Russell Vought, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the White House Office of Management and Budget, said at his confirmation hearing Wednesday that he would not push to shut down the government over funding fights.

Mr. Vought’s comments came during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee under questioning from Sen. Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire Democrat.

“Government shutdowns put public safety and our national security at risk, but you have repeatedly, Mr. Vought, called for brinksmanship around government shutdowns and opposed bipartisan deals to keep the government open,” Ms. Hassan said, citing an article he wrote in 2011 as an example. “Why have you repeatedly advocated the use of the threat of a government shutdown as a political bargaining chip?”

Mr. Vought disagreed with her question, saying, “I don’t think I have been a person that has wanted to have government shutdowns.”

He cited his service as Mr. Trump’s budget director during his first term when the government shut down for 35 days, the longest in history, and his agency’s role in keeping essential services running during a shutdown.

“I know the impact that it has on the federal government,” Mr. Vought said.

Mr. Trump led the shutdown during his first term in an effort to secure border wall funding, but he ultimately agreed to reopen the government without the funding signed into law. Negotiations that transpired in the weeks following led to the approval of a small fraction of the border wall funding he had requested.

Barely a month after winning reelection last year, Mr. Trump encouraged congressional Republicans to shut down the government if necessary to force Democrats to agree to an extension of the debt limit because he did not want the borrowing limit to hit during his second term. Congress rebuffed that suggestion and how to address the debt limit before borrowing authority runs out this summer remains a hot topic of debate.

Mr. Vought said he aspires to lead a budget process that runs on time according to statutory deadlines “so that you don’t have the kind of pile-ups at the end of the fiscal year that we have seen.”

“The breakdown of the budget process here in Congress is something that has not been good,” he said. “And I hope that it is brought back to a good degree and that we can have a bipartisan spending process, of which I look forward to participating in if confirmed.”

Ms. Hassan did not appear to believe Mr. Vought’s about-turn on advocating for government shutdowns as a negotiating tactic.

“Unfortunately, this is a situation where there seems to be kind of a confirmation conversion, because your words in articles and in talks reflect a different view about the use of government shutdowns,” she said.

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled Russell Vought’s name.

• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.