Video: Sen. Tim Kaine Catches OMB Director Russ Vought in a Series of Wild Lies About Tariffs Supposedly Not Being Taxes, Dept. of Defense Supposedly Being “Dept. of War”…

See below for video and highlights of Sen. Tim Kaine questioning the odious, extremist, sociopathic O.M.B. director Russ Vought this morning.

• Sen. Tim Kaine: “There’s been some discussion about the DHS funding bill that the Senate passed unanimously now twice.   The votes are there in the House to pass it. The leadership will not take it up. You were before the House yesterday. Did you encourage the House to finally pass the DHS bill?…Hold on…Hold on..You had the opportunity to tell the House yesterday to pass a bill that you say you support, that 100% of the Senate supports and you didn’t bring it up.”
• Sen. Tim Kaine:  “Second question. I was interested in the revenues in the budget that you’ve sent over. One, revenue in particular interested me was tariffs. What you’re assuming for tariffs, you can see that the numbers on tariffs were sort of bumping around at less than $100 billion a year, $100 billion in 2022, $195 billion in 2025, when the tariffs started to kick in…Tariffs have been determined to be illegal by the Supreme Court, the IEEPA tariffs. Next week you’re starting to refund $166 billion of tariffs. So I was interested to see what your tariff projection was going to be. And actually, what I see is far from going down as you’re refunding illegal tariffs, you’re predicting dramatic increases in tariffs. What is President Trump going to tax next?”
• Sen. Tim Kaine:  “…tariffs are a tax…90% of the cost of the tariffs last year fell on American consumers and businesses, and…the average in 2025 was $1,000 per American tax household…So you’re going through a process to decide what are you going to tax next? Who are you going to tax next to reach these astronomical tariff numbers?
• Russ Vought: “We don’t think there are a tax on the American people. They have not raised prices…”
• Sen. Tim Kaine: “…who are you going to impose the tariffs on next?…what industry sectors are you going to hobble? Do you know he’s not hobbling….’Liberation Day’, yeah, that’s the one that you did right before tax day that took bucks out of American families’ pockets.”
• Sen. Tim Kaine: “I’ve heard you go back and forth between talking about the investment in the Department of Defense or the Department of War. Now just for everybody here, legally the name of this department is the Department of Defense, correct?”
• Russ Vought: “It’s the Department of War.”
• Sen. Tim Kaine: “And why do you say that?”
• Russ Vought: “Because that’s what the president and his team has renamed it.”
• Sen. Tim Kaine: “And there’s a statute that calls it the Department of Defense. The president did an executive order saying the Department of War was a secondary title in September of 2025. Have you been instructed to use the phrase the Department of War? [“No”]…You’re just voluntarily complying with this whimsical cosplay?…Are you aware of legislation that’s been passed by Congress to change the name?…I would look forward to that debate because I think you’ll get laughed out of the room and you’ll become a punchline on TV. Nations all around the world have secretaries and ministers of defense; do you know of any that has a Secretary of Minister of War?…I will tell you that there’s no other nation. Do you know when the oath that our military officers take is the word war mentioned?  Defense is mentioned, war is not.”
• Sen. Tim Kaine: “Finally, you’ve sacked people. Do you know what percentage are veterans?…30% of the federal workforce is veterans. So when you fire people. I think you have fired more veterans than any administration in the history of the United States.”