'Aggressive cost cutter': Trump taps key Project 2025 figure for major government agency

Russell Vought, a co-author of the highly controversial “Project 2025” initiative, has been nominated to be the country’s next director of the Office of Management and Budget – a position he’s held before.

President-elect Donald Trump made the pick Friday as part of his rollout of his economic team just hours after naming Wall Street insider Scott Bessent to lead the Treasury Department. Vought’s nomination would return him to the powerful agency that he ran during Trump’s first term, where he would be tasked with setting budget priorities, managing agencies and executing the incoming president’s campaign promises to slash government regulations.

“I am very pleased to nominate Russell Thurlow Vought, from the Great State of Virginia, as the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB),” Trump said in a social media post Friday. “He did an excellent job serving in this role in my First Term – We cut four Regulations for every new Regulation, and it was a Great Success!

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Trump added that Vought was 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 wrote. “We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity. I look forward to working with you again, Russ. Congratulations. Together, we will Make America Great Again!”

CNN’s Erin Burnett noted on air while breaking news of Trump’s latest cabinet selection that Vought was a main architect of Project 2025, which Trump disavowed during his campaign.

“But Russell Vought is one of the main architects of it, and he has been picked by Trump to head the Office of Management and Budget," she told viewers.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) said Trump clearly wants Vought in a key role to move forward on priorities laid on in the Project 2025 agenda.

“He is putting the architect of Project 2025 in a central position to enact the agenda of Project 2025," Crow told Burnett Friday “And that's everything from federal abortion bans, to weaponizing the military for his culture war, and gutting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid – all the things that are explicit in that program are articulated by Mr. Vought and he wants him in a key role to effectuate it.”