Leaked videos reveal Project 2025 architect’s plan for far-right ‘shadow’ government

A former high-level Trump administration official who played a key role in crafting the far-right Project 2025 agenda said in closed-door speeches that revealed Monday that he wants to traumatize career officials and lay the groundwork for Republican candidate Donald Trump can seize everything. , unfettered control of the federal government if he wins the Nov. 5 election.

In collaboration with the watchdog organization Documented, ProPublica on Monday published more videos of two private speeches that Russell Vought — who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term — gave in 2023 and 2024.

During the previously unreported speeches, ProPublica and documented observed, Vought “detailed plans to deploy the military in response to domestic unrest” and “defund the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“The two speeches given by Vought together provide an unvarnished look at the animating ideology and political worldview of a key figure in the MAGA movement,” the new reporting notes. “By echoing Trump’s rhetoric, Vought implicitly endorsed the false allegation of a stolen 2020 election and likened the media’s dismissal of that allegation to Chinese Communist propaganda.”

Vought also laid out in disturbing terms his intent to leave federal employees “traumatized” as part of a sweeping effort to purge the government of scientists and other officials deemed disloyal to Trump.

While Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming he knows nothing about it and has “no idea who’s behind it,” at least 140 members of his first administration — including Vought — were involved in putting together far-reaching far-right agendawhich outlines plans to eliminate climate regulations, further roll back access to abortion, cut summer food aid programs for children and cut taxes for the wealthy.

Vought, who heads the Center for Renewing America think tank, has rejected Trump’s efforts to reject Project 2025, telling an undercover reporter earlier this year that the Republican nominee is “very supportive of what we’re doing.”

In the 2024 speech obtained by ProPublica and on record, Vought said he and other Project 2025 leaders have assembled “detailed agency plans” and are “writing the actual orders” Trump must sign if he defeats Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.

“We’re writing the actual rules now,” Vought said, “and we’re sorting out the legal authorities for everything that President Trump is riding on.”

Specifically, ProPublica and Documentary reported, Vought “laid out how his think tank lays out the legal rationale for invoking the Sedition Act, a law that gives the president broad power to use the military for domestic law enforcement.”

Sorry Trump was spoken out of by invoking the Riot Act to crush mass racial justice demonstrations sparked by the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, Vought said during the 2023 speech obtained by ProPublica and documented that his preparations for a possible second Trump administration have included building a “shadow” office of legal counsel, the body that advises presidents on their powers.

According to Vought ProPublica and documented, “made it clear that he wants the office to help Trump steamroll the kind of domestic opposition he faced in his first term.”

Jesse Eisinger, Senior Editor at ProPublica, described Vought’s assessment of the current state of the United States as “apocalyptic stuff”, pointing to his stated view that the country is “in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover… where our opponents already have the weapons of government and they have aimed that against us.”

Vought — who has previously said he hopes to “rehabilitate Christian nationalism” — cast Trump as a savior of sorts in one of the newly revealed speeches, calling him “a man who is so uniquely positioned to serve this role. “

“He’s seen what it’s done to him and he’s seen what they’re trying to do to the country,” Vought added. “It’s nothing but a gift from God.”