Russ Vought @russvought - First call in the morning & last call at night. James has been a lion for the President in delivering his agenda on the Hill. Very happy for him in this new season, but I'm going to miss him greatly. Nobody better to have in your foxhole. Quote: JamesBraid @JamesCBraid I am profoundly grateful to President Trump and Vice President @JDVance for the opportunity to be a part of this extraordinary team, and to serve in an administration that has worked with the Congress to deliver the largest tax relief in American history, the resources necessary to secure the border and build the wall across two reconciliation bills, the fastest confirmation of the cabinet in twenty years, and defeating two Democratic shutdowns. I want to thank @SusieWiles47 and @JamesBlairUSA for their indomitable leadership, the incredible staff they have brought together, and to the extraordinary team at the Office of Legislative Affairs, who have contributed so much to the work of the administration with Congress, most especially the 47 OLA deputy directors past and present: Jeff Freeland, Pace McMullan, Jay Fields, Katie Bailey and Chad Yelinski. https://x.com/russvought/status/2090910984592412686
Russ Vought @russvought - Helpful to glean some of the actual concern behind the histrionics involving the Finland model. Not sure I was anticipating the argument that one of the companies (Davies) is currently & intentionally flushing a $1 billion investment into Gulf-Copper (Galveston, TX) as a sort of high-end failure theatre. Quote: Hunter Stires @HunterStires Yes, the other infrastructure we use in theater is a problem too—as @tshugart3 rightly points out ref: airbase hardening. To your second point, I would counter that @russvought and @JerryHendrixII have shown themselves to be (surprisingly) pollyannaish, readily embracing over-optimistic claims by certain foreign shipbuilding players who have much to gain and little to lose by making over-inflated promises. They also have clearly failed to consider the possibility that giving away the store and our best leverage at the *outset* of a deal in exchange for pinky promises of future investment might not be the best negotiating strategy to ensure a foreign partner actually follows through on a promised shipyard investment here. Especially after they have structured a deal where the foreign partner is incentivized to have their U.S. shipyard investment fail so they can subsequently jam the U.S. government into agreeing to outsource the rest of the block order overseas (where they will have already built two ships of the order in a world class yard where much less capital investment would be required, making it considerably more profitable for the shipbuilder). https://x.com/russvought/status/2089831370323537960