The White House’s Budget Director Russell Vought has been confronted over Donald Trump’s lavish spending amid cuts to government services.
On Friday (11 June), a reporter grilled Mr Vought on Mr Trump’s decision to spend money on revamping the Rose Garden for a second time, as well as the billions that will be spent on overhauling a Boeing 747 jetliner that was sent as a gift from Qatar to be a new Air Force One.
Mr Vought said that the administration has a “lot of priorities” and defended its “need to spend in areas”.
He said that the government is “investing where we need to invest but that doesn’t mean it’s in anyway inconsistent with an effort to have lower debt”.
On 5 July, Mr Trump signed his federal budget bill into law, which extends 2017 tax cuts from Trump’s first term and slashes Medicaid spending by about $1 trillion.
