Russ Vought, architect of rightwing Project 2025, has been waiting for his moment to pursue deep cuts to government
Donald Trump’s social media post early on Thursday about looming cuts as a result of this week’s US government shutdown was a prime exhibit in the art of the troll.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of Project 2025 fame,” Trump wrote, gleefully. “To determine which of the many Democrat agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”
In Vought, the director of the White House office of management and budget (OMB), Trump was invoking a figure who at times appears to have enjoyed inflicting pain on civil servants; last year, video footage emerged of Vought saying of federal workers: “We want to put them in trauma.”
The reference to Project 2025 – the rightwing blueprint for remaking American government of which Vought was a principal architect – may have been another deliberate taunt. Trump denied all knowledge of or connection to the 900-page document during the 2024 presidential election campaign, as Democrats sought to tie him to it.
