00:00Director, has the president expressed to you how he, or who he might want to replace how the spending?
00:08Those are announcements that he will make at the appropriate time when he's ready to do it.
00:12Is there anyone that you would like to see potentially?
00:14Those are the president's.
00:15Trump supporters around the country want to see wasteful spending.
00:18What can they do to help you?
00:21Well, look, we have a great opportunity on the Hill next week with regard to this $9.4 billion package.
00:28It's only $9.4 billion.
00:30People ask, why is it only $9.4 billion?
00:32It's that because we know how close of a vote it was in the House, and we know we have a tight margin in the Senate.
00:39But that margin has to produce a victory.
00:43We have other rescissions packages that we will send if we have a good vote, and that will continue.
00:50When I went through confirmation, people said, well, Russ, you have an Empowerment Control Act.
00:55They knew that we were skeptics of it.
00:58We're not huge fans of it.
00:59But they said there's a process for using it.
01:02These are Democrats.
01:03These are Republicans that were on the Appropriations Committee.
01:07And they said, why wouldn't you use the rescissions package approach?
01:09Well, we're doing that.
01:11We're sending bills up on that.
01:12And now we hear an argument that if you use the tools that are outlined in the ICA, that somehow you're renegotiating the appropriations process or any agreement.
01:20That is the kind of thinking, the arguments that have caused us to never make any progress in this town.
01:27I think next week may be a huge pivot point in how this town does business.
01:32And it will be an exciting milestone to be able to make actual permanent reductions to some of these savings that we've identified as an administration since its beginning.
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