'Word salad answer!' GOP senator chews out Trump official at explosive hearing

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) berated one of President Donald Trump's top officials Thursday over grand claims that the administration has been unable to back up.

The confrontation unfolded at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought was testifying as acting CFPB director.

But Tillis, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers executive who spent nearly three decades in management consulting before entering politics, used the occasion to press Vought on his OMB record — and on what the Department of Government Efficiency actually accomplished.

According to Politico, DOGE claimed $52.8 billion in savings from contract cancellations, but of the $32.7 billion Politico could verify, actual savings were closer to $1.4 billion — less than 5 percent of what was claimed.

"Well, I do believe that the reductions in force as a tool —" Vought began, when Tillis asked him to name the single best example of DOGE's work.

"Which specific one?" Tillis cut in.

"In general," Vought replied.

"Yeah, but I want to get into specifics," Tillis said. "I did this for a living. And so I don't want a word salad answer."

"Well, it's not word salad, Senator," Vought insisted. "CFPB — I'm trying to do a reduction in force."

"But there were a lot of claims of billions and billions of dollars in savings," Tillis noted. "I simply want to know where you booked them and where I can see it."

"I didn't run DOGE, Senator," Vought replied.

"Mr. Vought, you are OMB, right?" Tillis pressed.

"I am, but I am not DOGE," Vought said.

Tillis walked Vought through how savings verification is supposed to work — a department cuts costs, notifies OMB the expense is gone, and OMB records the reduction.

"I look at you as the guy who books the savings," Tillis said. "Give me the best example of where DOGE has done that!"

"No!" Tillis said after Vought began to respond. "Give me the best example of where a DOGE initiative ... you should be aware that our baseline run rate for expenses has gone down. Give me one!"

"We have an appropriations process, Senator," Vought said. "We have put forward a budget that's $160 billion in DOGE savings."

Tillis explained he had heard "a lot of people, including you, talk about the DOGE savings" before taking a shot at Vought's résumé.

"My understanding is the last time you worked in the business world was at B. Dalton Books when you were putting yourself through law school," Tillis snapped. "But you don't have this experience, and a lot of people who were involved in this do not have this experience!"

Using an expletive, the senator noted that there was "DOGE s— that we're picking up because people did it wrong!"

"But at the end of the day, we've got to be honest with the American people!" he shouted at Vought. "All that stuff is amateur stuff that would have gotten me fired in my job at PricewaterhouseCoopers in a week."