Who is Russell Vought and how did they leak a video of him talking about Trump?
An undercover investigation into Project 2025 has turned the spotlight brightly on the person behind the secret Phase Two of the plan, Russell Vought.
While Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump administration, has been openly available for some time it has only begun to truly raise alarms recently as more of the public learn just what it entails. The growing backlash at the proposals laid out within has forced the Trump campaign and the candidate himself to publicly disavow it.
However, with each passing day additional revelations complicate the ability of Trump to disentangle himself from Project 2025′s controversial policies and the people that authored them. The most recent was the publication by Centre for Climate Reporting of hidden camera video of a former top Trump official, Project 2025 co-author and person “working doggedly” on the secret Phase Two of the plan to implement the policies, Russell Vought.
Who is Russell Vought caught on hidden camera video?
MSNBC’s Hayes Brown wrote an op-ed about Vought calling him “the most dangerous MAGA diehard you’ve never heard of.” In that article he said that Vought’s 30 years of experience learning how to keep Washington’s policy machinery turning, which along with the plans he is drawing up, give Vought “a frightening level of understanding of how to execute his vision from the top down with the full weight of the presidency behind him as an unofficial prime minister.”
Vought joined the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) shortly after former President Trump took office. He served as Deputy Director and Acting Director before he was confirmed as Director of OMB in July 2020. Prior to becoming a part of the Trump administration, he spent seven years as the vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s political committee Action for America.
The Heritage Foundation is the lead organization behind Project 2025 and tapped Vought to write the chapter on the Executive Office of the President. He told the undercover reporters that interviewed him that he thinks Christian Nationalism must be rehabilitated and that he wants to “be the person that crushes the deep state.”
He is calling for the elimination of the Department of Education which he calls “the Department of Critical Race Theory.” He wants abortion to be abolished and praised Trump having the “most pro-life record ever.” He also wants to see the largest deportation in history implemented.
Vought is currently the head of the right-leaning nonprofit Center for Renewing America, which he founded after leaving the White House along with the rest of the Trump administration. He told the undercover reporters that he had told Trump of his post-White House plans and that the former president has been supportive even visiting and raising money. “He’s blessed out organization,” Vought said on the hidden camera video.
He also said that “the relationship is great.” He provided as evidence of this the fact that the Trump campaign tapped him to write the Republican party platform policy. Vought said that in his eyes that made him the man on the inside for Project 2025.
He was also caught explaining that he has been dedicating most of his time lately on “the plans of what is necessary to take control” of government bureaucracies. He said that the Center for Renewing America is “working doggedly” on plans for “destroying agencies’ notion of independence, that their independent from the president.”
How was the leaked video of Russel talking about Trump obtained?
A journalist and paid actor working with the Centre for Climate Reporting managed to get an interview with Vought through a ruse. The not-for-profit investigative journalism organization focused on climate change developed a backstory for the two saying that they were relatives of a deeply religious and wealthy conservative donor who wanted to help fund the Project 2025 effort.
They were able to arrange a meeting with Vought by meeting Micah Meadowcroft, author on Project 2025 and close aide to Vought, at a conference for religious nationalists in DC. He set them up with Vought’s scheduler.
The undercover journalist and paid actor met with Vought on 24 July, less than a week after the Republican National Convention. The three met in the Presidential suite of a five-star hotel in Georgetown, Washington DC where cameras and microphones had been hidden.