It was Russ Vought who huddled with House Republicans on the first day of the government shutdown to tell them that mass layoffs of federal workers would begin in “a day or two.”
Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, stood with Vice President JD Vance and GOP leaders at the White House as they told reporters about the failures of a last-minute meeting with the president and Democratic leaders aimed at averting the closure.
It was Vought whom President Donald Trump praised on social media Oct. 2 for helping him determine what would be cut during the shutdown and whether the cuts would be permanent.
Vought, who helped write the policy blueprint known as Project 2025, is playing a major role during the shutdown, including on decisions over whether there are mass layoffs of federal employees instead of furloughs and what funding is cut and what is allowed to flow.
Vought has played a key part of Trump’s sweeping attempt to claim authority over the federal budget. Federal judges have stalled many of those actions, but the efforts are expected to escalate during the shutdown when the executive branch has broad authority to dictate which employees and programs are “essential” to a functioning government and which are not.
Congressional Republicans say by shutting down the government, congressional Democrats have ceded spending authority to the White House, and in turn, Vought.
Vought “has been dreaming about this moment, preparing this moment, since puberty,” Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, said on Fox News Oct. 1. “Russ Vought has a plan, and that plan is going to succeed in further empowering Trump. This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare, and it’s of their own making.”
Vought was not made available for comment through the White House press office.
More: Trump ups the pain, partisanship in taking shutdown politics to new levels
On Sept. 30, Trump mused about using the shutdown as an opportunity to implement massive changes to the government without congressional approval.
He talked about the chance to take “irreversible” actions such as benefit cuts, “cutting programs that [Democrats] like” and “trimming the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way.” Trump also said “a lot of good can come from shutdowns.”
Who is Russ Vought?
Vought, who also lead the agency during Trump’s first term, is responsible for overseeing the president’s budget, reviewing federal regulations and setting funding priorities for executive agencies. The role is one that often goes under the public radar yet holds key power in implementing the president’s goals.
Russ Vought, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, is pictured before a meeting in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 12, 2024.
After leaving Trump’s first administration, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, one of several Washington think tanks created to advance and develop Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda. He previously worked for public policy organizations, was vice president of Heritage Action for America, and worked on Capitol Hill.
He was the key architect of the controversial policy blueprint known as Project 2025, much of which has been implemented during Trump’s second term. Vought is credited with authoring the chapter on executive power.
More: Government shutdown 2025: What to know about federal layoffs, Social Security
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Vought drew bipartisan criticism for refusing to say if he would follow congressional spending laws when distributing funds to agencies, noting Trump has called existing restrictions unconstitutional and that he would follow the president’s directives.
Vought said he believed that rather than dictating federal spending, Congress’ role is to set a ceiling, while the president can choose to spend less.
Shutdown layoffs
According to reports first published by Politico, Vought instructed agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans, or layoffs, for all employees whose work “is not consistent with the President’s priorities.”
Normally employees deemed “nonessential” to government functions are furloughed. The executive branch does not normally use the shutdown as a reason for layoffs.
Moments after the Senate failed to avert a shutdown, Vought sent a letter to federal agencies stating that “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.”
Democrats dismissed the threat to fire federal employees as an intimidation or negotiation tactic. The administration has begun rehiring some of the tens of thousands of federal employees laid off earlier this year.
“We will not be intimidated by Russ Vought, who’s completely and totally out of control…,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told reporters in a Sept. 25 news conference. “As a negotiating tactic, our response to Russ Vought is simple: Get lost.”
Funding cuts to Democratic states
Vought wasted no time fulfilling the threat to force Democrats to pay a political price for the government shutdown.
Vought’s first post to social media Oct. 1 stated that $18 million in transportation funding was on hold for projects in New York, which both Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer represent.
Vance was asked about the timing and whether the strategy is to squeeze New York until Schumer caves.
“I haven’t talked to Russ about this this morning, but look, I’m sure that Russ is heartbroken about the fact that he’s unable to give certain things to certain constituencies,” Vance said. “We want to do everything we can to help the American people, but when Democrats shut down the government, we have to actually do a little triage to make sure the most critical and most essential services are provided.”
Hours later, Vought announced he would cancel funding for green energy projects in 16 Democrat-led states.
“Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled,” Vought said in a social media post.
He said the cuts would impact California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriation’s Committee, decried the “mafioso tactics.”
“We’re less than a day into this shutdown, and Trump & Vought are illegally punishing Democrat-led states,” Murray said on social media. “This administration is clearly salivating at the opportunity to hurt people and using the shutdown they caused as the pretext to do it.”
The government redirected funds in a similar way in the first Trump administration, and the Government Accountability Office ruled it was a violation of the Antideficiency Act.
Previous government shutdowns have not resulted in mass layoffs, and previous presidents have not used the time to make fundamental changes to agencies.
Whether Trump and Vought can make permanent changes comes down to the particulars of what is done, said Matthew Spalding, constitutional government professor at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C. campus.
“In a constitutional government of three branches, in general, nothing is permanent as no president or Congress can restrict a future president or Congress,” he said.
On Oct. 2, Trump posted to social media that he was going to meet with Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is Russ Vought? What role will he play in the shutdown?
