Russell Vought: How Trump’s Budget Chief Is Shaping Project 2025 and the Next Capitol Spending Showdown

Russell Vought, the former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director turned chief architect of the conservative “Project 2025” blueprint, vaulted back into the headlines this month after playing a decisive role in shepherding President Donald Trump’s $2 trillion economic package through a divided Senate. The Senate’s razor-thin 51-49 vote capped a whirlwind six-month stretch for Vought. In February, lawmakers confirmed him to a second stint atop OMB despite unified Democratic opposition, underscoring his expanding influence over federal spending and administrative rulemaking. Since then he has leveraged the budget office to seed dozens of Project 2025 policy planks—ranging from deep agency downsizing to aggressive deregulation—directly into the administration’s fiscal roadmap. Inside the West Wing, aides say Vought functions as a “shadow chief strategist,” coordinating with Heritage Foundation alumni and Hill conservatives to pre-write executive orders should Trump secure a second term. One senior GOP aide described the 48-year-old operative as “the connective tissue between MAGA populists and establishment budget hawks—a role Steve Bannon once tried to fill but never mastered.” Democrats warn the strategy will upend checks and balances. Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse blasted Project 2025 as “a coup in slow motion” and vowed to attach transparency riders to future appropriations bills that would force OMB to disclose draft executive actions. Vought’s allies counter that the initiative merely streamlines government and restores “presidential control over a runaway bureaucracy.” Beyond Capitol Hill, Vought is cultivating a nationwide conservative talent pipeline. His nonprofit Center for Renewing America recently launched a fellowship program pairing state-level policy staff with federal agencies—a move critics liken to an ideological loyalty test for civil servants. Yet the program already counts more than 3,000 applicants, highlighting grassroots enthusiasm around Project 2025’s promise of “deconstruction” of the administrative state. Market analysts are also watching. Defense contractors cheered language in the megabill that speeds up weapons procurement, while clean-energy firms braced for potential rollbacks of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits. Moody’s Analytics projects the legislation could shave 0.4 percentage points off GDP growth in 2026 if environmental subsidies disappear, but adds that regulatory relief may spur a mid-decade manufacturing bump. What comes next? White House officials expect Vought to unveil a “Second-Term Transition Handbook” by early fall, detailing how a re-elected Trump could implement Project 2025 within 180 days. Meanwhile, progressive groups have filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the handbook’s drafts, setting the stage for a transparency battle that could reach the Supreme Court. For now, Russell Vought sits at the nexus of policy, politics and power—his every move primed to shape how, and how quickly, the federal government itself could be remade after 2025.