Director of the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House on July 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS)
Unlike the hyper-partisan bills that have dominated the Senate’s recent agenda, including the rescissions package and the president's "big, beautiful bill," the appropriations process is typically a bipartisan affair in the upper chamber.
That is because, normally, most bills brought to the floor have to pass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, and with the GOP’s narrow majority, Senate Democrats will need to pass any spending bills or government funding extensions to ward off a partial government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who alluded to issues down the line with the appropriations process if Republicans advanced Trump's resicssions package, took a harsh stance against Vought.
"Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately, before he destroys our democracy and runs the country into the ground," Schumer said.
Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also did not take kindly to Vought’s comments.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, addresses the press at Washington Crossing Inn on Nov. 6, 2022, in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB for comment.
Vought’s comments came at roughly the same time as appropriators were holding a mark-up hearing of the military construction and veterans’ affairs and Commerce, Justice and Science spending bills.
Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during the hearing that Senate Republicans coalescing behind the rescissions package would only make hammering out spending bills more difficult, and argued that "trust" was at the core of the process.
"That's part of why bipartisan bills are so important," she said. "But everyone has to understand getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way, and it also depends on trust."
Other Republicans on the panel emphasized a similar point, that, without some kind of cooperation, advancing spending bills would become even more challenging.
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Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that finding "critical mass" to move spending bills was important, and warned that people have to "quit saying it's gotta just be my way or the highway," following threats Schumer's threats last week that the appropriations process could suffer should the rescissions package pass.
"People better start recognizing that we're all gonna have to work together and hopefully get these [appropriations] bills to the floor and see what we can move," he said. "But if somebody just sits up and says, ‘Oh, because there's a rescission bill, then I'm not going to work on Appropriations,’ you can always find an excuse not to do something. Let's figure out how we can work forward."
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/irrelevant-senators-push-back-against-voughts-call-more-partisan-spending-process