While Donald Trump grabs headlines and fuels outrage with every new post or policy shift, Russell Vought — the man who designed the right’s playbook for dismantling the federal government — is already deep into executing the plan. As ProPublica’s Andy Kroll revealed in a chilling investigation, Vought isn’t just back in Trump’s orbit. He’s pulling the strings.
You probably didn’t vote for him. You may not have even heard of him. But if you want to understand what’s really happening inside the federal government right now, start with this name: Russ Vought, architect of Project 2025 and Trump’s current director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
And yes — he’s quietly running the show.
The Grim Reaper Goes Viral
Back in early October, as the government shut down, Trump posted an AI-generated video of a scythe-wielding Grim Reaper roaming the streets of Washington — set, bizarrely, to Blue Öyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” The face under the hood? Russell Vought.
It wasn’t a joke. Vought is the author of Trump’s plan to fire civil servants, freeze programs, and dismantle agencies wholesale. The video might have been meme-ready, but the message was deadly serious: the federal government is being gutted from within, and Vought is leading the charge.
Vought’s political rise started in the mailroom of GOP Senator Phil Gramm. He was raised in Trumbull, Connecticut, by an electrician father and a mother who spent decades in public education before co-founding a Christian school.
His early work in Congress — including as an aide to Mike Pence — turned him against the very party he was supposed to serve. He saw Republicans preaching fiscal conservatism, then voting for bloated spending bills packed with giveaways.
In 2010, he bailed on Capitol Hill and helped launch Heritage Action for America, a group created to force Republicans into ideological purity. As a former colleague told ProPublica:
“I think he thought the Republican leadership was a bigger impediment to conservative causes than Democrats were.”
The OMB: Vought’s Weapon of Choice
The Office of Management and Budget doesn’t get much public attention — but behind the scenes, it controls everything.
“Every goddam thing in the executive branch goes through OMB,” said Sam Bagenstos, a former official under Biden.
Vought uses it like a lever to bend the federal government to his will. Every agency’s funding, regulations, and internal policies pass through him. He’s Trump’s budget director on paper — but in practice, he’s something more: a gatekeeper, an enforcer, and increasingly, the person shaping how government actually works.
Vought already held the OMB post during Trump’s first term. In 2019, when Trump tried to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden, it was Vought who carried out the freeze on $214 million in congressionally approved aid.
That illegal freeze sparked investigations and led directly to Trump’s first impeachment.
Vought didn’t flinch. He refused to cooperate with Congress and brushed it off as a
“sham process that is designed to relitigate the last election.”
He later helped craft a legal justification for the freeze — one that most experts say doesn’t hold up, but which now provides a ready-made excuse for future executive overreach.
“Woke and Weaponized”? That Was His Message
After Trump left office, Vought launched the Center for Renewing America, a think tank built to keep the MAGA agenda alive. In secret recordings obtained by ProPublica, Vought is heard describing how he was assigned to come up with a message to counter Black Lives Matter.
He landed on what would become a GOP rallying cry: “woke and weaponized.”
“If you’re watching television and the words ‘woke and weaponized’ come out of a politician’s mouth, you can know that this is coming … from the strategies we’re putting out,” Vought said.
His 2022 budget proposal used “woke” 77 times in 103 pages. That’s not an exaggeration — it’s a reflection of how deeply he’s embedded that framing into the right’s political machine.
He Drafted the First Blueprint for Project 2025
In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Vought was already pushing to eliminate agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and consolidate others into a so-called Department of Welfare — a name chosen, a former OMB analyst said,
“because they think it sounds bad.”
His proposals were so extreme, even Trump’s cabinet resisted. Most of it didn’t happen — then.
But now? That original vision is being implemented almost point-for-point under Project 2025, a far-right roadmap to take full control of the federal government.
“I didn’t realize it then,” said a former staffer, “but I was writing the first draft of Project 2025.”
Project 2025 Isn’t Just His Vision. It’s His Operation.
Vought didn’t just influence Project 2025 — he ran its transition team, writing hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and policy proposals designed to let Trump act immediately upon taking office again.
“I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral,” he said in a 2024 private speech.
Trump later tried to distance himself from Project 2025 publicly. His campaign even suggested its leaders wouldn’t work in his next administration.
But behind closed doors, Trump brought Vought back into OMB. And now, that policy wish list is becoming government policy — fast.
When Trump met with Vought during this month’s shutdown talks, he referred to him as: “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.”
Elon Musk’s DOGE Was Running Vought’s Plays
While Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) grabbed headlines for slicing and dicing federal programs, insiders say the real strategy came from Vought.
“I can’t imagine that the DOGE team knew to target all these little parts of the government without Russ pointing them there,” a former OMB branch chief told ProPublica.
Even Musk’s public “shock and awe” was apparently part of Vought’s broader play.
“He has the benefit of Elon softening everyone up,” one administration official said. “Elon terrified the shit out of people. He broke the status quo.”
Using the Shutdown as Leverage
Since the government shut down on October 1, Vought has moved aggressively. He froze $26 billion in infrastructure and clean energy projects — most of it aimed at blue states. He also followed through on threats to fire civil servants if a deal wasn’t reached.
It’s part power flex, part hostage strategy.
One agency official summed it up bluntly: “We work for the president of the United States. But right now, it feels like we work for Russ Vought. He has centralized decision-making power to an extent that he is the commander in chief.”
Russell Vought isn’t a side player. He’s not a faceless bureaucrat. He is the architect of the most extreme conservative reorganization of government in modern U.S. history — and now he’s the one enforcing it.
