The Man Picking Up Elon Musk's Chain Saw
He’s a chief architect of Project 2025
“I think you have to rehabilitate Christian nationalism,” the bearded man says on video, sitting casually on a couch in a hotel suite, unaware that he’s being recorded by several hidden cameras positioned around the room.
That rehabilitation, according to him, includes the largest deportation in history and blocking funding for Planned Parenthood, among other things. And he says Trump is “very supportive of what we do.”
The man is Russell Vought, one of the principal architects of Project 2025, the blueprint for President Trump’s second term. The video was taken before Election Day, and Vought thinks he’s talking to two potential donors, but they’re actually journalists recording the two-hour conversation.
Vought is behind many of the sweeping governmental changes outlined in Project 2025, and is the current Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In that role, he drafts executive orders, supervises government employees, oversees the development and implementation of the federal budget, and has a hand in almost every policy that comes out of the executive branch.
And he’s also the person who will be carrying on the work Elon Musk started now that the billionaire has stepped away from his position at DOGE. In fact, Vought has been quietly helping Musk for months. And unlike Musk, he has decades of experience in Washington and knows the inner workings of government better than just about anyone.
With his power over government personnel, coupled with the budget-cutting directive Musk is leaving behind, Vought has a tremendous ability to execute nearly every aspect of Project 2025. And that includes the parts of the plan that focus on the rehabilitation of “Christian nationalism,” as Vought said in that undercover video.
So which parts of Project 2025 is he likely to focus on? And how much has already been accomplished? The results are shocking.