Even The Most Trump-Friendly Democrats Oppose Confirming Project 2025 Extremist Russell Vought

Yesterday, Thune called a cloture vote to move the Russell Vought nomination as OMB head forward. Even Fetterman and Shaheen, the two worst Senate Democrats when it comes to supporting Trump’s nominees, voted “no.” So it was a completely party line 53-47 vote for Vought, indicating that he will almost certainly be confirmed. Democrats have decided to stall the vote by keeping the Senate in session overnight, explaining that Vought, a top Project 2025 author is Trump’s most dangerous nominee. Democrats will take up the full thirty hours allowed for debate.

Few have been as forceful and clear about the dangers to the country that Vought poses. In his Senate speech yesterday, she noted that she thought it was important for the American people to be acquainted with Project 2025. “During the 2024 election,” she said, “the American people became familiar with this Republican document called Project 2025. The document laid out Republican plans to reshape our country, if they gained control. Now, Americans, a little at a time, got a chance to see the plan. People started to read it, and they were shocked. In no time, people from across the political spectrum, not just Democrats— Democrats, Republicans, independents, made clear how much they hated Project 2025, and that they wanted no part of it. So, what was in Project 2025 that made it so widely hated across the political spectrum? A few things— firing civil servants, weaponizing the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, unleashing force onto protestors, and targeting political opponents, restricting abortion nationwide, ripping retirement and health care benefits from seniors, dismantling public education, and, biggest and best, funding tax cuts for the rich by raising taxes on America's middle class. And, I want to be clear— it's a big document. Those are just the top lines. So Donald Trump's response was to swear over and over and over again that he had nothing to do with those plans. Didn't know about them, didn't endorse them, didn't want anything to do with them. Here are some of the things that Donald Trump said about Project 2025 back in 2024: ‘I know nothing about Project 2025. I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I disagree with some of the things they're saying, and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.’ And, my personal favorite, ‘They've been told, officially, legally, in every way, that we have nothing to do with Project 2025.’”

She was just getting started.

So, think about that. During the 2024 election, Donald Trump claimed he didn't know anything about Project 2025, but he lied. Shortly after the election, he nominated one of the chief architects of Project 2025 in a key role with the government. Now, Donald Trump has named the lead architect of Project 2025, Russ Vought, to oversee the federal government's entire budget office. That's right, listen to this one, he is putting the head writer of the plans that you had only read about in nightmares in a key government position. Russ Vought wrote Project 2025, and now Donald Trump is rewarding him by inviting him into the government in order to carry out the Republican blueprint to make our government force people to live in the image that Russ Vought and other extremist Republicans approve of. And he plans to rework our economy to benefit the wealthiest among us and make everybody else pay for it. 

Here are just a few of the things that Russ Vought has called for— Russ Vought has called on Congress to outlaw medication abortion nationwide, restricting women's reproductive rights even in states that protect abortion. Russ Vought has encouraged discrimination against transgender people in the workplace and in health care. In his first stint as OMB Director, Russ Vought decried the use of federal funding for diversity and equity training in a letter to federal agencies. The Project 2025 playbook calls for eliminating almost every civil rights office in the federal government. And Russ Vought has said he intends to put federal workers “in trauma” and destroy the merit-based system for civil servants so that he can fill the government with right wing extremists. 

…Let’s keep in mind, Russ Vought has called for outlawing abortion, medication abortion nationwide. Doesn't matter whether or not you live in the state that says, “No, we're going to protect abortion,” Russ Vought wants to find a way to make sure it's shut down everywhere. He wants to encourage discrimination against transgender people. He thinks getting rid of civil rights is the way to go for the American government. And he says he wants to put federal workers “in trauma” and destroy the merit-based system for civil servants so he can fill up our government with right wing extremists. 

Now, we are already seeing firsthand the devastating effects of Russ Vought's plan for America. Russ Vought was the puppet master behind the funding shutdown that threw this country into chaos last week. I saw this in Massachusetts. Parents didn't know if their toddlers' day care would be open. Seniors didn't know if the hot meal that they were expecting from Meals on Wheels would grind to a halt. No one knew if the nursing homes funded by Medicaid would be able to pay their workers. And that was just the tip of the iceberg for Russ Vought. 

If he is confirmed, you can absolutely bet on Russ Vought pulling out the rug from working people over and over and over again. And, quite frankly, we don't know where he will stop. This is where they started— three weeks in and this is where they've started. 

So will Russ Vought, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump stop when they've ripped abortion rights away from every single woman in America? Will he stop when he's abolished the Department of Education and fired 180,000 teachers from their jobs? Will he stop when he has privatized Medicare and when seniors can't afford to go see the doctor? Will he stop when he's done stealing from middle-class families in order to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest households? Yep, by the way, that is in his blueprint, too. Tax hikes for the middle class, tax breaks for the rich. Or will he stop when he crashes the economy? And take it from me, with these kinds of plans, crashing the economy is no longer a stretch. 

Russ Vought's Project 2025 proposals will lead to higher inflation, higher interest rates, and weaker economic growth. Project 2025 would seriously threaten another recession. Look, already families all across this country are feeling the pressure from high grocery prices while Donald Trump and his administration just turn their backs on working families. American families cannot afford for Russ Vought to be in charge. We don't know how far Russ Vought's extremism will go, but we can't afford to wait and find out. 

Americans voted for each and every one of us right here in the United States Senate to fight for them, and they do not expect us to roll over and play dead. It is our sworn duty to stop dangerous people like Russ Vought before he destroys our freedom, our economy, and the stability of every working family in this nation. And so I urge every senator to vote no on his nomination.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has been calling on Democrats to oppose all Trump nominees. “We should not proceed like it's business as usual so long as we are in the midst of this crisis.” These two tweets from yesterday are important, especially the first one: “I'm not going to vote for or expedite a single Trump nominee while this constitutional crisis persists and deepens. That's just a component of real opposition, but it has to be the starting point. No complicity. Fierce opposition.”

Murphy is voicing a very different approach from Jeanne Shaheen and John Fetterman, who have been all about complicity and not at all into fierce opposition. This week, Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney General. And it’s not even just on nominees where people find him lacking. He’s publicly endorsed Trump's deranged proposal to deploy American troops to Gaza, a plan that involves relocating approximately 2 million Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries and economically developing the area post-demolition into a tourist hub of some kind. This stance aligns him with an administration known for its aggressive foreign policies and has sparked protests in Philadelphia, with critics urging Democrats to resist rather than cooperate with Trump. 

The willingness of Fetterman and Shaheen to support Trump's nominees and policies not only undermines the efforts of their Democratic colleagues to hold the administration accountable but also raises questions about their commitment to safeguarding the nation's democratic principles. Their actions are a betrayal of the constituents who elected them to resist authoritarianism and uphold the Constitution. By aligning themselves with a regime that has consistently attacked democratic institutions, Fetterman and Shaheen are complicit in enabling policies that threaten the very foundation of American democracy. Their collaboration with Trump's agenda is not just a political misstep but a profound disservice to the country and its core values.