Russell Vought
When Donald Trump took office in January, he was armed with a weapon none of his predecessors had enjoyed: a shadow government in waiting, ready to turn his ideas into policy. The man who built much of that infrastructure is Russell Vought, an architect of Trump's shock-and-awe second-term agenda.
During the Biden years, Vought led the Center for Renewing America, a think tank dedicated to disempowering the administrative state and laying the groundwork for Trump 2.0. Now, many of the Administration's most aggressive moves can be traced to Vought's recommendations: from dramatically downsizing the federal bureaucracy and demoralizing career civil servants to ending diversity hiring practices and withholding congressionally appropriated funds.
As director of the Office of Management and Budget, Vought is one of Trump's closest advisers helping consolidate power within the Executive Branch. Vought may keep a low profile, but he's the intellectual lodestar of the revolution upending Washington.
Cortellessa is a TIME senior correspondent
Contact us at letters@time.com.
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