Asshole of the Month: Russell Vought
When Trump was campaigning last year, he disavowed any connection with Project 2025, the manifesto of far-right fever dreams hatched by the Heritage Foundation and veterans of Trump’s first term. He knew that Project 2025 proposed a mission so radical and sweeping— kneecapping or dismantling almost the entire federal government—that it would alarm most Americans and seriously damage his chances for election. Many suspected the disavowal was dishonest and that Trump secretly endorsed and would use the power of the presidency to push the goals of Project 2025. Their suspicions turned out to be absolutely right.
Installed in the White House on January 20, Trump lost no time in laying waste to large swaths of the federal government: the United States Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education are now dead or on life support. Next on the chopping block will be, in whole or in part, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the IRS, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health…and who knows what else. Exactly as Project 2025 envisioned.
Elon Musk is the generalissimo conducting this assault, but the colonel actually seated in the crane and swinging the wrecking ball is Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, Russell Vought, a Bible-thumping Christian nationalist. It comes as no surprise that Vought was one of the main authors of Project 2025! It’s as if Trump disavowed any connection with the Hells Angels…and then appointed Sonny Barger as Secretary of Transportation.
