The Mark Warner that I know is quick with wit, and 25 years of being around him, it’s like every day is his birthday.
You can’t be around him for more than two minutes without thinking you’ve made a new best friend.
He once got me to lead a Christmas carol at a gathering of reporters at the governor’s mansion.
Big deal that my singing voice resembles a chainsaw that won’t start.
You don’t often see the hardass Mark Warner who made a fortune in the business world before going into retail politics.
Gotta say, I like that version of Mark Warner, which we saw on Thursday, with Warner giving Trump budget chief Russell Vought absolute f’g hell in a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing.
Remember how Vought went on before getting his job about wanting to put federal employees in “trauma”?
Warner reminded us all.
“Well, the real question I want to get to, you said in your writings that you wanted to traumatize federal workforce,” Warner said, beginning his query of Vought, the head of the Trump regime’s Office of Management and Budget.
Vought tried to push back, interrupting Warner to claim “that’s not what I said, Senator, but I’m happy to clarify previous statements.”
Fact check: not only did Vought say what Warner said he said, he knows we all know that he said what Warner said he said.
“Listen, your writings were very clear. You wanted to make sure federal workers felt like they shouldn’t go to work. You felt like you wanted to add trauma,” Warner said, then pressed Vought to give his efforts at making federal workers feel trauma a letter grade.
Vought tried to run the clock out: “We’ve done aggressive actions to live and have fiscally responsible government,” he started to say, before Warner cut him off.
“The thing is, you want to ask the questions, get elected, and sit up here. You’ve got a United States senator asking a question. Give yourself a grade, A, B, C, D, F, on how well you’ve done at traumatizing our workforce,” Warner pressed.
This was getting good.
“I think we’ve done an incredible job in running the CFPB, and I’m excited to be here to answer questions about that,” Vought, an obvious weasel, replied.
“I was a business guy, so don’t use bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo,” Warner snapped.
“Did you get an A, B, C, or did you fail?” Warner asked. “I actually think you did a pretty, with your goal of traumatizing and undermining the federal workforce, I think you’ve done a pretty damn good job. What grade would you get?”
“We’ve done an excellent job running the CFPB,” was Vought’s mealy-mouthed response.
Last word to Warner:
“Sir, I would say excellent job on terrorizing and traumatizing our federal workforce.”
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Chris Graham
