Project 2025 — The Heritage Foundation-backed “blueprint” for Donald Trump’s second term — wasn’t the political liability in the 2024 election that Democrats hoped it would be.
That didn’t stop Senate Democrats from hammering Russell Vought over it during Wednesday’s confirmation hearing for Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
As one of Project 2025’s lead authors, Vought advocated for the president to have legal counsel who was “respected yet creative and fearless” enough to challenge “legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo,” called for the president to have power over how to spend federal money (which has concerned both Democrats and Republicans, given the power of the purse falls on Congress) and argued that the president should be able to “hold career civil servants accountable for their performance.”