'Are You Concerned About That Spending Too?': Vought Pressed On Trump's Rose Garden, AF1 Upgrades

Forbes Breaking News

OMB Director Russell Vought was asked about President Trump's Rose Garden revamp and Air Force One upgrades in light of efforts to decrease government spending.

Transcript

00:00The President is revamping the Rose Garden for a second time.

00:04He's overhauling a 747, spending billions of dollars when it's only going to be used as Air Force One for possibly a year.

00:11Are you concerned about that spending too?

00:14We have a lot of administration priorities, and I hope what you've learned from our first term, this term,

00:21we need to spend in areas, we need ships, we need aircraft,

00:25we need a new presidential plane that's been in the works and been delayed for a long time because contractors are behind.

00:34And so that doesn't mean we don't spend where we need to spend,

00:38but we've always offered a fiscal picture that gets to balance, that reduces the deficit, that deals with our debt,

00:45and we're doing it in a host of ways in this term, and so that won't change.

00:50So we will continue to, you know, we set up a budget that was $163 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending.

00:59We also asked for a sizable increase to the border.

01:02You know, we need to spend in certain areas to secure the country, to perform the functions of the government,

01:08and to make sure that, you know, we are investing where we need to invest.

01:13But that doesn't mean that it's in any way inconsistent with an effort to be able to have reduced efforts and lower debt.

01:23But that plane in particular is going to be used for such a short period of time.

01:27Is it really worth the expense?

01:29We need additional assets to be able to run this government, including fly the president, keep the president safe,

01:36and we're way behind in that program.

01:39And those are the kinds of ideas that flow from a contractor and other contractors being behind,

01:44and we're going to look for any opportunity to do that.

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