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HOW TRUMP NOMINEES COULD MAKE PROJECT 2025 A REALITY  
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Amanda Becker
January 2, 2025
The 19th
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_ While many of the policies in Project 2025 have been floating
around Republican circles for years, the document is a roadmap that
shows how its authors believe they can finally deliver on key pieces
of their conservative Christian agenda. _

Russell Vought is one of the key architects of Project 2025 and is
President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the director of the Office
of Management and Budget, (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

 

Republican President-elect Donald Trump spent the closing months of
his campaign trying to distance himself from a blueprint for his
second term known as Project 2025
[[link removed]]. 

Then, in the days after his victory, Trump picked major architects of
the Heritage Foundation’s vision for key posts in his next
administration, setting the stage for them to implement a conservative
Christian agenda that has the potential to reshape the federal
government and redefine rights long held by all Americans, though
likely to disproportionately impact women, LGBTQ+ people and
vulnerable populations like the elderly and disabled. 

One of these architects is Russell Vought, whom Trump has again tapped
to lead his Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, an
under-the-radar entity to most Americans that wields immense influence
over the federal government by crafting the president’s budget. If
confirmed by the Senate, a very likely outcome, Vought will be
optimally positioned to inject Project 2025’s priorities — many of
which reflect his career-long push to dismantle programs for
low-income Americans and expand the president’s authority — across
the federal agencies and departments that OMB oversees. 

Ben Olinsky, who advised Democratic former President Barack Obama on
labor and workforce policy before joining the liberal-leaning Center
for American Progress, where he works on issues related to the economy
and governance, said that Vought’s vision for OMB as presented in
Project 2025 is “to basically change the plumbing so they can do
whatever they want without any meaningful checks and balances”
during Trump’s second term. 

“I think that it’s important to really make sure [Americans]
understand what the plans are for changing the plumbing,” Olinsky
said.

Vought has firsthand knowledge of the OMB’s wide-ranging scope.
During Trump’s first term, he was OMB’s deputy director, acting
director and, finally, confirmed director. In those roles, he helped
then-President Trump craft a plan to jettison job protections for
thousands of federal workers and assisted with a legally ambiguous
effort to redirect congressionally appropriated foreign aid for
Ukraine. 

In the years since, as Trump staved off legal threats and convictions
to build a winning bid to return to the White House, Vought has
refined his thinking and strategies about how to best force agencies
to “come to heel and do what the president has been telling them to
do [[link removed]],” as
he put it in a recent interview
[[link removed]]. 

Vought has used two pro-Trump groups he founded — the nonprofit
Center for Renewing America and its advocacy arm, America Restoration
Action — to discredit structural racism as a driver for inequality
and attempt to stymie diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
In August, he told [[link removed]] a
pair of British journalists posing as potential donors that the Center
for Renewing America is “an organization I helped turn into the
Death Star,” the fictional Star Wars space station that can destroy
planets, and it “is accomplishing all of the debates you are reading
about.” 

The chapter that Vought wrote for Project 2025 details how the Office
of Management and Budget could be a vehicle to advance the Christian
nationalist agenda
[[link removed]] he
favors — and he has not hesitated to talk about it. 

“I think you have to rehabilitate Christian nationalism,” Vought
told the British journalists at the Centre for Climate Reporting,
which released video of the conversation that was recorded using
hidden cameras. 

In an interview with conservative activist Tucker Carlson shortly
after Trump’s reelection, Vought likened OMB to the “nerve
center” through which a president can ensure their policy directives
trickle down to the multitude of federal agencies and a civilian
workforce of more than two million people.

“Properly understood, [OMB] is a President’s air-traffic control
system with the ability and charge to ensure that all policy
initiatives are flying in sync and with the authority to let planes
take off and, at times, ground planes that are flying off course,”
Vought wrote in Project 2025.

He sees two primary ways to ground wayward planes: by eliminating
potential dissent within agencies and withholding money appropriated
by Congress for projects and programs the president does not
support. 

Both would clear the way for Trump’s next administration to
implement many of the priorities detailed in Project 2025, which could
essentially redefine rights, systems and cultural norms for all
Americans.

Some of Project 2025’s recommendations include restricting abortion
access and supporting a “biblically based” definition of family,
because the “male-female dyad is essential to human nature,” by
replacing policies related to LGBTQ+ equity with those that “support
the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.” 

It also suggests transforming the FBI into a politically motivated
entity to settle scores and barring U.S. citizens from receiving
federal housing assistance if they live with anyone who is not a
citizen or permanent legal resident, which would serve Trump’s
campaign promise to take extraordinary measures to crack down on
illegal immigration. During remarks
[[link removed]] in September titled
“Theology of America’s Statecraft: The Case for Immigration
Restriction,” Vought justified the separation of families and
condemned so-called sanctuary cities, or those that pass laws that
limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“Failing to secure the border is a complete abdication of [the
government’s] God-given responsibility,” he said.

Olinsky explained that while many of the policies in Project 2025 have
been floating around Republican circles in Washington for years
without gaining much traction, the document is a detailed roadmap that
shows how its authors believe they can finally deliver on key pieces
of their conservative Christian agenda. 

“One, it says all of the quiet parts out loud about the full scope
of the agenda. And then the second thing, which I think is something
folks should really pay attention to, is it says how they’re going
to accomplish it, practically, by using executive action,” Olinsky
said. 

In many ways, Vought’s approach to bending the federal government to
a president’s will began taking shape during Trump’s first
administration. In late 2020, as Trump’s first term drew to a close,
Vought helped him craft an executive order known as “Schedule F,”
which reclassified thousands of civil servants and, with that,
stripped them of their job protections; Vought recommended that close
to 90 percent
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OMB’s workforce be reclassified. 

President Joe Biden rescinded the executive order on his third day in
office. Project 2025 recommends reinstating it. 

Former Trump officials, campaign advisers and others in his orbit
have already identified as many as 50,000 federal employees
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could be fired, according to published reports. And just last month,
Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic effort to codify protections
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these workers ahead of Trump’s — and likely Vought’s —
return. 

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation
to protect federal employees, warned of a “loyalty-based system that
would impede the work of the federal government, expose people to
intimidation and bring people into jobs that are not qualified to do
them, thus risking the American public’s safety and quality of
life.”

Vought is among the Trump loyalists who have been open about their
desire to slash the federal workforce — as a route to purge critics,
improve efficiency or both. 

In the interview with Carlson, Vought said, “There certainly is
going to be mass layoffs and firings, particularly at some of the
agencies that we don’t even think should exist.” His language
appeared to communicate an effort to ensure obedience and compliance.
With the firings and layoffs, Vought said he wants to avoid having
“really awesome Cabinet secretaries sitting on top of massive
bureaucracies that largely don’t do what they tell them to do.” 

Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests to discuss
Vought’s selection for OMB or the chapter he wrote for Project 2025
about the agency. The 19th reached out to Vought through his Center
for Renewing America, which likewise did not respond to a request for
comment.

POWER OF THE PURSE

During Trump’s first term, OMB helped find money to begin building a
small section of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border — a key campaign
promise Trump made in 2016 — “because Congress wouldn’t give him
the ordinary money,” Vought told Carlson. 

Trump also enlisted OMB to withhold $400 million in military aid that
Congress approved for Ukraine, as Trump and his associates tried to
pressure the country to investigate Biden and his family. The move
prompted the abuse-of-power case House Democrats made against Trump
during his first impeachment, when Vought defied a subpoena to
testify. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog,
concluded that the scheme violated the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.
Days later, the Republican-led Senate acquitted Trump. (Trump had
eventually released the aid.) 

When Trump subsequently nominated Vought to lead OMB in 2020,
Democrats opposed him because of his approach to impoundment
authority. He was nonetheless confirmed.

Vought’s path to confirmation is all but certain this time around:
Republicans control the Senate, the congressional chamber charged with
approving presidential nominations. Very likely to feature in his
confirmation hearings is Vought’s belief that the OMB can help Trump
overcome opposition and implement policy priorities, possibly
including those contained in Project 2025, by redirecting or refusing
to spend funds appropriated by Congress, which under the Constitution
holds the power of the purse. 

“Making Impoundment Great Again!” Vought wrote
[[link removed]] in June on X,
riffing on the “Make America Great Again” slogan that has come to
define Trump’s movement. 

Trump spent his campaign insisting that he had not read Project 2025
and did not know its authors. “I have no idea who is behind it. I
disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the
things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,”
he wrote in a July post
[[link removed]] on
his Truth Social platform. 

But of the more than 350 people who contributed to Project 2025, at
least 60 percent are linked to the incoming president, according to a
list of contributors and their ties reviewed by The 19th. They range
from appointees and nominees from Trump’s first administration, like
Vought, to members of his previous transition team and those who
served on commissions and as unofficial advisers. 

Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, seized on Project
2025 during their campaigns to highlight the dangers they believe are
posed by a second Trump presidency. At 920 pages, it offers a vision
of government that is far more detailed and specific than the policy
proposals put forward by Trump directly. The “Agenda 47” on
Trump’s campaign website was a list of 20 bullet points that
included vague policies like “end the weaponization of government
against the American people” and “unite our country by bringing it
to new and record levels of success.”

When Trump announced Vought as his OMB pick, he said Vought “knows
exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized
Government.” His other selections for OMB leadership posts include
anti-abortion activist Ed Martin and Vought’s colleague at the
Center for Renewing America, Mark Paoletta
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president-elect praised as a “conservative warrior.”

One question as Trump takes office on January 20 and Vought, if
confirmed, helps him control the government’s workforce and purse
strings, is which version of the country they will promote and whose
rights are — and aren’t — protected.

_I’m AMANDA BECKER, The 19th’s Washington correspondent. I like
to use my perch to examine the gendered aspects of power and how
gender shapes policy. Since policy isn’t made in a vacuum, my
favorite type of political stories draw across institutions and
movements to examine what I call the “connective tissues” of our
democracy. _

_The 19th Amendment remains unfinished business, a fact we acknowledge
in our logo with an asterisk — a visible reminder of those who have
been omitted from our democracy. The expansion of the franchise
continues today, and The 19th aims to capture this ongoing American
story._

_The 19th was founded in 2020 by Emily Ramshaw and Amanda Zamora,
longtime journalists who believed the news was not representative
enough. Our goal is to empower women and LGBTQ+ people
— particularly those from underrepresented communities — with
the information, resources and tools they need to be equal
participants in our democracy._

* Project 2025
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* federal workers
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* Christian right
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* Trump agenda
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* OMB
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