OMB Director Russell Vought, a key cog in Trump's reign of terror against the working class in the US, was turned into a babbling, dishonest, and disingenuous scoundrel during Rep. Becca Balint's questioning during the House Budget Committee hearing on the 2027 budget.
Rep. Balint explained in detail how Vought weaponized his agency, while Trump withheld federal funds against all states that did not vote for him..
BALINT: Mr. Vought, I want to go over your political weaponization of this agency against the American people, and specifically against those states that voted primarily for Democrats.
Yes or no, Mr. Vought, a federal judge found that you terminated $7.6 billion in clean energy grants based on whether the recipient lived in a blue state.
Yes or no?
VOUGHT: I don't recall what that judge said, but we have not made the determinations based on whether the state is—
BALINT: In fact, Mr. Vought, on January 12, 2026, U.S. Judge Amit Mehta said, quote, defendants, meaning you, Mr. Vought, freely admit that they made grant determination decisions primarily, if not exclusively, based on whether the awardee resided in a state whose citizens voted for President Trump in 2024.
Rep. Balint did not stop there.
She continued on like a battering ram of truth against a scurrilous carpetbagger.
BALINT: Mr. Vought, yes or no, federal judges said OMB's freeze of $10 billion in child care and family assistance funding, quote, appeared designed to punish communities that the administration agreed with.
Yes or no, was that something that federal judges said about you and your leadership?
VOUGHT: I think the judge's characterization is getting at the degree to which we are focused on states that we think are mismanaged.
BALINT: Okay, that is not, in fact, the case. In fact, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson found the administration broke the law and froze funds as a politically motivated move disguised as fraud prevention.
So your characterization actually is false.
Other courts have said that withholding congressionally approved funding is, quote, vindictive and unlawful.
Courts have found that freezing funds create, quote, irreparable harm against the American people.
And the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog agency that investigates how federal agencies spend taxpayer dollars, has reported that you broke the law multiple times and they have said that you have refused to spend money that was dedicated for Americans.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to spend money and not the President.
Mr. Vought, your actions clearly show that you want to cut federal funds from anyone who didn't vote for Donald Trump.
The entire transcript is riveting.
One clash with this reprobate exposed his fraudulent behavior when he claimed all 17 million of Americans losing their healthcare because of the budget he proposed was due to everyone being either “illegals” or committing fraud.
BALINT: The Kaiser Family Foundation says it's actually more than 17 million Americans who will lose their healthcare.
Are they really all, according to you, really?
You're going to sit here with a straight face and say they're all illegals, they're all defrauding the system?
That's actually your position?
VOUGHT: Yes.
BALINT: With regard to the people that have lost. That's laughable.
Donald Trump's corruption of the Constitution is monumental. He is incapable of rooting out any type of fraud since he committed it so often so their claims are insulting as well as unfounded.
The Trump administration has not proved any of Vought's assertions whatsoever.
Vought's claims are as a scandalous as they are deadly for the people they swore to protect.
