How's it going?
Good. Uh, behind the microphone, please, sir.
Can -- can you tell us what changes you expect in the bill in the Senate including on carried interest, business provisions?
Look, we're just getting started with the Senate in terms of, you know, our focus has been on the House. Uh, enormous historic victory this morning. A lot of hard work into it. I think, you know, they're going to go home for their recess. Uh, obviously, Senator Crapo and the team and Senator Thune have been working diligently to be prepared.
Uh, and we'll -- we'll start those conversations today.
Can you face the cameras a little more, sir? Move this way.
Is the White House at all flexible on [Inaudible] Senate?
Look, we're really excited about the package that just occurred. And I think the message that we would have is the extent to which it's a very careful balance. Uh, and you know, it was not easy to get to where we were this morning. Uh, a long series of late nights in this week. And ultimately, the president closed it Out.
Um, and so, obviously, the Senate's going to want to put its mark on it. But uh, you know, there's a certain -- there's a certain coalition there, uh, to both accomplish what the president wants to do uh and have the votes that are necessary to get it through Congress.
And we want to build the president's desk by July 4th.
Can I ask you about this Moody's downgrade? That's got to hurt a little bit because --
Well, look -- look -- look, Moody's is catching up with their other rating agencies by being irrelevant for the last 15 years. So I think there's a timing aspect of what they were trying to do in an attempt to sink the president's tax cut. Uh, the long and short of what the credit ratings, uh, assessment has been was that you -- this town could not produce what we just saw today.
Well, they -- their -- their accusation is that these, you know, this political class could not get to the point where we actually have major spending reforms on a bill. And we just put $2 trillion of mandatory reforms and savers that goes to the heart of the argument. Do we have issues as a country with what we need to do to get to balance?
Absolutely. The president is committed to getting to balance. That's something that's only going to continue. But the notion that this was in any way harmful to debt and deficits is fundamentally untrue. And I think that's what was inaccurate about the timing of the report.
Could you speak -- can you speak to the -- And the president been active will the deficit lower next year? Can you speak to the president's voters? They're all concerned about four things. First of all, there's been no accountability for the 2020 election, no accountability for January 6th, no information on the two assassination attempts.
And finally, the tapes from January 6th have still not even been released by the House. And they're, you know, worried about the 1600 that had their lives destroyed. Is there any progress happening?
Look, this has been the most historic start to an administration, the most transparent. There is so much happening on so many different levels. I let the other people speak to it outside of the fiscal lane that I'm in. But in terms of what we've been able to accomplish and that's part of the story that I'm trying to -- to share with the country right now.
As enormous of an agenda setting bill as this was, it's one piece of the fiscal puzzle. Uh, it is a -- it is a vehicle, it's not even a budget resolution. It is a procedural vehicle to get through the Senate without a filibuster. And so when you add the tariffs and the significant amount of revenues that are coming in from the tariffs, when you add the appropriations process with regard to non-defense spending.
We just in this bill set up a major opportunity to be able to go after non-defense spending, consistent with the budget resolution that we just sent up, to make the DOGE cuts permanent as a result of ensuring that with Republican votes, we're going to increase defense spending and Republican votes, deal with our border security issues and be able to fully secure the border.
So that's something that would ordinarily lead the appropriations process to completely shut down with Republicans all over the place. We have prevented that from happening with this, uh, this bill in the House.
Well, um some of the things that the fiscal conservatives, the Freedom Caucus folks wanted as it relates to Medicaid, that waste, fraud and abuse aspect of it going to have to be handled through executive order by President Trump. Was that the promise you made to them?
Look, the -- the House Freedom Caucus did an incredible job of getting this -- the savings -- more savings earlier in the window by bringing the -- the work requirements up, by making sure there was more of the IRA repeal, the Green New Deal earlier in the window. That will allow us -- we were originally at $1.6 trillion will probably be, you know, $1.9, $2 trillion when this is finally updated.
Uh, you know, we -- we're going to do everything we can, executively, to make sure that one of their main concerns was that with this opportunity to do something big on Medicaid, that more states did not come in and expand under Medicaid under Obamacare. We never thought that was a real argument. We thought that they had that argument in good faith.
We didn't share the conclusion. But we're going to do everything we can from an executive perspective to be able to make sure that states are not coming in under Obamacare at an increased rate.
So that means executive orders where the president and what do those then look like?
Again, we -- we are going to work with those members to make sure that more states are not coming in under Obamacare.
Do you have concern on the bond markets, apparent leasing still?
Look, I -- I think over the last week, the debate has been largely about the cost of this bill without a lot of, uh, bracketing of reality of what was in the bill and how literally historic this has been. I mean, we haven't seen anything like this since the 1990s. 1997, we had $800 billion of savings adjusted for inflation.
The big ticket item was work requirements. Now you're talking about $2 trillion, nothing like that ever since -- in the -- in the last 30 years. And somehow, we're not talking about that. The other aspect of is the extent to which people are not bringing the full -- all of the puzzle pieces of -- of what it takes to have a fiscal package together.
And that's tariffs, that's the economic growth, that's the discretionary side of the House. And I think once that conversation gets made and -- and uh, once we continue our -- to educate the folks on that, I think people will settle down.
Russ, when you -- On the salt the other day. The -- do you want to -- No, go ahead. On salt the other day, uh, the president seemed really skeptical. He said that was something -- something helping Democrat states. Now we've got this new 40,000 number. How committed is he to that number? And -- and what's -- what's your response to saying that's going to --
Look, this is a bill that passed. The president wants to sign it into law. It's a coalition that comes together to get a bill done. And I think that that -- it's a very good template for what we think both the House will need to do, again. And what the -- the Senate -- should inform the Senate conversations?
Russ, there's one case in the Ninth Circuit on appeal to the Ninth Circuit that is basically stopping layoffs of federal workers. Uh, there's a preliminary injunction hearing today, actually. The unions don't get a preliminary injunction. Are you going to immediately start laying people off? Or what does that look like?
With -- with regard to what agency?
Any agency.
Look --
On the reduction in force plan --
The reductions in force that are ongoing are at various -- you know, I got -- I'm in one at CFPB. Uh, various court cases are going -- dealing with different riffs. All of these riffs have been lawful. They've been an effort to scale down the federal workforce with care, with wisdom about what is necessary to statutorily conduct and operate agencies.
And I think at the end of the day, wherever they're at, they're going to be successful when they get to the Supreme Court. Hopefully, those decisions get made. And we're in a situation right now at -- at -- at CFPB where uh, we -- we're almost feel like we're under judiciary -- judicial receivership in the extent to which we can't even, uh, eliminate contracts because of -- of the -- the judges that are -- are binding us right now.
And it's totally something that the founders would -- would find to be anathema. Yeah, that's what we're living in. But I don't think ultimately the Supreme Court is going to stand for it.
Russ, how do you see DOGE's work changing once Elon Musk formally leaves the government in a couple of weeks?
We have a great relationship with DOGE. We talk every day. Our teams are locked in -- in -- in step. And you know, there's a creativity and um a paradigm shift with regard to Dutch -- to DOGE. And we're trying to take what they've been able to do and lock it into permanent savings wherever we possibly can.
President Trump came in very much as a closure on this deal. You know, James Braid, yourself, other cabinet members were very involved in sort of the weeds on reconciliation. Can we expect the president to take a similarly hands off approach until the end in the Senate?
Well, the president's been a part of all of this from the beginning. This has been his vision. Uh, the -- his priorities are reflected in it. He's the most hands on president, uh, I think in history. And you know, he's involved in a thousand different things. But at every critical juncture, uh, he is there to get something across the finish line.
I don't expect that or anything along those lines to change. Last question. All right. Thanks guys. [Laughter] All right, see you.