Discover video-sourced quotes by politicians

Russell Vought: “We're $38 trillion in debt.”

Featuring: Russell Vought, Director, U.S. Office of Management and Budget | National

Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat

Published December 6, 2025 | Video Starts at 14:02

And we're just never going to be able to get our fiscal house in order with that ratchet. And that's one of the reasons We're $38 trillion in debt. We're not in this kind of debt because we can't afford to pay for our defense needs. (14:02–14:05)

CLAIM

Asserts that the national debt is $38 trillion.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

Discover more from

Russell Vought

“We reached an agreement with Finland, with combination of two Finnish companies and United States companies to make investments where for 11…”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 04:35-04:49
“We literally just recapitalized the entire Coast Guard fleet.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 18:37-18:41
“It netted out $500 billion in deficit reduction.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 26:13-26:18
“We now have $4 trillion in tariffs over 10 years that are a part of our fiscal picture.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 27:32-27:37
“One of them is Davies is putting a billion dollars into Texas into this new manufacturing facility.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 05:06-05:14
“The President's very concerned about making sure that we can fill our stores with enough munitions.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 06:23-06:30
“We want more Virginia submarines and ships built.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 07:07-07:13
“We have a massive backlog. We have many programs that are overrun.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 07:22-07:29
“Frigate, for example, you know, was only 15% deviation away from the model that we had picked. Come back into office and it's now an 85%…”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 08:11-08:32
“We want a big maritime supremacy effort to be able to ensure that we keep sea lanes open.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 10:56-11:04
“We hit a trillion dollar level with a combination of the base through discretionary and $150 billion over two years.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 13:06-13:16
“Our defense increases have been held hostage by the non-defense needs.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 13:46-13:54
“We wanted a strategy that was a Republican only strategy in terms of votes to secure our defense needs.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 14:26-14:34
“The Senate is right now working on a number of these appropriations bills before January 30, four or five of them, one of them being…”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 16:35-16:45
“We need new yards. We need a lot of capital investment.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 20:00-20:06
“We hope to do that with a maritime action plan that will come out later.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 20:11-20:17
“The resources will be there [for defense capabilities].”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 20:48-20:51
“We are working seamlessly and integrated with NSC and the Pentagon on this.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 22:30-22:36
“We have statutory tools that a president who wants to tame a bureaucracy can use, has used.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 22:53-23:02
“We have an affordable, fiscally responsible way to both deal with our debt and to have a strong economy.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 24:38-24:45
“The one big, beautiful bill did many things, including the tax cuts, but it had historic levels of mandatory savings.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 25:55-26:06
“We had a 9% inflation for the first time in 40 years, the president has gotten inflation under control.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 28:31-28:38
“Gas prices are down and we are hard at work trying to make housing cheaper.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 28:37-28:44
“The president has said he is always willing to tackle the types of issues in health care that have led to exploding cost from Obamacare.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 30:01-30:10
“We want to make sure that money is going directly to consumers to have consumer driven health care that lowers the cost.”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 30:16-30:25
“It's also going to require on a bipartisan basis people being willing to not expect just a, you know, a stark extension of a program that…”
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) | RNDF Fireside Chat | Uploaded December 6, 2025 | 30:41-30:56