Mr. President, since the beginning of the Trump administration a little over 2 weeks ago, my office has heard directly from Arizonans about how the cronies of this President are impacting their day-to-day lives. In one his first acts, the…
Mr. President, since the beginning of the Trump administration a little over 2 weeks ago, my office has heard directly from Arizonans about how the cronies of this President are impacting their day-to-day lives.
In one his first acts, the President and the Office of Management and Budget moved to freeze the grants and loans to Arizona organizations that work tirelessly each day to better the lives of Arizona families. These are not people who do the work because they are chasing a high salary. They are not doing it out of a drive to be millionaires or billionaires. They are doing it to help their fellow Arizonans.
The programs impacted by the Federal freeze include Assistance to Firefighters Grants so our firefighters can purchase equipment; Staffing for Adequate Fire Emergency Response--better known as SAFER-- Grants, which fund the hiring of firefighters; sexual assault services, which provide rape kits to sexual assault survivors; and Preventing the Trafficking of Girls, which supports the prevention and early intervention services for girls who are at risk of or are victims of sex and/or labor trafficking; the Rural Violent Crime Initiative, which supports the implementation of violent crime reduction strategies, improves investigations, improves services to victims, and enhances collaboration between local stakeholders; Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program, which provides death and education benefits for survivors of fallen officers and firefighters; violence against women formula grants, which improves our capacity to reduce domestic violence; the Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, which are used to purchase critical technology, infrastructure, et cetera, for police departments and other public safety entities; and the CHIPS Research and Development Programs to grow Arizona's semiconductor industry and the country's.
These lifesaving programs and economic drivers were canceled not because they were ineffective, not because Congress voted to cut them, but because they were in the way of one man's crusade to tear down the Federal Government, and that man is OMB nominee Russell Vought.
Russell Vought is a danger to the United States. He has been a staunch advocate for drastically eliminating or cutting our safety net programs, such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. He helped design Trump-era budgets that sought to cut trillions from these programs, while simultaneously advocating for tax cuts that would only benefit the wealthiest of Americans.
So let's make sure we understand what is happening here. He wants to cut help for the poorest Americans to make sure that there is enough money left over to give it to the richest Americans. His vision for America is one where billionaires thrive while the families of Arizona and America struggle to get ahead.
Vought has showed complete disregard for our democratic institutions. He was a key architect of efforts to politicize the Federal bureaucracy and push for policies that would replace career civil servants with partisan loyalists.
He played a significant role in enabling the Trump administration's refusal to cooperate with congressional
oversight. His actions set a dangerous precedent, and it is a playbook that the Trump administration is looking to deploy and has deployed in this second term--a playbook of reducing transparency, accountability, and disregarding the power of Congress in favor of an empowered executive branch.
The Office of Management and Budget is one of the most powerful Agencies in the country. It is responsible for crafting the President's budget, overseeing regulatory policies, and ensuring the efficient operation of government programs.
The OMB Director must believe in the fundamental mission of government, which is to serve the people. Vought, by contrast, has spent his career trying to dismantle government institutions and push an extreme agenda that benefits only a select few.
If confirmed to lead OMB, Vought would have the ability to impose cuts on essential programs, further politicize the Federal workforce, and continue his assaults on democratic institutions. His leadership would result in policies that worsen economic inequality, weaken national security by defunding key Agencies, and eroding public confidence in government.
The confirmation of Vought would not only be a step backward, but it would also embolden extremists seeking to undermine the role of government. His approach to governance is not about responsible budgeting or efficiency; it is about dismantling the Federal Government from within. The stakes are too high to allow such a dangerous individual to return to a position of power.
Russell Vought is a major threat to our democratic institutions. His track record makes it abundantly clear that he is unfit for any leadership management role in budget, in government, especially one as powerful as the Office of Management and Budget.
Confirming Vought would allow an individual with a history of extremism, obstructionism, and divisiveness to control the country's budget and regulatory framework. His vision for America is one where government serves only the wealthy and the powerful, while ordinary citizens are left without support and the services they need.
In the face of such a threat, it is crucial that we reject any attempt to put Vought in any position of power. The future of the country depends on leaders who believe in governance, transparency, and fairness, not those who seek to destroy it and the institutions that make this all work.
The Senate and the American people must stand firm against this confirmation, ensuring that those who wield power do so in service of this Nation, understand why they are doing it, understand that it is not just for the sake of ideologic crusades that we should be putting Vought in power but to make sure that we have a government that answers for the people and by the people.
In conclusion, we must remember at the core what is going to happen and what is happening.
Just yesterday, I met with many of my local healthcare centers in Arizona--more than 50 of them--and I asked them: What is going on in your communities? What is happening right now?
Many of them were telling me about the fear that they are hearing in the communities. What many of them also told me--these are very critical community health centers, some of the health centers that are the frontlines of taking care of some of the poorest communities in the country with some of the largest health disparities in the country, people that are chronically ill and going to these places because it is the last place that will see them since they do not have doctors, they don't have access to hospitals, and they don't have access to insurance.
These community health centers were telling me that right now, most of them still cannot access payment. The organizations that are essentially taking care of the poorest of this country cannot get payments for services they are giving to these poor communities, for the contracts that we signed with them as the Federal Government, because people like Vought want to freeze those grants. They want to freeze out those types of groups that are taking care of the poor in order to save as much money so that they can give this money and these tax cuts to the richest of Americans. It is the most cynical thing we could be doing, the most cynical thing this Trump administration could be doing, and certainly it is a very dangerous thing that OMB nominee Vought will be doing.
With that, I yield the floor.