The Senate voted along party lines on Thursday to confirm Russell T. Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, putting in place one of the most powerful architects of President Trump’s agenda to upend the federal bureaucracy and slash spending that the administration thinks is wasteful.
The 53-to-47 vote returns Mr. Vought to the White House budget office that he also led during Mr. Trump’s first term. During his tenure, he took steps to expand the number of federal employees required to work during a government shutdown, froze military aid for Ukraine and railed against spending on foreign aid.
Mr. Vought emerged as one of Mr. Trump’s most contentious nominees, drawing intense backlash from Senate Democrats who described him as a lawless ideologue. They used every legislative tool at their disposal to delay his confirmation vote, commandeering the Senate floor on Wednesday night and into Thursday morning to make the case against him.
“We’re going to be speaking all night,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said as his colleagues prepared to burn through the clock. “We want Americans, every hour, whether it’s 8 p.m. or 3 a.m., to hear how bad Russell Vought is and the danger he poses to them in their daily lives.”
After leaving the office, Mr. Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank, and was an architect of Project 2025. That document was an effort by conservative groups to develop detailed ideas for policies and executive actions that Mr. Trump could pursue to tear down and rebuild executive government institutions in a way that would enhance presidential power.
In speeches, Mr. Vought made clear that he relished the opportunity to overhaul the ranks of career federal workers that Mr. Trump views as part of the “deep state.”
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Mr. Vought said in a 2023 speech. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
Mr. Vought has also been a proponent of the idea that the executive branch should have the power to claw back, or impound, congressionally approved funding for government agencies and overhaul the so-called administrative state.
During his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. Vought dodged questions about whether Mr. Trump would follow the will of Congress, which authorizes federal spending, but made clear that Mr. Trump intended to test the law.
“No, I don’t believe it’s constitutional,” Mr. Vought said of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which reasserted Congress’s power of the purse. “The president ran on that view. That’s his view, and I agree with it.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Vought has been working in an advisory role at O.M.B. and was involved in the chaotic rollout of Mr. Trump’s federal funding freeze. That order to freeze trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans was drafted by the office’s general counsel and sent to agencies last week, creating widespread confusion around the country.
The White House rescinded the order the next day after legal challenges and condemnation.
The Trump administration has portrayed the spending freeze as an effort to make sure that grants and loans do not violate other executive orders Mr. Trump has issued in which he has sought to end several policies he dislikes, like diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
A federal judge issued a restraining order this week that temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the freeze.
Once he is back at the helm of the budget office, Mr. Vought will lead the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal work force and craft the White House’s upcoming budget proposal, which is likely to include slashing funds for a variety of programs.
In late 2022, while working at his think tank, Mr. Vought released a budget blueprint that aimed to reduce the debt by nearly $9 trillion over a decade through deep spending cuts and “dismantling the woke and weaponized bureaucracy.”
