Russell Vought, a co-author of Project 2025 and a platform policy director for the Republican National Committee, was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump on Friday as his choice to head the Office of Management and Budget.
In his announcement, Trump called Vought, who served in the position during his first term, “an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies.”
“Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People,” Trump stated. “We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity.”
“Thank you @realDonaldTrump!” was Vought’s message on Xon on Friday night in response to Trump’s nomination. Receiving the call again is a once-in-a-lifetime honor, and there remains unresolved business on behalf of the American people.
In his chapter for the conservative plan Project 2025, Vought made the case that the director of OMB “should present a fiscal goal to the President early in the budget development process to address the federal government’s fiscal irresponsibility.”
“Though some mistakenly regard it as a mere paper-pushing exercise, the President s budget is in fact a powerful mechanism for setting and enforcing public policy at federal agencies,” he stated.
Vought argued for the president to have more authority over government agencies in an interview with Tucker Carlson that was posted on X this week. He stated that Trump “has to move executively as fast and as aggressively as possible.”
“We have to solve the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy and have the president take control of the executive branch,” Vought stated. “There may be different strategies with each one of them, about how you dismantle them, but as an administration, the whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out.”
On the campaign trail, Trump and many of his supporters disassociated themselves from Project 2025, which consists of policy recommendations for a Republican administration spearheaded by the right-leaning think tank Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations. However, many individuals connected to the agenda have been selected for positions in the incoming Trump administration. Among them were John Ratcliffe as head of CIA, Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and Tom Homan as border czar.
Vought will supervise the budget and the implementation of Trump’s proposals across all executive departments and agencies if the Senate confirms him.
Trump’s anticipated deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, referred to Vought as a “transformative pick” for the budget office.
“Russ Vought has been the guy for the last four years who’s been developing the plan to take down the deep state,” Miller stated in an interview with Fox News that aired on Friday night. “That is Russ, and he will be there at OMB to carry out that strategy. This is, this is very amazing material.
During Trump’s first term, Vought was the director of the Office of Management. Prior to his Senate confirmation in July 2020, he served as the office’s deputy director and interim director before taking on the position.
On Friday night, Trump also revealed a slew of other important Cabinet appointments.
He appointed Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., as labor secretary and former NFL player and Texas state representative Scott Turner as housing and urban development secretary. Along with a number of other candidates, Trump also announced that he will choose former Representative Dave Weldon, R-Fla., to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and nominated physician Marty Makary as commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration.
Trump also announced the appointment of former aide Sebastian Gorka as senior director for counterterrorism and deputy assistant. Gorka previously worked for Trump in 2017 as a national security advisor, a position he held for less than a year.After wearing the medal of the purportedly Nazi-affiliated Hungarian organization Vitezi Rend to Trump’s inaugural ball in 2017, he came under fire.
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