Russell Vought: Project 2025 Architect

Rus­sell Vought serves as OMB direc­tor and Project 2025 archi­tect, wield­ing unprece­dent­ed influ­ence in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. On 20 Octo­ber 2025, ProP­ub­li­ca report­ed that Vought has used the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get to cen­tral­ize deci­sion-mak­ing pow­er to such an extent that insid­ers describe him as the shad­ow pres­i­dent, freez­ing $26 bil­lion in fed­er­al fund­ing while direct­ing DOGE oper­a­tions more than pre­vi­ous­ly known. The arti­cle begins:

On the sec­ond day of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shut­down, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump shared an AI-gen­er­at­ed video set to the clas­sic song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öys­ter Cult. The star of that video, which quick­ly went viral, was Rus­sell Vought, the pres­i­den­t’s top bud­get advis­er. More than that, Vought is the archi­tect of Trump’s broad­er plan to fire civ­il ser­vants, freeze gov­ern­ment pro­grams and dis­man­tle entire agen­cies, and he’s a big rea­son the sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion has been more effec­tive at accom­plish­ing its goals than the first. In the video shared by Trump, Vought appeared as the scythe-wield­ing Grim Reaper of Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/about-russell-vought-trump-shadow-president

Key Points

• Vought led Project 2025’s tran­si­tion por­tion, writ­ing 350 exec­u­tive orders, reg­u­la­tions, and plans to empow­er the pres­i­dent, with Trump refer­ring to him as Russ Vought, the man of PROJECT 2025 Fame, despite cam­paign claims of hav­ing noth­ing to do with the initiative.
• Court records and inter­views show DOGE efforts were guid­ed more than pre­vi­ous­ly known by the OMB direc­tor, with a Cit­i­zens for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca offi­cial stat­ing in May that DOGE is under OMB, and Elon began pin­point­ing the direc­tion of Russ.
• Vought pop­u­lar­ized the con­cept of woke and weaponized gov­ern­ment through the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca think tank after accept­ing Trump’s assign­ment to counter Black Lives Mat­ter, with the phrase embraced by GOP politi­cians and appear­ing 77 times in the 103-page 2022 bud­get blue­print call­ing for $9 tril­lion cuts.
• A senior agency offi­cial told ProP­ub­li­ca that Vought has cen­tral­ized deci­sion-mak­ing pow­er to the extent that he is com­man­der in chief, freez­ing $26 bil­lion in fed­er­al fund­ing for infra­struc­ture and clean ener­gy projects in blue states after the Octo­ber 1 shutdown.

Project 2025 and National Conservatism Reshape the United States

Project 2025 rep­re­sents a com­pre­hen­sive far-right roadmap to reshape Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy into a Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist state under expand­ed exec­u­tive pow­er. The 900-page man­i­festo spear­head­ed by the Her­itage Foun­da­tion and backed by more than 100 extreme orga­ni­za­tions out­lines plans to dis­man­tle civ­il lib­er­ties, gut the civ­il ser­vice, and impose Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist poli­cies on every aspect of pub­lic life. Despite Trump’s cam­paign denials, near­ly two-thirds of his exec­u­tive actions mir­ror Project 2025 pro­pos­als, with many archi­tects now appoint­ed to senior gov­ern­ment positions.

The ini­tia­tive marks Her­itage’s trans­for­ma­tion from prag­mat­ic pol­i­cy shop into the insti­tu­tion­al core of today’s Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA), break­ing sharply from Rea­gan-era con­ser­vatism. Beyond domes­tic restruc­tur­ing, Her­itage has pro­posed sweep­ing gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion through what it calls a “Man­hat­tan Project to restore the nuclear fam­i­ly,” cre­at­ing gov­ern­ment-seed­ed sav­ings accounts exclu­sive­ly for mar­ried cou­ples while redi­rect­ing child­care fund­ing toward pro­mot­ing stay-at-home par­ent­ing. Analy­sis by Time found that Trump signed exec­u­tive orders on issues rang­ing from oil drilling in Alas­ka to weak­en­ing FEMA that direct­ly reflect the blue­print­’s aggres­sive push to down­size gov­ern­ment pro­grams and shift pow­er to con­ser­v­a­tive institutions.

Nation­al con­ser­vatism has found its most promi­nent polit­i­cal expres­sion through fig­ures like JD Vance and Don­ald Trump, accord­ing to Israeli polit­i­cal the­o­rist Yoram Hazony, who found­ed the Nation­al Con­ser­vatism con­fer­ences. The move­ment argues that nations are built on “mutu­al loy­al­ty” between fam­i­lies and tribes rather than abstract ideals, advo­cat­ing for a dom­i­nant cul­tur­al cen­ter based on Anglo-Protes­tant tra­di­tions to main­tain nation­al cohe­sion. Vance has spo­ken at mul­ti­ple Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ences and in 2021 cred­it­ed Hazony as “quite influ­en­tial,” with his ele­va­tion to vice pres­i­dent sig­nal­ing the move­men­t’s full arrival in power.

Fol­low­ing Project 2025’s domes­tic imple­men­ta­tion, Her­itage con­vened a March 2025 closed-door work­shop fea­tur­ing pro­pos­als to dis­man­tle the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion and Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice. The work­shop includ­ed Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment-backed MCC and Pol­ish group Ordo Iuris, with Her­itage pres­i­dent Roberts explic­it­ly call­ing for Euro­peans to “reclaim sov­er­eign­ty” from Brus­sels. This transat­lantic expan­sion demon­strates how the Amer­i­can nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment seeks to trans­form glob­al gov­er­nance struc­tures while wrestling with per­sis­tent ide­o­log­i­cal divi­sions. The 2025 Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ence served as a cel­e­bra­tion, with atten­dees declar­ing “a revolt with­in the right” and push­ing for­ward to make the move­ment built around Trump “a durable intel­lec­tu­al river.”

Exter­nal References:

• Project 2025 — Wikipedia
• What is Project 2025? What to know about the con­ser­v­a­tive blue­print for a sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion — CBS News
• Nation­al con­ser­vatism asserts its dom­i­nance in Trump’s Wash­ing­ton — Decatur Daily

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