Russell Vought

Russell Thurlow Vought ( , born March 26, 1976) is an American government official and conservative political analyst who has been the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since February 2025. He held the same position from July 2020 to January 2021.

A self-described Christian nationalist, Vought is the founder of the Center for Renewing America, an organization that opposes critical race theory and advocates for the idea of America as a "nation under God". He has also played a significant role in Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation that aims to advance conservative policies and reshape the federal government. In May 2024, he was appointed Policy Director of the Republican National Committee's platform committee.

On November 23, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would renominate Vought as director of the OMB for his second term as president. He was confirmed by the United States Senate to the office on February 6, 2025, by a vote of 53–47.

Early life, education, and early career

Vought was born to Thurlow Bunyea Vought, an electrician and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, and Margaret Flowers Vought, an elementary school teacher, and grew up in Trumbull, Connecticut. He earned a BA from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, in 1998 and a JD from the George Washington University Law School in 2004.

Vought served as vice president of Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation. He was the executive director and budget director of the Republican Study Committee, the policy director for the Republican Conference of the United States House of Representatives, and a legislative assistant for U.S. Senator Phil Gramm.

First Trump administration (2018–2021)

Office of Management and Budget

OMB Deputy Director

In April 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Vought to be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He was confirmed by the Senate on February 28, 2018, in a 50–49 vote. Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote.

During the confirmation hearings, Senator Bernie Sanders questioned Vought about a statement that "Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned." Various Christian organizations denounced Sanders's questioning as a violation of the No Religious Test Clause, and Emma Green of ''The Atlantic'' wrote that Sanders' questioning "flirted with the boundaries" of the No Religious Test Clause.

In 2019, Vought was one of nine government officials who defied a subpoena to testify before Congress in relation to the Trump–Ukraine scandal and the administration's decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine. The decision to freeze aid to Ukraine had led Democrats to launch the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

OMB Director

On January 2, 2019, when OMB director Mick Mulvaney became acting White House chief of staff, Vought became the acting OMB director, though Mulvaney continued to hold the director position. On March 18, 2020, Trump announced his intent to nominate him to be OMB Director. Vought was confirmed by the Senate on July 20, 2020, by a vote of 51–45, and was sworn in two days later.

In May 2020, Vought broke the OMB's long-standing practice of publishing updated economic forecasts, citing disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

On September 4, 2020, Vought, at Trump's direction, published an OMB memo instructing federal agencies to stop all training on "critical race theory" or "white privilege", along with "any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil". The memo further directed that agencies begin to identify legal avenues to cancel contracts or otherwise divert the "millions of taxpayer dollars" being spent on such training, which it said "engenders division and resentment within the federal workforce."

2020 election

After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump alleged that the election had been stolen, Biden's transition team accused Vought of hindering the presidential transition by refusing to allow incoming Biden officials to meet with OMB staff. Typically, career OMB staff would provide an incoming administration with cost estimates and details on existing programs. Vought defended his actions, stating that OMB had provided funding for the transition and that there had been more than 45 meetings with Biden officials but that "OMB staff are working on this administration's policies and will do so until this administration's final day in office".

U.S. Naval Academy

In December 2020, Donald Trump appointed Vought to the Board of Visitors of the United States Naval Academy. Joe Biden fired Vought and ten other Trump political appointees to the boards of service academies and other oversight bodies in September 2021. Vought and Sean Spicer (appointed by Trump to the Naval board in 2019 and likewise fired by Biden) sued to prevent their removal, arguing that their appointments were to three-year terms. In July 2022 federal judge Dabney Friedrich dismissed the suit.

Between the Trump administrations (2021–2025)

Center for Renewing America

In January 2021, Vought founded an organization called the Center for Renewing America (CRA), which is focused on combating critical race theory. CRA has an affiliated issue advocacy group, American Restoration Action. The mission of the groups is to "renew a consensus of America as a nation under God". According to ''Axios'', the groups "will provide the ideological ammunition to sustain Trump's political movement after his departure from the White House."

In April 2021, ''The Washington Post'' fact-checker rated Vought's statement that only 5 to 7 percent of the Biden administration's $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan would go to "actual roads and bridges and ports and things that you and I would say is real infrastructure" as inaccurate to the degree of "Three Pinocchios" out of four.

On June 8, 2021, Citizens for Renewing America, the advocacy arm of Center for Renewing America, released a guide to "combatting critical race theory." Vought told Fox News the 33-page handbook is "a crash course in CRT, a 'one-stop shopping' for parents trying to hold their school board members accountable."

On June 22, 2022, Vought confirmed that federal agents conducted a search of the home of his organization's director of litigation, Jeffrey Clark, a former U.S. Department of Justice official who participated in efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In October 2024, ''ProPublica'' reported on speeches Vought had made at Center for Renewing America events. According to the report, Vought's proposals included plans to reshape government by using military force against protesters if deemed necessary, to defund agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the purpose of reducing federal influence, and to cast civil servants as obstructive to conservative agendas.

Project 2025

Vought played a major role in the creation of Project 2025, a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power, and the Center for Renewing America that Vought founded is a member of the Project 2025 advisory board. Project 2025 includes proposals to reclassify tens of thousands of merit-based federal civil service workers as political appointees in order to replace them with Trump loyalists.

A 920-page ''Mandate'' for Project 2025 was published in April 2023.

Dark money contributions from a network of fundraising groups were received by nearly half of the organizations collaborating in the project. The project seeks to infuse the government and society with Christian values.

In August 2024, CNN reported on a lengthy conversation between Vought and two journalists who falsely claimed to be relatives of a potential donor. The conversation, which occurred in July 2024, was videotaped by the journalists without Vought's knowledge. The video shows Vought describing his secretive efforts to prepare executive orders for a potential second Trump administration, as well as his "expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his complaints that the GOP was too focused on 'religious liberty'". During the conversation, Vought summed up his core political ideology as "Christian nationism".

Other

Vought was named policy director of the Republican National Committee platform committee in May 2024.

Second Trump administration (2025–present)

Nomination and confirmation

On November 23, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would renominate Vought as director of the OMB for his second term as president. Vought appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on January 15, 2025. During the hearing, Vought did not commit to spend all the money assigned by the Congress to the federal government. The committee advanced his nomination in an 8–7 vote on January 20. He later appeared before the Senate Budget Committee on January 22. The committee approved his nomination in an 11–0 vote, with all 9 Democrats and 1 Independent boycotting the vote due to the recent federal spending freeze. The U.S. Senate voted 53–47 on February 6 to approve his nomination.

Tenure

Upon taking office as OMB Director, Vought was also installed as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In his first month at the CFPB, the CFPB dropped at least a half dozen cases brought by Vought's predecessor, Rohit Chopra. In May 2025, the CFPB rescinded a rule that limited the ability of data brokers to sell sensitive information, such as financial data, credit history, and Social Security numbers.

Political and religious positions

Vought graduated from the evangelical Christian Wheaton College and describes himself as a Christian nationalist. He seeks to infuse the government and society with elements of Christianity, saying he has "a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society", according to ''The Washington Post''. In a secretly recorded meeting in 2024, Vought said that conservatives should discuss whether to prioritize Christian immigrants over those of other religions. Vought supports a total ban on abortion. He has called the Democratic Party "increasingly evil" for supporting secularism.

Since 2022, Vought has advocated for what he calls "radical constitutionalism" to reverse what he calls a current "post-Constitutional time"; he asserts this has been the result of a century of corruption of laws and institutions by the political left. He characterizes the federal bureaucracy as "woke and weaponized" and advocates replacing it with "radical constitutionalists". Vought proposes to "gut the FBI" and end the tradition of political independence of the U.S. Justice Department.

Personal life

Vought was formerly married to Mary Grace Vought, with whom he shares two daughters. Mary filed for divorce on August 4, 2023 and the divorce was finalized on August 30 in Arlington County, Virginia.

See also

* List of contributors to Project 2025

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vought, Russell T.
1976 births
Living people
21st-century American lawyers
Christian nationalists
Deputy Directors for Management of the Office of Management and Budget
Directors of the Office of Management and Budget
George Washington University Law School alumni
People from New York (state)
People of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Second Trump administration cabinet members
The Heritage Foundation people
First Trump administration cabinet members
Wheaton College (Illinois) alumni
Department of Government Efficiency people