The Man Behind #Trump’s Push for an All-Powerful Presidency
Russell T. Vought spent years drawing up plans to expand presidential #power & shrink federal bureaucracy. Now he is moving closer to making that vision a reality, threatening to erode #ChecksAndBalances.
#RussVought #Project2025 #law #democracy #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/politics/russell-vought-trump-budget.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
#RussVought, the #WhiteHouse budget [#OMB] director, was preparing the #Trump admin’s 2026 budget proposal this spring when his staff got some surprising news: #ElonMusk’s cost-cutting team was unilaterally axing items that Vought had intended to keep.
Vought, a numbers wonk who rarely raises his voice, could barely contain his frustration, telling colleagues that he felt sidelined & undermined by the haphazard chaos of the #Musk-led #DOGE, acc/to 6 people w/knowledge of his comments….
“We’re going to let #DOGE break things, & we’ll pick up the pieces later,” #RussVought told his staff during one flash of irritation, according to 3 of those people. Vought’s spokeswoman, Rachel Cauley, denied that he made those comments, & that he felt frustrated by #Musk.
This had not been Vought’s plan.
#Project2025 #law #democracy #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
#RussVought, who also directed the White House #OMB in Trump’s first term, had spent 4 years in exile from power. He worked through Joe #Biden’s presidency from an old rowhouse near the Capitol, where he complained of pigeons infesting his ceiling & coordinated with other #Trump loyalists to draw up sweeping, detailed plans for a comeback.
#Project2025 #law #democracy #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
#RussVought had carefully analyzed mistakes from the first term. And he had laid out steps to achieve the long-sought conservative goal of a president with dramatically expanded #authority over the #ExecutiveBranch, including the #power to cut off #spending, #fire employees, control #independent #FederalAgencies & #deregulate the #economy.
#Musk, who spent >$250M to help elect #Trump, had celebrity, access to the president & political capital that the budget director could never hope for.
But #RussVought had something #Musk did not: He had done his homework.
In the months since Musk fell out with #Trump, Vought has at last begun to put his plans into action—remaking the presidency, block by block, by restoring powers weakened after the #Nixon admin. His efforts are helping Trump exert #authority more aggressively than any modern president, & are threatening an erosion of the longstanding #ChecksAndBalances in America’s constitutional system.
Now, as the #government heads toward a #shutdown when #federal #funding lapses on Tuesday, #RussVought, 49, is leveraging the moment to further advance his goals of slashing agencies & purging employees, with his office telling agencies to prepare for #MassFirings unless #Congress can strike a deal to keep the government open.
#Project2025 #Trump #law #democracy #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
…At the heart of #RussVought’s plan, associates say, is the INTENTIONAL engineering of a #legal battle over #Congress’s #power to decide how #government money is spent, potentially creating a new legal precedent for the president to block #spending on any #programs & #policies he dislikes.
#Trump #Project2025 #law #democracy #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
The next step in the fight is a legally untested maneuver in which the #Trump admin would cancel another $4.9 billion in foreign #aid #spending — this time without congressional approval. The gambit, known as a “#PocketRescission,” involves the White House eliminating the spending unless #Congress votes to stop it by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
#RussVought #Project2025 #law #democracy #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
The threat has enraged many lawmakers, including some #Republicans: Senator Susan Collins, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, called it #illegal. But as the deadline has neared, they have done nothing to stop it. #RussVought is confident that the White House would win a #SCOTUS battle over the moves to stop spending, according to his associates.
#Trump #Project2025 #law #democracy #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny
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