combativeness. And I think the best example is remember the Caitlin Collins interview with President Trump. I mean, it's just constant interrupting and fighting.
misuse of lies, actually. And so that's the kind of thing that you're up against. But you can shape them. You can, particularly the print media. And I think it's important to at least attempt to do that. But You have to make the measure of the person that you're dealing with. And sometimes they're just, you know, they're complete activists themselves.
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