MAGA Senator Mike Lee delivered an eyebrow-raising line while bragging that President Donald Trump’s budget goon has been itching for a government shutdown for years.
Since taking his post in February, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought has pushed to significantly expand Trump’s influence within the executive branch, from reducing spending to deregulating the economy.
The Project 2025 co-author has used the shutdown to advance his agenda, announcing this week that the Trump administration would slash funding for blue states and fire federal workers en masse.
Speaking on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle Wednesday, Lee attempted to hype up his MAGA ally’s ambitions—but ended up taking a bizarre detour into Vought’s teenage years.
“Russ Vought, the OMB director, has been dreaming about this moment, preparing this moment, since puberty,” the 54-year-old Utah senator said, before quickly moving on to cheer Vought’s power play.
“Russ Vought has a plan and that plan is going to succeed in empowering, further empowering Trump,” Lee, 54, said. “This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare and it’s of their own working.”
Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, who also joined the interview, added, “By going to a shutdown, they succeed [sic] their authority to the president.”
Vought, 49, announced that he was canceling $8 billion in clean energy projects Wednesday, but only listed states with Democratic senators that Trump did not win.
He also said he had halted $18 billion in infrastructure funding to New York City, citing “unconstitutional DEI principles.”
He later clarified he was targeting funding for the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Avenue Subway; it is not clear how tunnel projects conflict with the Trump administration’s crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion.
Vought then told House Republicans he would start firing federal federal workers within a “day or two,” Axios reports.
During his appearance on Fox News, Lee sought to blame the shutdown on Democrats, calling it the “Schumer Shutdown”—after Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—claiming, “they’re doing it deliberately.”
Lee and Mullin pushed the misleading Republican line that Democrats are seeking to extend free health care to undocumented immigrants.
Democrats refused to support GOP legislation to keep the government open unless it extends Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as rollbacks to massive Medicaid cuts embedded in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
However, undocumented immigrants are barred from receiving federally funded healthcare coverage under a 1996 statute. Democrats’ budget proposals do not seek to make them eligible for programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
