On Thursday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Carl Higbie Frontline,” White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett responded to a question on how the White House can push more fiscal restraint by citing the threat from OMB to fire government employees if there’s a shutdown.
Host Carl Higbie asked, “The other thing, as I was just talking about, was the fact that we’re set to at least try to fund the government again, but printing money, to the extent that we do every single year, less so in this proposed budget. The White House has been very strict about making sure that we’re spending less money here via DOGE and everything like that. But if we could — like, what does it take to get the message to Congress, like, you’re going to have to be a little bit more fiscally conservative, guys?”
Hassett answered, “Right. Well, we’ve already done a lot to cut spending in the big, beautiful bill. And of course, we’re not done. And one of the things that you’ve seen is the Director of [the] Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, has, basically, in some sense, thrown down against the Democrats, saying, look, if you don’t give us a continuing resolution, if you try to shut down the government, then we’ve not got the money to pay people and so, we’re allowed to say goodbye. And that’s something that no administration before has been courageous enough to say to an opponent. But Russ Vought is a tough guy. The president’s tough. And I think that, I worry for the Democrats, if they don’t actually give us an open government, if they try to call Russ’s Vought — Russ Vought’s bluff, it’s not going to work.”
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