On the second day of the federal authorities shutdown, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video set to the traditional music “(Don’t Concern) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. The star of that video, which rapidly went viral, was Russell Vought, the president’s high price range adviser. Greater than that, Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fireplace civil servants, freeze authorities packages and dismantle complete businesses, and he’s an enormous cause the second Trump administration has been simpler at carrying out its targets than the primary. Within the video shared by Trump, Vought appeared because the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper of Washington, D.C.
Vought’s title is director of the Workplace of Administration and Funds. The OMB directorship is likely one of the strongest jobs in Washington, and Vought has used his place to wage a quiet conflict to alter the form of the complete U.S. authorities. In Vought’s fingers, OMB has acted as a choke level for the funding that Congress approves and businesses depend on to run the federal government. Whereas he tends to function behind the scenes as a lot as attainable, his affect in Trump’s second administration is so pronounced that folks have described him as akin to a shadow president.
Listed here are a few of the key issues it is best to learn about Vought. Read ProPublica’s full investigation here. (Vought declined to be interviewed for the article. A spokesperson for him at OMB wouldn’t touch upon the report in response to an in depth checklist of questions.)
1. Vought went from the mail room to turning into the chief antagonist of his personal celebration.
A local of Trumbull, Connecticut, and the son of an electrician father and a mom who spent many years in public schooling earlier than serving to to launch a Christian faculty, Vought bought his first job in D.C. politics working within the mail room for Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, a fierce price range hawk identified for criticizing members of his personal celebration for breaking what he considered as core conservative ideas.
As Vought rose by way of the GOP ranks, ultimately happening to advise then-Rep. Mike Pence, he grew disillusioned with members of his celebration who claimed to care about balanced budgets and spending cuts but voted to approve payments loaded with pork-barrel spending and company giveaways.
In 2010, he give up Congress and helped launch an offshoot of the Heritage Basis suppose tank known as Heritage Motion for America, which was tasked with strong-arming congressional Republicans to behave extra conservatively.
“I feel he thought the Republican management was an even bigger obstacle to conservative causes than Democrats had been,” a former Capitol Hill colleague of Vought’s mentioned.
2. OMB’s large energy supercharges Vought’s affect.
Whereas the Workplace of Administration and Funds is a part of the White Home, Vought is a member of Trump’s cupboard together with the secretary of protection and legal professional common. OMB director has little of the cachet of these jobs, however it performs an important position. Each penny appropriated by Congress first passes by way of the OMB. It additionally evaluations all vital laws proposed by federal businesses, vets govt orders earlier than the president indicators them and points office insurance policies for greater than 2 million federal staff.
“Each goddam factor within the govt department goes by way of OMB,” defined Sam Bagenstos, a former OMB official throughout the Biden administration.
3. Vought’s early work at OMB helped result in Trump’s first impeachment.
This isn’t Vought’s first stint as OMB director; he held the identical place throughout the first Trump administration.
In 2019, after the Trump White Home pressured Ukraine’s authorities to research then-candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, it requested Vought, then performing director, to freeze $214 million in congressionally authorised safety help for Ukraine. He obliged.
This impoundment, later deemed unlawful by the Authorities Accountability Workplace, would set off congressional investigations and, in the end, Trump’s first impeachment. Throughout that course of, Vought refused to cooperate with investigators, calling the probe a “sham course of that’s designed to relitigate the final election.”
After the try and freeze the Ukraine funds in the end failed, Vought and Mark Paoletta, an legal professional and shut ally of Vought’s, spent the years between Trump’s presidencies creating a authorized argument that not solely are such impoundments authorized, however there’s a lengthy historical past of presidents utilizing the facility. (Authorized specialists have disputed Vought’s model of that historical past.)
4. Vought performed a shocking position in popularizing the phrase “woke and weaponized.”
In 2021, Vought launched the Middle for Renewing America, a suppose tank dedicated to conserving the MAGA motion alive and making ready for a second Trump presidency. Based on beforehand unreported recordings obtained by ProPublica, Vought accepted an task from Trump to provide you with a manner for conservatives to counter Black Lives Matter. He popularized the idea of “woke and weaponized” authorities — a phrase embraced by GOP politicians and activists to disparagingly label insurance policies, individuals and even businesses that didn’t match with the MAGA agenda.
“If you happen to’re watching tv and the phrases ‘woke and weaponized’ come out of a politician’s mouth, you may know that that is coming … from the methods we’re placing out,” Vought boasted in a recording obtained by ProPublica.
When Vought’s suppose tank launched a federal price range blueprint in 2022, calling for $9 trillion in cuts over 10 years, the phrase “woke” appeared 77 occasions throughout its 103 pages.
5. Vought’s imaginative and prescient for what would turn out to be Challenge 2025 started throughout Trump’s first time period.
In 2017, whereas an adviser at OMB, Vought performed a lead position in attempting to implement a Trump govt order that known as for a top-to-bottom reorganization of the federal authorities. A former OMB senior staffer mentioned Vought initially needed to remove the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth and the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau, and to fold the Division of Schooling and the Division of Housing and City Growth, together with meals stamps packages, into a brand new Division of Welfare. “They needed to name it that as a result of they suppose it sounds unhealthy,” a former OMB analyst mentioned. “There have been only a few, if any, debates the place Russ wouldn’t take probably the most excessive choice out there to him, probably the most conservative, probably the most budget-cutting.”
Trump’s Cupboard secretaries on the time resisted wholesale cuts, and few of the plans reached fruition. However Vought’s solutions now learn like a information to the second Trump administration, which has gutted each USAID and the CFPB and is hollowing out the Division of Schooling.
“I didn’t understand it then,” the previous OMB staffer mentioned, “however I used to be writing the primary draft of Challenge 2025.”
6. Vought’s position exhibits Challenge 2025 has certainly formed the administration.
Vought was a key determine within the work of Challenge 2025, the coalition of conservative teams that created a roadmap and recruited future appointees for the subsequent Republican administration. He led Challenge 2025’s transition portion, which included writing some 350 govt orders, laws and different plans to extra absolutely empower the president. “I don’t need President Trump having to lose a second of time having fights within the Oval Workplace about whether or not one thing is authorized or doable or ethical,” Vought mentioned in a personal 2024 speech.
Throughout the 2024 marketing campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed to don’t have anything to do with Challenge 2025. His marketing campaign aides criticized the initiative, and information experiences steered that Challenge 2025 leaders can be blacklisted from working within the Trump White Home.
However Vought deftly navigated the controversy, and Trump introduced him again to OMB. In the meantime, the administration has moved rapidly to satisfy a lot of Challenge 2025’s coverage goals. Early on on this month’s authorities shutdown, when Trump introduced that he would quickly meet with Vought to determine which “Democrat Businesses” to quickly or completely lower, he referred to his price range director as “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.”
7. Elon Musk and DOGE usually acted at Vought’s course, insiders say.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and the world’s wealthiest particular person, might have grabbed the headlines as his Division of Authorities Effectivity took a chainsaw to budgets and staffing. However courtroom information, interviews and different accounts from individuals near Vought present that DOGE’s efforts had been guided, greater than beforehand identified, by the OMB director.
“I can’t think about that the DOGE crew knew to focus on all these little components of the federal government with out Russ pointing them there,” a former OMB department chief instructed ProPublica.
In Could, an official with Residents for Renewing America, a gaggle based by Vought, credited Vought with steering DOGE’s cuts. “DOGE is beneath the OMB,” the official mentioned, in line with a video of her remarks. “Actually, loads of what Elon started pinpointing … was on the course of Russ.”
An administration official who has labored with Vought and Musk instructed ProPublica that DOGE confirmed Vought that it was attainable to disregard authorized challenges and take dramatic motion. “He has the advantage of Elon softening everybody up,” the official mentioned. “Elon terrified the shit out of individuals. He broke the established order.”
8. Vought has used OMB to attempt to strain Democrats into reaching a cope with Republicans to finish the shutdown.
Vought has frozen $26 billion in federal funding for infrastructure and clear vitality initiatives in blue states within the days after the federal authorities shut down on Oct. 1. The federal government has additionally adopted by way of on Vought’s earlier menace to fireplace a large variety of civil servants if the shutdown weren’t averted.
“We work for the president of the US,” a senior company official who frequently offers with the OMB instructed ProPublica. However proper now, he added, “it seems like we work for Russ Vought. He has centralized decision-making energy to an extent that he’s the commander in chief.”
Kirsten Berg contributed analysis.
