Senate Democrats Hold Floor In All-Night Protest of Trump’s OMB Nominee

By Matt Cohen

Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget testifies before the Senate Finance Committee during a hearing about his nomination on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 in Washington DC. Vought was involved in the far-right Project 2025, which seeks to reshape the Federal Government. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

One by one, Democratic senators took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday evening — through the night and well into Thursday morning — to vehemently voice their opposition to Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

The nearly 30-hour feat was to delay and protest Vought’s inevitable confirmation vote. Without their majority, there’s little Democrats can do to block any of Trump’s nominees, other than sway at least three Republican senators away from voting to confirm. Instead, they used up every minute of the allotted 30 hours of debate to push back the vote. 

“If Russell Vought is confirmed to lead the Office of Management and Budget, it will be working families in America that pay the price,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Ca.) said during his time on the Senate floor Wednesday night. “If he’s confirmed he’ll work to slash the social safety net, threaten Medicaid and SNAP benefits and to balance the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable neighbors. All in service of cutting taxes for billionaires and large corporations.”

Vought is a longtime political analyst who previously served as the director of OMB for a brief period at the tail end of the first Trump administration. Since then, however, Vought became notorious for being one of the lead writers and architects of Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation’s detailed blueprint to shift the next conservative administration into an authoritarian government. 

Throughout the 2024 election campaign, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025, even posting on his TruthSocial platform that he has “no idea who is behind it.” 

“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” he wrote. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

But since he returned to the White House Jan. 20, Trump has followed the Project 2025 playbook almost exactly as it was written, with a barrage of legally questionable executive orders to roll back civil rights and protections.

“The document laid out our Republican plans to reshape our country if they gained control,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on the Senate floor Wednesday night. “He is putting the head writer of the plan that you had only read about in nightmares in a key government position.”