Trump picks Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought to lead budget office

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday named Russell Vought, a co-author of Project 2025 who served as a platform policy director for the Republican National Committee, as his pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

In a statement announcing his pick, Trump referred to Vought, who previously held the role in his first term, as “an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies.”

“Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People,” Trump said. “We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity.”

Vought responded to Trump’s nomination in a post to X on Friday night, saying, “Thank you @realDonaldTrump! There is unfinished business on behalf of the American people, and it’s an honor of a lifetime to get the call again.”

In the chapter Vought authored for conservative blueprint Project 2025, he argued the OMB director “should present a fiscal goal to the President early in the budget development process to address the federal government’s fiscal irresponsibility.”

“Though some mistakenly regard it as a mere paper-pushing exercise, the President’s budget is in fact a powerful mechanism for setting and enforcing public policy at federal agencies,” he wrote.

During an interview with Tucker Carlson posted on X this week, Vought advocated for the president taking greater control over government agencies, saying Trump “has to move executively as fast and as aggressively as possible.”

“We have to solve the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy and have the president take control of the executive branch,” Vought said. “There may be different strategies with each one of them, about how you dismantle them, but as an administration, the whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out.”

Though Trump and many of his allies distanced themselves from Project 2025 — an initiative that includes policy proposals led by the right-leaning think tank Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups for a Republican administration — on the campaign trail, many people associated with the agenda have been tapped for positions in the incoming Trump administration. Some of those named have included Tom Homan as border czar, Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and John Ratcliffe as CIA director.

If he is confirmed by the Senate, Vought will oversee budget and the execution of Trump’s policies across executive departments and agencies.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s expected incoming deputy chief of staff, called Vought a “transformative pick” for the budget office.

“Russ Vought has been the guy for the last four years who’s been developing the plan to take down the deep state,” Miller said during a Fox News interview that aired Friday night. “That’s Russ, and he’s going to be right there at OMB to execute that plan. This is, this is really incredible stuff.”

Vought previously served as director of the Office of Management during Trump’s first term. He assumed the role after working as deputy director and acting director of that office before his Senate confirmation in July 2020.

Trump also announced a flurry other key Cabinet picks on Friday night.

He named former NFL player and Texas state Rep. Scott Turner as his nominee for housing and urban development secretary and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., to serve as labor secretary. Trump also nominated surgeon Marty Makary as commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration and said that he would select former Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., as his nominee to serve as director of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention alongside a slew of other picks.

Trump also said that Sebastian Gorka, a former aide, would serve as deputy assistant and senior director for counterterrorism. Gorka previously served as a national security aide for Trump in 2017, a role that he held for less than a year. He faced criticism after donning the medal of the allegedly Nazi-linked Hungarian group Vitezi Rend to Trump’s inaugural ball in 2017.