After a year of claiming he had nothing to do with Project 2025, President-elect Donald Trump is appointing one of its chief architects to lead the Office of Management and Budget, multiple outlets reported. Russ Vought, who previously occupied the role for two years in Trump's first term, will return with wide-ranging powers to shape Trump's budget and examine the federal bureaucracy to ensure that it complies with his chosen policies.
No formal announcement has yet been made. But if Vought is appointed and confirmed by the Senate, he will once again be working in an office that he has sought to drastically downsize. He wrote the Project 2025 chapter, "Executive Office of the President," supporting proposals to give the president total power over all federal agencies. To that end, he has suggested reclassifying federal workers as political appointees so they can be fired en masse and ending the autonomy of some federal offices, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Amtrak, which currently operate independently of the president's direction.
