There are many main roles in the second Trump administration. Of course, Donald Trump himself, and Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Jed Vance.
Russell Vought did not make this list. Recently confirmed that the soft-spoken bureaucrats led the Office of Management and Budget, which is not a sexy position. Outside the policy world, his name is not well known.
But this probably should be.
“I think you can almost check out Elon Musk and Doge, the so-called Ministry of Government Efficiencyjust like Raswich’s impact force,” Simon Rabinovitch, an American economist economics editor, told Today, I explained Co-host Noel King. “Musk is overactive and moves in every direction in various ways, but in the end… the person who really leads is Russ Voved. He is a general. He is a scholar too… There is a legal basis to some extent , this is something Russ Vorge is working on and has been working on it at the moment we are facing today.”
Rabinovitch talks to King about Vought’s backstory, his Christian nationalist beliefs, and his desire to bring the country to the second Trump administration. Below are transcripts of their conversations for length and clarity editing. Listen to the full plot Apple Podcast,,,,, Spotifyor whatever else you get a podcast.
Vought has a blue collar background. He has a large family, the youngest of seven children. He was talking about a very strong Christian upbringing. He attended college at an evangelical Christian school. All of this is important because he believes that part of his role in government is not only trying to change the way the presidency works, but also trying to inject it into Christian nationalism, his self-defined ideology.
He worked as a Republican staff member in Washington, D.C. for many years and was a key player in Trump 1.0 along the totem pole. Now he is one of the few returnees Trump 2.0;He resumed the role Trump played at the end of his first term: Director of the Office of Management and Budget. This is one of these institutions that few people have heard of, but in reality, it has a lot of power, even more in the hands of Raswich.
When Raswich said his politics were Christian nationalists. what does that mean?
The way he described it was that he wanted to bring Christianity to basically all aspects of society, especially the government. This is not to say that he wants to eliminate the separation between the church and the state, but rather that he believes that Christianity is the formative fundamental influence of the way the U.S. government works and has been covered up for too long.
Christian nationalism not only gave him a guide rod in his view of abortion, but also brought a certain belief in the way he worked, which in some cases proved the purpose was justified.
That’s one of the reasons why the Trump administration (what President Trump did) stood beside him for the first time. He believes Trump is a key ally in the drive to his vision. You can hear this the way he speaks, and you can read it the way he writes. These justices have a bit of a similar tone. He talks aboutA storm surrounds usand , “The duty is our duty, and the result is God’s. ”
Christian nationalism was a very, very important driving force for him.
I want to know what he said. He can be mean. He talked about it Want to traumatize civil servants. Make them realize that no one likes them. If we were 5, we would say, “That wasn’t great.” Now that we are older, we would say, “Don’t talk about trauma, it’s unnecessary.”
It’s really weird because if you meet him – and I’ve had a long conversation with him – he’ll have this very academic manner. He always has buttons and his beard is well trimmed. He spoke softly. But when you really listen to what he says, it’s really radical.
I think it’s really just a reflection of the power of his belief: it’s something he really, deeply believed in. Not only that, I think the way he says helps inspire the people who work with it. he. He has a loyal group of little allies who share their vision. He is not a deal. He might say he is not corrupt. It’s just something he really wants to do.
Donald Trump is famously involved in many acts that are not particularly Christians. How did these two men get together?
When Vought was a young Republican worker, he was very focused on the fiscal conservatism of the bakery. But over the years, he has learned more about the perceptions and ideology of magazine styles. He is a person who is involved in Trump’s transition team.
In 2017, there was no one who had a very deep magazine consistent. Therefore, he was appointed OMB. He is the deputy director. Finally, in the last year, he became a director of OMB. I think the vought thing is that he sees Trump as a tool to push his ideas. So he talked about the fact that none of these anti-abortion politicians in the Republican Party did anything, but Trump was ultimately appointed through the Supreme Court kill Roe v Wade. Vought sees Trump as a key ally, even if he disagrees with his daily life or agrees with him on many issues.
For four years, Trump’s vehicles have more or less stagnated. The president lost his 2020 election and was rushed to Florida. What did Russ Walker do then?
At the end of Trump 1.0, the Trump team began to realize that the idea of this Raswich man is actually very, very powerful and may be useful in the election.
In his last year, when he operated the office of management and budget, Vought was the man who wrote a memo saying the federal government should stop everyone DEI Training and critical racial theory. Obviously, this has become a very strong choice for Trump in his recent election campaign.
Vought is also the one with the architects of Schedule F, and you can basically remove all the ideas of career protection for civil servants.
Once Trump is out of work, the viight constitutes the organization, i.e. renewing the center of the United States and basically starts creating a legal blueprint for many of the actions we have seen in the past few weeks – so, the idea of giving people the president’s idea of spending More power is called seizure; consider the method of returning Schedule F and think about ways to narrow down civil servants.
One way Vought thinks through Trump 2.0 is that he is one of the driving forces behind the 2025 project.
Donald Trump has nothing to do with the 2025 project. He thought it was ridiculous and bad.
Exactly. [Laughs.] Trump denied on the campaign that the 2025 project has any relationship with his future administration. But, of course, as we have seen, he has appointed many people involved in drafting the project in 2025 – first of all, Russ Vorge.
Vought wrote a chapter in the project 2025, explaining how to use the President’s Executive Office and is completely transparent about his intentions. He elaborates on how he will use OMB to shake the civil servants, traumatize it, narrow it down, and then push the blueprint of very powerful ideas.
What is the plan Russell Vought dealt with All these lawsuits Trying to close the face of policy?
Of course he is not a dummy. He expects attempts to reshape the presidency will eventually appear in court and may eventually appear in the Supreme Court. I don’t think he’s afraid the court will stop his agenda. I think he wants the court to become the jurisdiction that determines whether his interpretation of the law is correct. If he succeeds, he will fundamentally redefine the boundaries of presidential power and bring the United States back to the way the White House operated in the late 19th century.
