Jul 22, 2025 · 26m · american-optimist
New Face of DOGE Agenda Explains the Big Beautiful Bill · Joe Lonsdale
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In this episode of American Optimist, host Joe Lonsdale interviews OMB Director Russ Vought to discuss the Trump administration's aggressive strategy to reduce federal spending and reform the civil service. Vought details legal challenges to executive spending limits, entitlement reductions in the reconciliation bill, and efforts to dismantle bureaucratic overreach.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Joe holds 19.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Joe as informed peer 5.0 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 1.6 Joe pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Joe, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:30 Warning Congress on rescissions inaction
Vaught forcefully challenges Senate establishment pushback against DOGE foreign aid cuts, stating the administration will bypass Congress with executive actions if they fail to act.
Hardest push from Joe ▶ 12:18 Pressing on CBO projectionsLonsdale presses Vaught on whether CBO projections claiming the budget bill adds to the deficit are legitimate or require statutory reform.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:24 Explaining CBO baseline mechanicsVaught provides a granular policy explanation of how CBO treats expiring tax relief as a deficit increase while assuming spending sunsets are perpetual.
Joe holds their own ▶ 10:44 Lonsdale cites Pendleton Act merit testingLonsdale showcases his historical policy knowledge by citing the 1883 Pendleton Act and advocating for the restoration of standardized civil service merit exams.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Joe as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Joe pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome & Overview of OMB's Key Levers and Oversight | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Joe Lonsdale opens by asking Vaught to outline OMB powers and lessons learned from Trump's first term. Vaught provides a detailed breakdown of OIRA regulatory review, apportionment authority, and RIFs in a collaborative and informative tone. | |
| Challenging the Impoundment Control Act & Presidential Spending Authority | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | Lonsdale displays solid historical framing regarding the 1974 Impoundment Control Act and unitary executive theory. Vaught enthusiastically expands on challenging the ICA in court and taking back spending authority from congressional appropriators. | |
| Civil Service Overhaul: RIFs and Schedule F At-Will Status | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Lonsdale brings up Carter-era civil service reforms and union protections that eliminated merit testing. Vaught details OMB's strategy using broad RIFs and reclassifying 90% of policy staff under Schedule F at-will employment. | |
| Merit-Based Civil Service Testing vs. Progressive Bureaucracy | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Lonsdale cites the historical precedent of the Pendleton Act and asks about the CBO scoring methodology. Vaught breaks down how CBO's baseline rules unfairly disadvantage tax cuts relative to spending. | |
| Breakdown of Mandatory Spending Reforms: Medicaid & Student Debt | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Lonsdale asks for a detailed breakdown of the mandatory savings in the budget reconciliation bill. Vaught walks through Medicaid provider tax workarounds, illegal immigrant eligibility, and student loan repayment caps. | |
| DOGE Budget Savings, Foreign Aid Rescissions, and Senate Opposition | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Lonsdale inquires about DOGE rescissions and why congressional figures like Mitch McConnell oppose foreign aid cuts. Vaught notes OMB's willingness to bypass reluctant lawmakers with unilateral executive tools. | |
| Dismantling Regulatory Overreach at the CFPB | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | Lonsdale compares CFPB enforcement practices to organized intimidation. Vaught explains his operational actions as acting director to dismiss active enforcement suits and revoke non-statutory guidance documents. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Vought: The President Has Apportionment Power to Turn Off Unnecessary Funding
“Ultimately with the ability to use the power, the apportionment power that the president has to turn off funding if it's not necessary until he can make sure that bureaucracy isn't wasting money on things that are inconsistent with his administration.”
Vought: Challenging Impoundment Act Is Necessary to Cut Off Federal Funding
“If you don't come out there and say, look, the fundamental way that the town has functioned on the basis of 50 years under the Impoundment Control Act, if you don't kind of go out there and describe that, and name it, and say, you know, we have fundamental pro…”
Vought: Trump Administration Is Using Reductions in Force Extensively
“The extent to which we've never really used reductions in force in the first term. That's something that is certainly something we've used extensively.”
Vought: The Trump administration will use impoundment to withhold appropriated funds
“We've got a lot of executive tools up to using impoundment that we intend to use And are looking for opportunities to do so.”
Vought classifies 90% of OMB staff as at-will employees to enact reforms
“The reform to make it so that if you are a career individual that's engaged on policy matters, and I, I've classified my organization OMB as 90% of the people at OMB are engaged in policy matters on behalf of the president, being in a situation where you are e…”
Lonsdale: Civil service merit testing for federal agency leaders ended in 1970s
“The people running all the agencies used to have to pass pretty hard tests. Most people couldn't pass them. So you had some sense of the merit of people in charge of various things. And those were taken out in the seventies.”
Vought: Progressives sought to divorce federal bureaucracy from presidential oversight
“This is one of those paramount progressive movements was to create this expert class that was divorced from the actual management of the president of the United States. From his oversight”
Vought: Reconciliation bill's $1.5T mandatory cuts nearly double 1997 record
“There's a one in .5 trillion dollar in savings to mandatory reforms, which is some of the big structural drivers that we have. If you looked at the biggest mandatory reform in history, it would have been 1997 and eight hundred billion dollars adjusted For infl…”
Vought: The budget bill will drive 3% GDP growth and $4T output
“We believe it's in the neighborhood of four trillion dollars, three percent economic growth compared to 1.8% that CBO assumes.”
Vought claims the Congressional Budget Office ruins policy debates with rigid assumptions
“I think there's probably a new enthusiasm to deal with CBO. They're constantly ruining the debates that we have based on the information that they're putting out and not really assessing the world as it is, as opposed to kind of how the straight jackets that, …”
Vought Calls State Medicaid Provider Taxes a Money Laundering Scam
“There's substantial reforms to Medicaid that protect the program, but also allow us to get illegals off the program to deal with what is essentially a money laundering scam where a state will have Almost a fake tax on a healthcare provider, use that to cause t…”
Vought: Trump Budget Cuts and Tariffs Cover One-Third of Deficit Gap
“The president just secured one and a half trillion dollars consistent with the fiscal framework in our first six months that I would, I think tariffs included is, is, is heading us dealing with a third. Of what's necessary to get to a balanced budget.”
Vought: Rescissions bill cuts $1B from CPB and $8B in foreign aid
“The first bill was the bare minimum of, and the easiest hurdle for them. Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a billion dollars. Dealing with their next two cycles of advanced funding, and then eight billion dollars in foreign aid, all of which was connected t…”
Vought: White House will make DOGE spending cuts permanent unilaterally if necessary
“We're gonna make these cuts permanent. We've got a lot of different options. We would love to have Congress as a willing partner. But they need to prove that they can pass these bills because otherwise we're gonna have to look at other options.”
Vought: CFPB targeted Townstone Financial with redlining claims without evidence
“They went after a company called Townstone who had a podcast and was complaining as a private citizen about the extent of which there was crime in Chicago. You know, I think if you did a poll of anyone in the country in a diner, they would say, yeah, I think t…”
Vought: CFPB is dismissing enforcement cases and withdrawing regulatory guidances
“So we've been doing a lot of dismissing cases. We pulled down all the regulations that or the guidances that were kind of being used as The enforcement mechanism. And then now we're going through the process of deregulating where we have to actually send out a…”
Russ Vought: Aggressive Executive Action Forces Congress to Follow Administration's Terms
“If you just put in motion executively what you can, ah, consistent with the law, it forces Congress to respond in a positive direction. There, it limits their ability to say no. In fact, they have to catch up with you, and you've set the terms with the debate.”