Amna Nawaz
Amna Nawaz
@PBSNewsHour·5.3M subscribers·62.2K videos

WATCH: OMB chief Vought on how to get nation’s debt under control in Trump budget hearing

Posted

April 16, 2026

Views

227

Likes

3

Engagement

1.32%

Search the Record

Indexed

Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.

Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.

Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line

YouTube Description

as posted by the channel

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., asked Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, in a hearing Thursday if it was possible to get the nation’s overall debt under control through the normal budgeting process.

“Right now, where the Senate is, and the inability to get spending cuts – honestly without spending cuts – to fund the federal government through the normal appropriations process, it's making there to be an incentive to move more and more things to mandatory,” he said. “That's the direction that things are heading.”

Vought, a key figure in the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the federal workforce, also defended the president's budget request in a House hearing Wednesday.

President Donald Trump's funding wish list for fiscal year 2027 includes a staggering bump for defense spending — a nearly 50% increase to $1.5 trillion — to build his "dream military."

The president's budget request is not final, but it does signal the Trump administration's priorities for the coming fiscal year. Though Trump has tried to exert more authority over spending in his second term, it's up to both chambers to revise and approve the final budget in the coming months.

Sign up for Here's The Deal with Lisa Desjardins

Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters

PBS News podcasts

Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app

Find more from PBS News at

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Guests & Subjects Covered

WATCHSen Rick Scott R-FlaRussell VoughtWednesday President Donald Trump'sThough TrumpWatch PBS NewsPBS News HourHere's The Deal

Sentinel Indexing in Progress

Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.

All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.

WATCH: OMB chief Vought on how to get nation’s debt under control in Trump budget hearing · Amna Nawaz · Sentinel