Amid the heated debate between Donald Trump and Elon Musk over the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought joins Glenn Beck to clear a few things up. Is raising the debt ceiling a terrible move? Where are all the DOGE cuts? What happens to Trump’s agenda if the bill isn’t passed?
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Russ Voit, how are you, sir?
RUSS: I'm doing well, thanks for having me.
GLENN: You bet. It's great to have you on. Yesterday was a tough day. Do you know, has the president has his phone call yet? Are they coming back together?
RUSS: Well, I think the president made some comments to the press this morning, that, you know, he's not looking to have a phone call any time soon. But, you know, I think he's expressed his disappointment yesterday, with regard to some comments made by Elon. Look, Glenn, we're moving forward.
And Elon has been an important ally and patriot throughout all of this. And we've got a job to do. And I think that's what we're most focused on right now, is making sure we can get the word out on this bill, get it across the finished line. Make improvements where we can, but get this thing home to the American people.
GLENN: So I agree with both the president and Elon Musk. I know there are things in this package that are really important. I think the president understands. And Elon doesn't understand, that politics are involved here.
And I don't know Elon was not going after the Democrats and saying, why don't you care some more. Come on. Come on. Help us.
But the president is now putting in a rescission package.
What does that mean? And what is that going to do to this bill?
Well, again, two things I would say. Just going back to your initial comment there.
I think the argument that the fiscal challenges of the country are so bad and we need to do as much as we can. I think there's alignment.
There is total agreement.
I think the issue is how much -- and it's to your second part. How much does this bill. This is not a budget bill.
People get confused because they think if they're using the budget process, it's an agenda bill, that uses a budget process.
It's not a budget resolution. It's not a fiscal picture. It cannot by law, include cuts to discretionary spending, which are all the DOGE permanent cuts. Right?
So that is something that has to be considered elsewhere.
And we're in the process of doing that.
So we just sent up our first recisions bill.
We will send up more.
This one is 9.4 billion.
Why is it so small?
It's small specifically because of the politics you mentioned. Which is that Congress hasn't passed these bills.
And we can do a lot of things ourselves, that we can do in Congress.
Procedurally, this is where you have people come into the party and the coalition.
They don't know the procedures of government.
If Congress does not pass a recisions bill, we lose the ability to just not spend the money. And use some of our tools, that this president is now talking about.
That we are polishing off, that we have not used since the 1970s, to just not use the money.
And so we had this whole side of effort on discretionary spending, making the DOGE cuts permanent. A lot of different ways you can do that. We're in the process of doing that.
That is another piece of the puzzle, fiscally. That you will not get from this reconciliation bill.
GLENN: So why are -- is -- Russ, I know you know this.
And I'm an infant compared to the way your understanding is. So please help me understand.
But we are -- we are up against the wall, with a gun to our head, when it comes to printing more money. Or borrowing more money.
And we've got to cut this budget. Can you explain to the audience why -- why we have to be careful on this.
We can't just go in. And maybe I've seen this wrong. But I don't think we can just go in and just take an axe to everything, until we get the economy to light the match in the economy.
Am I wrong on this?
RUSS: I don't think you're wrong. I think we can do both. But for people, why the bill is so important. So you cannot have a conversation of reducing debt and deficits when the economy is not going, period, end of story. It is a vital foundation. The economic growth gets you all of the way to where we need to go? No, it does not. But the notion that you're ever going to reform these big programs like -- that are welfare and social safety net without a growing economy. You can't impose a work requirement, when there are no jobs.
So this bill, and this is where our main thing that we're trying to correct factually. If you correct for CBO's artificial baseline. That assuming tax relief will expire.
They don't assume that. They assume spending is eternal.
Green new deal, spending through that, is assumed to continue.
Or the preparations. All the woke bureaucracy. All of that. But if you have tax components. All of those are presumed to sunset. Right?
So that is a fundamental. We've known this for decades.
The way that DC screws.
And misassess as our bills.
So you've got to pass this, otherwise we will have a recession. That said, this bill actually cuts spending. It has $1.7 trillion in savings.
Reduces the deficit by $1.4 trillion.
It is the biggest mandatory savings proposal in history in the 1997s.
We were only talking with the work requirements and Bill Clinton and the Republican Newt Gingrich House when we're talking about $800 billion in savings. Has the problem gotten worse? Yes, it has. But this is historic levels. And that's not even talking about the DOGE cuts.
So I think we can do all of them. But we've got to figure, oh, what's the bill doing? What's the maximum that we can do with it? The art of the possible is the three-seat majority in the House and the Senate. We are willing to go further, but we also know the bill has to pass.
And we -- the -- those are small majority. This is not 20-seat majorities. That's a real political constraint that you reflected earlier.
I'm very bullish. Glenn, I think at the end of this year, if this bill passes, and the cuts are maintained in it, we can end the year with a pair time shift on the mandatory spending.
And a paradigm shift on discretionary. We might have a first chance to actually cut non-defense spending by serious levels through the ability to just not spend money, or to send up recisions that don't need a congressional or permanent on through your pocket recisions.
That would dramatically change, and here's the thing: It would lead to results. What has caused the problem that we have. Is fiscal utility.
We don't get any wins. Let alone big wins. This is giving us big wins. It's why we will be able to change the trajectory this year.
GLENN: So the argument against that is it's raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.
So why do you say we can raise the debt ceiling, add another 4 trillion in debt, and yet, at the end, have a big win by the end of the year?
What is in this bill, that is not connecting here?
RUSS: So any bill that you would have ever had, the Republican's budget, Rand Paul's budget. Whatever -- no matter what bill you cut, TAP and Balance from yesteryear, any of those bills act over a ten-year period.
And so over that ten-year period, you're giving to low balance levels. Right?
In the media, you all of them assume that in the short term, debt limits.
The debt is going up, while you make progress.
The debt limit. The debt ceiling is a warning sign.
It itself does not create debt.
Now, it is something that historically has been used. The president has views. And we agree that, we haven't gotten anything out of the debt limit.
In 20, 30 years. And so the notion that it should be done outside of reconciliation and Republican votes, is a -- is something that we've been challenging as an administration, that this is not serving our interests. This bill extends the debt limit.
But at his include what can historically -- if you ever got anything historically from the debt limit extension. It would be already in this bill.
That's why we're so excited about this bill.
GLENN: You know, I saw something from Goldman Sachs last week. And they said, we are dangerously close to not being able to sell our debt.
And then having to finance ourselves, and raise the -- you know, the -- you know, the interest that we're having to pay.
Do you know -- do you have any idea how close we are to that number, before this thing?
Because I think we're just really on the edge here. Where is that number? How close are we?
RUSS: I don't think anyone knows. And I don't think you can ever know. And I think this has been with us for a long time. And we obviously see the extent -- no one is arguing back against that. And no one is arguing back to the critics of -- of debt and deficit, at all. But I think what I would push back a little bit, you know, on -- I'll add Moody's to the list as well. Is that, the meta point is true. It's also one that you've been making for 20 years. And the conservative movements have been making. This president has been making. The point is true: The timing of these analysis I think are for a purpose.
And so Moody's kind of made that determination 15 years ago, in the Obama administration, they chose not to.
They chose to do it right before House passage on an agenda bill, that has incredible importance to the American people. And I think the president is getting his trust in that vein. And the notion that Goldman Sachs does not have a sense about the way the baselines work, is also not true.
And so I think what you have going on here.
Is the reality of our fiscal situation, and people continuing to rightfully educate on that.
I think, in the financial community, or some of the watchdogs, there is a timing aspect that is specifically designed to use the -- the legitimate concerns, to take down a bill that is otherwise fantastic. On the -- on a dishonest basis.
And that's one of the reasons we're working so hard to get our message out.
GLENN: I know your time is really tight.
Can you just tell me specifically, what are the things in it, specifically that you say are fantastic? That maybe people don't know.
RUSS: I think the biggest thing is the level of welfare reform that's in this bill.
The Medicaid reforms. The work requirement in Medicaid, to get people back into the workforce. The food stamp reforms. Both tightening the work requirement, and giving states a share of the cost of that -- of that program.
$1.7 trillion in mandatory savings. And then the second aspect of it is, you talk about the DOGE decisions.
And the only spending in this bill, is spending that is specifically designed strategically that is conservative. And -- like border security.
If that's an appropriations process, we're headed towards a shutdown. It looks like the first term. We can't actually have a non-defense fighter. We're cutting because we're fighting for the wall.
This bill criticizes that type of spending, so that it clears the field, strategically for us to have a massive fight on non-defense spending in the appropriations process.
We have talked very rarely about that dynamic, but I think it's one that your audience will find very exciting.
GLENN: Russ, I so appreciate the fact that you are there with the president.
I know the president has earned the right to get his -- we're, what? 120 days or something into his first term. I think he's earned his right to get his way.
I am worried about the debt and the deficit. But I do trust you. And I give my support to the president.
And I hope that we can get past yesterday, and move to get things moving in Washington.
Because I think if this doesn't pass. I haven't heard a better idea from anybody.
I've just heard noes. We've got to get moving on this.
Or we're in trouble.
Deeper trouble than we are right now.
RUSS: Well said. Thank you, Glenn. I appreciate you.
GLENN: You bet. Russ Voit, office of budget and management.