University of Kwazulu-Natal

Project 2025 Co Author Russell Vought Discusses Trump In Forbes

Bonisiwe Shabane
-
project 2025 co author russell vought discusses trump in forbes

By Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash and Kyung Lah, CNN (CNN) — Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor. Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, expected the meeting would help his think tank secure a substantial contribution. For nearly two hours, he talked candidly about his behind-the-scenes work to prepare policy for former President Donald Trump, his expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his... But the men Vought was talking to actually worked for a British journalism nonprofit and were secretly recording him the entire time. The nonprofit, the Centre for Climate Reporting, published a video of the meeting on Thursday – offering a window into the thinking of one of the top policy minds of the MAGA movement, who’s...

Screenshot via Centre for Climate Reporting Key Project 2025 leader Russ Vought explains to undercover reporters how the initiative’s draconian policies would be implemented in a second Trump term, disavows Trump’s distancing from Project 2025, and outlines the “second phase”... In an undercover interview with reporters from the British non-profit organization Centre for Climate Reporting, Project 2025 architect and MAGA ally Russ Vought admitted to the project's strong ties to former President Donald Trump... Vought thought that he was meeting with relatives of wealthy potential donors; in reality, he was secretly being recorded in a Washington, D.C., hotel room. During the interview, Vought disavowed Trump’s distancing from Project 2025, candidly explained draconian policies he hopes Trump will implement in a second administration, praised Trump’s running mate JD Vance, and outlined the “second phase”... Vought, who is reportedly in line for a high-ranking position in a second Trump term, is a key architect of Project 2025 — the conservative movement’s extremist platform for a potential second Trump White...

The project extensively outlines potential approaches to governance for the next would-be Republican president, including replacing federal employees with extremists and Trump loyalists and attacking LGBTQ rights, abortion, contraception, and labor unions. Project 2025 describes extreme policies like dismantling the federal agency that tracks hurricanes, upending Medicare as we know it, enacting inflationary tariff policies, and dramatically raising taxes on everyday Americans. Teaching Fellow in US politics and international security, University of Portsmouth Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. University of Portsmouth provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. While Elon Musk has clearly been a major influence on the Trump administration, the less well known, but arguably more influential, power behind the presidency is Russell (usually Russ) Vought.

Vought is the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – the nerve centre of the administration’s sweeping changes. Vought is also rumoured to be about to take over running the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) from Musk. Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor. Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, expected the meeting would help his think tank secure a substantial contribution. For nearly two hours, he talked candidly about his behind-the-scenes work to prepare policy for former President Donald Trump, his expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his... But the men Vought was talking to actually worked for a British journalism nonprofit and were secretly recording him the entire time.

The nonprofit, the Centre for Climate Reporting, published a video of the meeting on Thursday – offering a window into the thinking of one of the top policy minds of the MAGA movement, who’s... Trump has publicly rejected Project 2025 as Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has sought to tie him to some of the plan’s most extreme proposals. But in private, Vought said that those disavowals were merely “graduate-level politics.” President Donald Trump disavowed the Project 2025 policy blueprint during his campaign last year as Democrats attacked the document and its contents. Since then, Trump has invited some of the most prominent contributors to the conservative playbook into his administration. The document, which outlined a vision for a future Republican presidency, generally foreshadowed Trump’s sweeping moves to slash government agencies and cut federal funding in his first weeks in office, though there are also...

As the dust settles after a whirlwind of Cabinet nominations, confirmation hearings and early administration actions, here’s where some prominent authors and contributors involved in Project 2025 have landed in the Trump administration. As a principal author of Project 2025, Vought — Trump’s pick to direct the Office of Management and Budget in his first and second terms — wrote a chapter outlining plans to overhaul the... In his chapter, Vought referred to OMB as “the president’s air-traffic control system,” with its director tasked with serving as “the keeper of ‘commander’s intent.’” Vought wrote in the section that the next administration would require “boldness to bend or break bureaucracy to the presidential will” and “self-denial” to send power from Washington back to the hands of American... If Donald Trump wins a second term, Project 2025 will be at the ready with hundreds of executive orders, agendas, regulations and memos set to go, in work that the former president actively supports,... Russell Vought, who helped write the nearly 1,000-page project handbook that would overhaul the federal government along conservative lines, told British journalists posing as conservative donors that Trump fully approves of the operation and...

Trump has disavowed any knowledge of such plans and said he does not even know the people involved, though Vought is said to be in line to serve as chief of staff if 45... Vought also led the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration. At least 140 people who used to work for Trump are involved in the ultraconservative initiative. “He’s been at our organization, he’s raised money for our organization,” Vought unwittingly told journalists from the British nonprofit Centre for Climate Reporting as he met with the purported donors in a hotel room... “I remember walking into our last day in office and told him what I was going to do. So he’s very supportive of what we do.”

Vought went on to describe how they were preparing to hit the ground running in the event that Trump wins in November, even as he called Project 2025 “the left’s bogeyman.” His own nonprofit... Trump Disavows Project 2025: Calls Some Of Conservative Group’s Ideas ‘Absolutely Ridiculous And Abysmal’ - Forbes Project 2025 was the plan all along. Trump is proving it now - MSNBC Trump budget nominee Russell Vought says presidents can withhold authorized spending - Reuters States lose access to Medicaid payment portal amid Trump federal aid freeze - The Hill

See what horrors Vought has in mind for you with this infographic. Click on any image for details. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. When Project 2025 went viral last summer, it wasn’t just because of the extreme policy stances it embraced. After all, things like rejection of abortion rights, cruelty toward the poor, and cheerleading for the fossil fuel industry’s assault on a stable climate have become standard fare for the conservative movement. Instead, what was really shocking was the document’s detailed plans for how these objectives were to be accomplished—namely, by creating what amounts to an elected dictator who could do the job unimpeded by public...

Russell Vought—current director of the powerful White House Office of Management and Budget and a key Project 2025 architect—best captured this theory of change in his chapter for the document. There, he urged the next conservative president to make “aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power—including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people.” It turns out that the conservative legal movement has been hard at work for decades laying the pseudo-intellectual groundwork for something like this vision of an imperial presidency through its development of the “unitary...

People Also Search

By Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash And Kyung Lah,

By Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash and Kyung Lah, CNN (CNN) — Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor. Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, expected the meeting would help his think tank secure a substant...

Screenshot Via Centre For Climate Reporting Key Project 2025 Leader

Screenshot via Centre for Climate Reporting Key Project 2025 leader Russ Vought explains to undercover reporters how the initiative’s draconian policies would be implemented in a second Trump term, disavows Trump’s distancing from Project 2025, and outlines the “second phase”... In an undercover interview with reporters from the British non-profit organization Centre for Climate Reporting, Project...

The Project Extensively Outlines Potential Approaches To Governance For The

The project extensively outlines potential approaches to governance for the next would-be Republican president, including replacing federal employees with extremists and Trump loyalists and attacking LGBTQ rights, abortion, contraception, and labor unions. Project 2025 describes extreme policies like dismantling the federal agency that tracks hurricanes, upending Medicare as we know it, enacting i...

Vought Is The Director Of The Office Of Management And

Vought is the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – the nerve centre of the administration’s sweeping changes. Vought is also rumoured to be about to take over running the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) from Musk. Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy con...

The Nonprofit, The Centre For Climate Reporting, Published A Video

The nonprofit, the Centre for Climate Reporting, published a video of the meeting on Thursday – offering a window into the thinking of one of the top policy minds of the MAGA movement, who’s... Trump has publicly rejected Project 2025 as Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has sought to tie him to some of the plan’s most extreme proposals. But in private, Vought said that those disavowals were ...