By Ken Thomas, Scott Patterson and Lindsay Wise
WASHINGTON—Russ Vought, President Trump’s top budget official, is looking to lock in many of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting efforts once the billionaire CEO steps aside from government. A key part of his plan: steamrolling Congress.
Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has already drawn the ire of Republican national security hawks by insisting that military spending receive increases only through a procedure known as budget reconciliation, as opposed to the annual budget. Aside from the reconciliation spending, the White House budget blueprint proposed maintaining military spending at current budget levels of $892.6 billion.
The move came even as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior Republicans pushed for more funding, lawmakers and congressional aides said.
Republican members of Congress and staff believed they had received assurances from Hegseth—some personally, aides said—that the number would be larger, and were shocked when the budget came out. They worry that getting a one-time boost through reconciliation would be temporary and not provide for long-term security needs.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said some Republican colleagues on both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees lay the blame on Vought. “Russ has a lot of sway as the OMB director,” Cramer said. “He’s got a very sharp pencil.”
In retrospect, one senior Republican staffer said, it shouldn’t have been surprising that a budget expert such as Vought “won a knife fight” over the budget.
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