Trump’s Budget Director Hails ‘Fantastic’ Layoffs of 10,000 More Federal Employees: ‘It’s Really Exciting’

Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, gushed over the mass layoffs announced by the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday.

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he will dismiss 10,000 workers and shutter agencies within the department, which he criticized as a “sprawling bureaucracy.”

“I want to promise you now that we’re going to do more with less,” Kennedy said in a video announcing the layoffs, which are part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to drastically scale back the administrative state. To helm the endeavor, Trump has enlisted Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” to enact mass layoffs and spending freezes.

Vought – co-author of Project 2025, which Trump distanced himself from on the campaign trail – appeared on Thursday’s Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss.

“That’s a big piece of change from the DOGE brothers,” host Larry Kudlow observed after noting that 10,000 more federal workers would be fired.

“No, it’s fantastic,” Vought replied. “I talked with Secretary Kennedy about an hour ago, and he is really excited about what they’ve unveiled today, the extent to which they’ve [reorganized] the department, the number of people that they’re able to let go, and be able to find efficiencies at HHS. And so, it’s really exciting what you’re seeing.”

Vought has long portrayed the federal bureaucracy as a stain on, if not a threat to the country.

“The overall situation is constitutionally dire, unsustainably expensive, and in urgent need of repair. Nothing less than the survival of self-governance in America is at stake,” he said in Project 2025.

During his confirmation hearing in January, Vought was grilled over past comments in which he said he wants to inflict “trauma” on federal employees.

Watch above via Fox Business Network.