WASHINGTON (AP) — Russel Voughtone of the key architects of the controversial Project 2025 plan, speaks like a general rallying troops to tame a “woke and gun-toting” federal government.
Vought has said that political opposition is “enemy fire overshooting the mark” and has called on allies to be “fearless at the point of attack.” He has described his policy proposals as “battle plans.”
As a former president Donald Trump If Trump wins a second term in November, Vought, his former White House budget chief, could get a chance to go on the offensive; he is expected to be named to a top post in a second Trump administration.
Here are a few things you should know about Vought and its plans if Trump returns to power.
Project2025
Vought did not respond to an interview request or to questions emailed in February to the Center for Renewing America, the pro-Trump think tank he founded after leaving government.
The center joined with a coalition of conservative organizations led by the Heritage Foundation to launch the 920-page Project 2025, a detailed blueprint for governing in the next Republican administration. The project’s public document, “Mandate for Leadership,” examined nearly every corner of the federal government, urging reforms large and small to rein in a “gargantuan” bureaucracy.
As part of its work on Project 2025, Vought is drafting an as-yet secret “180-Day Transition Playbook” to accelerate the plan’s implementation and avoid a repeat of the chaotic start that plagued Trump’s first term.
Project 2025 calls for closing the U.S. Department of Education and dismantling the Department of Homeland Security, with its various components absorbed by other federal offices. Diversity, inclusion and equity programs would be gutted. Promotions in the U.S. military to general or admiral would be scrutinized to ensure that candidates have not prioritized issues like climate change or critical race theory.
In his public remarks and in a chapter he wrote for Project 2025, Vought has said that no department or agency of the executive branch, including the Justice Department, should operate outside the president’s authority.
“The whole idea of independent agencies is an abomination from a Constitutional standpoint,” Vought said during a recent appearance on Fox Business Network.
Critics warn that this could leave the Justice Department and other investigative agencies vulnerable to a president who might pressure them to punish or investigate a political enemy. Trump, who has been prosecuted four times, has threatened retaliation against Biden and other perceived enemies.
Controversial blueprint
Democrats are using Project 2025 as a political weapon, linking it to Trump and telling voters the plan is extreme.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the project, posting on social media last month that he had not seen the plan and “has no idea who is responsible for it, and, contrary to our very well-received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it.”
On Tuesday, he rejected and criticized the plan, with his presidential campaign saying he has his own agenda for governing and that the “demise of Project 2025 would be very welcome.” That same day, the project’s executive director resigned.
The effort to deny ties to Project 2025 is complicated by Trump’s connections to many of the contributors. Vought and more than two dozen other authors served in his administration.
Vought knows how to pull the levers of power
Vought is one of a small group of former officials who understands how Washington works better than anyone else.
He honed his credentials as a fiscal hawk on Capitol Hill. When Trump was elected in 2016, Vought became deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Combative and loyal to Trump, Vought would later become OMB’s top official.
A typically quiet office, OMB drafts the president’s budget and reviews proposed regulations. With Vought at the helm, OMB has been at the center of Trump’s confrontations with Congress over federal spending and the legal limits on presidential power.
After lawmakers refused to give Trump more money for his southern border wall, the budget office has diverted billions of dollars from the Pentagon and Treasury Department budgets to pay for it. Under Vought, OMB has also withheld military aid to Ukraine, while Trump pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate President Joe Biden and his son.
Vought’s selection to become policy director of the Republican Party’s 2024 platform writing committee underscored his closeness to Trump. If Vought were to return to the White House as OMB director, he doesn’t intend to be a paper-pushing, number-crunching bureaucrat. He’s also been mentioned as a potential White House chief of staff, one of the most powerful positions in Washington.
