President Donald Trump has tapped Eric Ueland, a veteran Senate and White House aide, to a key post at the Office of Management and Budget.
Ueland has been nominated to serve as deputy director for management at the White House budget office, a high ranking role that would have him serving directly under OMB Director Russ Vought.
He is already a familiar face to many lawmakers and staffers on Capitol Hill in his former capacity as legislative affairs director during the first Trump administration. Ueland also was a key fixture in the Senate during negotiations on the massive, $2 trillion pandemic relief package enacted in March 2020. That was a major legislative effort under budget reconciliation, a process he’d likely be deeply involved with again in the coming months if confirmed at OMB.
Earlier in his career, he held a number of roles on Capitol Hill over more than two decades, building a reputation as a strategist and master of the Senate’s rules. He was the GOP staff director of the Senate Budget Committee under then-Chair Michael Enzi, and chief of staff to former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Most recently, Ueland was regularly at the Capitol acting as a liaison between the White House and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, helping to navigate one of the new administration’s most difficult confirmation battles so far.
Ueland’s service in the Trump administration also included serving at the State Department as undersecretary of State for civilian security, democracy and human rights, and as director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance. Senators will likely press him during his upcoming confirmation hearings on how his experience in those roles informs his view of the Trump administration’s decision to gut the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On Wednesday, former Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), Trump’s nominee for the No. 2 spot at OMB, will face a vote in the Senate Budget Committee — the second hurdle he’ll have to clear before getting confirmed on the Senate floor.
