Investigative journalists at the nonprofit Centre for Climate Reporting are blowing the lid off Project 2025, the motives and methods of key architect Russell Vought, and how the blueprint for an extremist government would shape a second Donald Trump administration. Hidden-camera video of Vought dispels the myth that Trump is ignorant of the plan, and suggests that shadowy conservative groups have already had a heavy influence on the Republican agenda.
Video made public by CCR and transcripts provided to Daily Kos paint a picture of a hard core Christian nationalist who has Trump’s ear. The unedited video was also shared with CNN.
Vought, who co-authored Project 2025, describes the right-wing scheme to take over the Republican Party—and, ultimately, the country—as a “battle plan.”
Vought spoke with an undercover reporter and an actor who were posing as relatives of a wealthy potential donor to his conservative think tank, The Center for Renewing America. The former director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration talked at length about his work on the secretive next phase of the project.
“This year has been predominantly now getting ready for a year five of a Trump administration,” Vought said. “80% of my time is working on the plans of what's necessary to take control of these bureaucracies.”
What does that specifically mean? Having the documents and game plan ready to go on Day 1 of the next Trump administration.
“Not just, ‘Hey, we want to cut spending.’ … These are the directives on how we would go about doing it,” Vought explained. “And then you may say, ‘OK, all right, DHS, we want to have the largest deportation. What are your actual memos that a secretary sends out to do it?’” he continued. “Like, there's an executive order, regulations, secretarial memos. Those are the types of things that need to be thought through so you're not, you’re having to scramble to do that later on.”
He boasted that he is close enough to Trump to personally hand him these detailed plans for a second term.
“There are people like me that have his trust that will be able to get it to him in whatever position we’re at,” Vought said. “The relationships will be there. The trust level will be there.”
Micah Meadowcroft, who is one of Vought’s close aides, spoke to the undercover reporter when he approached him at a conservative conference and asked for help arranging the meeting with Vought. Meadowcroft explained that this “second phase, after the [Project 2025] book came out, was to break down actual policy packets and executive orders and agenda items and things like that. And that's been supervised largely by Russ.”
Those plans are secret and won’t be published, Meadowcroft said. Nor will they be distributed through official government channels.
“It's a big, fat stack of papers that will be distributed during the transition period, but not as part of the transition. Because obviously, you want as little of it to be FOIA-able … as possible,” Meadowcroft said, referring to the Freedom of Information Act, which allows anyone to request copies of official government documents. “So yeah, the goal is to familiarize all the transition team people with these plans. But you don't actually send them to their work emails. Because then, you know … they're FOIA-able.”
Vought also told the undercover reporters that he had closely coordinated with the Trump campaign in recent months, including on major “earned media” stories—meaning media coverage that isn’t paid for. He bragged about how he’s shaped and owned the conservative narrative for the past three years, telling elected Republicans what to say and getting the traditional media to gobble it up.
“So really, that's what we do, is we pick big national fights, throw a punch, win that debate, and then let the momentum flow to federal, state, and local levels,” he said, then went on to give examples.
“[W]e were the first group out there opposed to Ukraine aid,” Vought boasted.
Vought and his cronies have already set the narrative for this election cycle, and he has the puppets in Congress and in Trump to carry it out. He casts himself as a martyr for the conservative cause: He’s not expecting an appointment in Trump’s Cabinet, he says, because he’s made himself a target of the left. Vought brags that he’s “a major threat to the other side. And that's why they're coming after me in our Center as much as they have. Joe Biden went after, is going after me personally a number of times.”
But he doesn’t need someone on the inside, he told CCR’s undercover reporter, because with enough money from deep-pocketed donors his organization will create “a shadow Office of Management and Budget, a shadow National Security Council and a shadow Office of Legal Counsel.”
In other words: He and his accomplices will control the government from the outside, with Trump’s full support.
This is a “battle” for Vought and his team; he says it repeatedly. He’s not worried about Trump’s disavowals, and he knows the GOP presidential nominee is only saying he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025 because of politics and optics.
That Vought and his team have set the agenda for the past three years of opposition to President Joe Biden shows his deep influence within the Republican Party. This newly unearthed evidence makes the project Democrats have taken on, to warn the public about Project 2025 as much as they can between now and Nov. 5, even more vital.
The Harris-Walz campaign is on it:
Help fight these powerful weirdos and keep them out of the White House! Donate to Kamala Harris now.
Video made public by CCR and transcripts provided to Daily Kos paint a picture of a hard core Christian nationalist who has Trump’s ear. The unedited video was also shared with CNN.
Vought, who co-authored Project 2025, describes the right-wing scheme to take over the Republican Party—and, ultimately, the country—as a “battle plan.”
Vought spoke with an undercover reporter and an actor who were posing as relatives of a wealthy potential donor to his conservative think tank, The Center for Renewing America. The former director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration talked at length about his work on the secretive next phase of the project.
“This year has been predominantly now getting ready for a year five of a Trump administration,” Vought said. “80% of my time is working on the plans of what's necessary to take control of these bureaucracies.”
What does that specifically mean? Having the documents and game plan ready to go on Day 1 of the next Trump administration.
“Not just, ‘Hey, we want to cut spending.’ … These are the directives on how we would go about doing it,” Vought explained. “And then you may say, ‘OK, all right, DHS, we want to have the largest deportation. What are your actual memos that a secretary sends out to do it?’” he continued. “Like, there's an executive order, regulations, secretarial memos. Those are the types of things that need to be thought through so you're not, you’re having to scramble to do that later on.”
He boasted that he is close enough to Trump to personally hand him these detailed plans for a second term.
“There are people like me that have his trust that will be able to get it to him in whatever position we’re at,” Vought said. “The relationships will be there. The trust level will be there.”
Micah Meadowcroft, who is one of Vought’s close aides, spoke to the undercover reporter when he approached him at a conservative conference and asked for help arranging the meeting with Vought. Meadowcroft explained that this “second phase, after the [Project 2025] book came out, was to break down actual policy packets and executive orders and agenda items and things like that. And that's been supervised largely by Russ.”
Those plans are secret and won’t be published, Meadowcroft said. Nor will they be distributed through official government channels.
“It's a big, fat stack of papers that will be distributed during the transition period, but not as part of the transition. Because obviously, you want as little of it to be FOIA-able … as possible,” Meadowcroft said, referring to the Freedom of Information Act, which allows anyone to request copies of official government documents. “So yeah, the goal is to familiarize all the transition team people with these plans. But you don't actually send them to their work emails. Because then, you know … they're FOIA-able.”
Vought also told the undercover reporters that he had closely coordinated with the Trump campaign in recent months, including on major “earned media” stories—meaning media coverage that isn’t paid for. He bragged about how he’s shaped and owned the conservative narrative for the past three years, telling elected Republicans what to say and getting the traditional media to gobble it up.
“So really, that's what we do, is we pick big national fights, throw a punch, win that debate, and then let the momentum flow to federal, state, and local levels,” he said, then went on to give examples.
“[W]e were the first group out there opposed to Ukraine aid,” Vought boasted.
Vought and his cronies have already set the narrative for this election cycle, and he has the puppets in Congress and in Trump to carry it out. He casts himself as a martyr for the conservative cause: He’s not expecting an appointment in Trump’s Cabinet, he says, because he’s made himself a target of the left. Vought brags that he’s “a major threat to the other side. And that's why they're coming after me in our Center as much as they have. Joe Biden went after, is going after me personally a number of times.”
But he doesn’t need someone on the inside, he told CCR’s undercover reporter, because with enough money from deep-pocketed donors his organization will create “a shadow Office of Management and Budget, a shadow National Security Council and a shadow Office of Legal Counsel.”
In other words: He and his accomplices will control the government from the outside, with Trump’s full support.
This is a “battle” for Vought and his team; he says it repeatedly. He’s not worried about Trump’s disavowals, and he knows the GOP presidential nominee is only saying he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025 because of politics and optics.
That Vought and his team have set the agenda for the past three years of opposition to President Joe Biden shows his deep influence within the Republican Party. This newly unearthed evidence makes the project Democrats have taken on, to warn the public about Project 2025 as much as they can between now and Nov. 5, even more vital.
The Harris-Walz campaign is on it:
Help fight these powerful weirdos and keep them out of the White House! Donate to Kamala Harris now.