Trump nominates Russ Vought for White House budget director once again

By Deepa Shivaram

Published November 22, 2024 at 6:48 PM CST

Then-acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought is seen starting the machine that will print copies of then-President Trump's proposed budget in February 2020. Trump has nominated him for as budget director again for his second term.

Russ Vought, one of the architects of the conservative agenda known as Project 2025, has been tapped to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget, President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday night.

"Russ has spent many years working in Public Policy in Washington, D.C., and is an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies," Trump said in a statement. "Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People."

During his campaign, Trump had sought to distance himself from Project 2025, saying he didn't know who created it and that it had nothing to do with his agenda for a second term.

Vought was the budget director in Trump's first term and pushed to reshape the federal civil service by creating a new class of federal workers known as Schedule F. He has said civil servants who work in the government — people who are not political appointees — should be loyal to the president, and not the institutions they work for.

He has long pushed for curtailing the independence of federal agencies and ending protections granted to thousands of people who work as federal employees — part of what Trump and his allies have called the "Deep State."

"The notion of an independent agency — whether that's a flat-out independent agency like the FCC or a agency that has parts of it that view itself as independent, like the Department of Justice — we're planting a flag and saying we reject that notion completely," Vought said in an interview with NPR last year.

For the last few years, Vought has led the Center for Renewing America, which promoted Trump's agenda after he left the White House. The organization includes Jeffrey Clark, the former Department of Justice official who tried to help Trump overturn the results of the 2020 election; and Ken Cuccinelli, a former acting deputy secretary in the Department of Homeland Security in Trump's first term.

On Friday, Trump also announced Wall Street investor Scott Bessent was his pick for treasury secretary.