Even before President Donald Trump tapped Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a second time, Vought’s think tank had been seeking an adjournment appointment in recent weeks. The lobbying effort was underway — as a way for President Trump to try to circumvent Congress. US Senate Confirmation Process.
Vought, who served as head of OMB during Trump’s first term and the think tank he launched in 2021, has worked with Trump’s nominees, including himself and some of Trump’s most heavily criticized nominees. He insists on the outdated method of appointing.
A number of President Trump’s cabinet picks, including Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, could test the president’s control over congressional Republicans, including candidates Some lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the government. Already, Matt Gaetz, President Trump’s nominee for head of the Department of Justice, was removed from consideration Thursday amid growing calls to release the results of a House investigation into sexual misconduct allegations.
But President Trump and some allies are calling for the Senate to voluntarily go into recess to begin the recess appointment process for senior government positions.
“Republican senators seeking coveted leadership positions in the U.S. Senate must agree to recess appointments,” President Trump wrote in a post on X on Nov. 10. We need to fill that position immediately!”
In a 2,274-word policy brief, staffers at Vought’s think tank, the Center for American Renewal, wrote that the Constitution’s recess appointment clause is “broad and very strong” and that President Trump has the right to adopt it. It is claimed that there is. Vought also personally advocated for the leave appointment in a Nov. 18 interview with Tucker Carlson.
“We have to make sure we don’t act on the basis of recent practices, such as the very concept of recess schedules,” Vought told Carlson. “He needs to form a government quickly, but he is dealing with a government that does not move quickly to entrench its people.”
Vought dismissed arguments that such a measure would violate the spirit of the Constitution and singled out Ed Whelan, a fellow at the conservative Public Policy Center, who called the proposal a “cockamamie” and told Congressional leaders. urged to reject this proposal.
“With a few exceptions, conservative think tanks are not conservative. They are pawns of the left,” Vought said.
Later in the interview, Vought spoke about his vision of purging numerous federal executive offices that President Trump campaigned on.
“The president must move as quickly and aggressively as possible from a radical constitutional perspective to dismantle the bureaucracy at the center of power,” Vought said. “The first is to pursue the whole idea of independence. There is no independent agency.”
President Trump, who was in his first term as OMB director, pursued culture war issues and blocked government agencies from implementing diversity and inclusion training in a memo that he claimed constituted “anti-American propaganda.” And so.
As Mr. Trump spends four years strategizing how to gain executive power to quickly enact policy if he is re-elected, Mr. Vought founded a think tank to explore his potential role in a second term. He shared his vision with certain Trump allies.
At events hosted by the Center for American Renewal over the past two years, Vought has supported the Trump administration’s authoritarian ideas and plans. In a video obtained by ProPublica, Vought explains that he invoked the Insurrection Act to force the military to crack down on protests and intentionally demoralized career federal employees and forced them from their jobs. are. Mr. Vought openly promoted the elevation of Christianity within the government and complained in speeches about America’s “secularism” and “Marxism.”
Mr. Vought also played a role in drafting Project 2025, a sweeping policy agenda to reorganize the federal government and dramatically strengthen the president’s power. In Vought’s chapter in the more than 900-page document, he provides for “aggressive use of the executive branch’s vast powers” and describes OMB as playing a key role in this effort. Vought said that if confirmed, his office would need to be “closely involved in all aspects of the White House policy process.”
