Latest news with #CenterforRenewingAmerica
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Pete Hegseth's Garbage New Press Secretary Is as Extreme as They Come
The Pentagon's new press secretary is a chronically online 26-year-old white nationalist who believes in the 'great replacement' theory, thinks Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensiky is an 'entitled midget,' and pushed an antisemitic conspiracy theory about the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish man lynched afer being falsely accused of murder in 1915. Kingsley Wilson, who has served as deputy press secretary since January, is the daughter of right-wing talking head and former Trump adviser Steve Cortes and previously worked for Center for Renewing America, a think tank founded by Project 2025 architect Russel Vought. She will now act as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's primary mouthpiece at the Pentagon, a department that has not had regular press briefings for some time now. 'The Office of the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs is announcing that Kingsley Wilson will serve as Press Secretary for the Department of Defense,' senior Defense Department advisor Sean Parnell wrote on X last week. 'Kingsley's leadership has been integral to the DoD's success & we look forward to her continued service to President Trump!' Wilson's personal X page is a treasure trove of ultraright-wing content. 'Minneapolis became Mogadishu in 10 years time,' she said over a video of Muslim Representative Ilhan Omar at a rally in her district. 'The Great Replacement isn't a conspiracy theory… it's reality.' She has posted about the great replacement therory—a racist conspiracy theory that alleges there is a coordinated plot to decrease the U.S.'s white population through immigration, in some iterations at the behest of Jewish leaders— incessantly for the past three years. She said 'I hate this entitled midget' in response to Zelensiky receiving military aid from the U.S last year, and lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin for having 'encyclopedic knowledge of his people's history,' which she called 'beyond impressive … especially when contrasted with the low-IQ lunatics working at the U.S. State Department.' 'Leo Frank raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl. He also tried to frame a Black man for his crime,' she wrote on X. 'The ADL turned off the comments because they want to gaslight you.' The ADL stated that they were 'deeply disturbed' by Wilson's comments. While troubling, this is a predictable pick, as Trump has lined his highest ranks with fringe MAGA loyalists with often openly racist politics, like State Department official Darren Beattie and National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent. They, like Wilson, are anti-neocons who subscribe to the same far-right, deep MAGA views of those like Steve Bannon and Peter Thiel, rather than the more conventional conservatism of the GOP.
Miami Herald
03-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Russell Vought's net worth: The project 2025 architect's wealth & income
Russell Vought plays one of the most important roles in President Trump's administration. As the 44th Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Vought oversees the administration's budgetary, policy, and regulatory priorities. It's his second stint as director, having previously served as the White House budget chief for two years during Trump's first term in office. With the administration's initiative to reduce costs within the federal government, Vought's main responsibilities include overseeing the effectiveness of government programs, determining whether to make improvements or cuts, and ensuring that agencies are following the administration's priorities and the president's executive orders. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter Here's how much Vought is worth in 2025 and a look at some of his assets and probably has a net worth of around $1 million. His cash and assets amounted to as much as about $1 million and included index funds, mutual funds, and bond funds, based on a financial disclosure released to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics just prior to his February 2025 appointment. The disclosure also revealed that he received a salary and bonus of $542,204 from his think tank, Center for Renewing America, though the disclosure didn't mention a specific timeframe. Vought's debts include between $1 million and $2 million on two separate 30-year mortgages with interest rates ranging from 5.625% to 6.49%. Information on his residence and value isn't publicly available. He also has an exercised line of credit of as much as $100,000. Related: Donald Trump's net worth amid tariff controversy As White House budget chief, Vought makes an annual salary of $250,600, which is the rate of pay for all Level I positions in the executive schedule. Russell Vought, who also goes by Russ, was born in New York on March 26, 1976. His father, Turk, was a Marine veteran and a union electrician, while his mother was a schoolteacher, according to a report by PBS. He is divorced and has two daughters. Vought graduated with a BA from Wheaton College - a private, Christian-leaning liberal arts college in Illinois - in 1998. He received a JD from The George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC in 2004. Related: JD Vance's net worth: From venture capital to senator to VP After law school, Vought established himself in conservative Republican circles in Washington, DC. His various jobs included legislative assistant for U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, executive director of the Republican Study Committee, and policy director for the House Republican Conference. Vought's longest job prior to his first White House appointment was a seven-year stint as vice president of Heritage Action for America, the lobbying and political arm of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. After his first turn as OMB director ended in 2021, Vought served as president of the Center for Renewing America. More on net worth: Scott Bessent's net worth: Trump's Treasury Secretary's wealth in 2025Howard Lutnick's net worth: From Wall Street heavyweight to Commerce SecretaryPeter Navarro's net worth: From academic to Trump's trade policy adviser Vought's role in Project 2025 In the years before taking the role of White House budget chief, Vought campaigned for a change in the way government functioned. He championed the idea of taking power away from Congress in making laws and adopting a stricter interpretation of the original Constitution via a presidential transition that would further a conservative agenda known as Project 2025. According to its website, "Heritage Action takes the innovative policy solutions developed by The Heritage Foundation and works to translate those into legislative victories." And with Trump back in the White House for a second term, Heritage Action has done just that with its Project 2025 plan. Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise" is a 920-page document that serves as a blueprint for implementing a conservative policy agenda under Trump's administration. That agenda has revealed itself in the first few months of Trump's administration, including the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and the planned shutdown of several agencies and departments, including USAID and the Department of Education. As OMB director overseeing federal agencies and the nation's budget, Vought is poised to oversee the implementation of Project 2025 as a means to reshape the federal government. The Center for American Progress, a progressive think-tank, derided Project 2025's agenda as authoritarian in allowing a president to wield excessive power and paving the way to remove the checks and balances that the three branches of government - executive, legislative, and judicial - are supposed to maintain. Related: How to track stock price changes from 52-week highs on Google Finance The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russell Vought
Credit - Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images 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@
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New study reveals 'staggering' scope of how much DEI was infused into government under Biden
FIRST ON FOX: A study published this week details the degree to which the Biden administration infused DEI policies into the federal government in a report the authors say can serve as a resource for the Trump administration to continue to identify and "destroy" the practice. The new study, conducted by the Functional Government Initiative and the Center for Renewing America, identified 460 programs across 24 government agencies in the Biden administration that diverted resources to DEI initiatives. At least $1 trillion of taxpayer money was infused with DEI principles, the study states. The study lays out DEI infusion across several federal agencies, including the Defense Department's plan to "integrate environmental/economic justice tools" into training, FEMA's need to "instill equity as a foundation of emergency management," and the Labor Department's push to "embed equity in a sustainable manner that recognizes the multiple and overlapping identities held by workers." Trump To Shift Away From Dei Visa Policy That 'Surged' Under Biden, Expert Says On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 13985, which was aimed at carrying out the stated goal of "advancing equity and racial justice through the federal government." Read On The Fox News App "This order mandated a whole of government approach to injecting DEI philosophy into the federal budget," the study says. "In alignment with this directive, the Biden administration apparently spent trillions in DEI-related initiatives in a manner and at a speed that has shrouded public awareness of the financial burden."'Disturbing': Whistleblower Fumes At Biden-era Agency Promoting Dei Program As Department's 'Mission' The report outlines how, over the next four years, the amount spent on DEI efforts was "staggering." "The cumulative budget of these programs exceeds $1.1 trillion," the report says. "However, this figure does not encompass all DEI-related expenditures, nor does it include every program across these agencies. The findings reveal a substantial increase in DEI spending, largely attributable to policy directives under the Biden administration." "Of the programs identified, 10 are exclusively dedicated to DEI and could be considered for quick elimination; 144 allocate significant resources to DEI initiatives and should be reviewed if those are to be ended; and 306 programs incorporate DEI to varying degrees, though the extent of their DEI focus is indeterminate based on the available documentation." The report goes department by department and calculates the DEI programs and provides recommendations on how they should be addressed. "DEI is deeply rooted throughout all aspects of the federal government, and it needs to be eliminated completely," Center for Renewing America senior adviser Wade Miller told Fox News Digital in a statement. "Thankfully, the Trump administration has already embarked on a vitally necessary complete audit of each and every government program. We offer, in this report, what we hope are additional resources and tools that the new administration and Congress can use to identify, destroy and permanently remove DEI from the federal government." Click To Get The Fox News App FGI spokesman Roderick Law explained to Fox News Digital that the dual study "could both expedite the elimination of DEI from the executive branch and show just how quickly pernicious ideologies can spread inside the government." "The nature of DEI is both divisive and anti-American," Law added, "so why force it onto the military or the Commerce Department or the EPA? After President Biden lavishly funded and pushed these controversial principles into every possible area of government, our hope is that raising these questions and offering Congress and responsible executive branch officials tools and suggestions can keep it from happening again." The Trump administration has made it a top priority to rid DEI from the federal bureaucracy and the president has signed multiple executive orders aimed at addressing what it argues is a practice that does more harm than good by ignoring meritocracy. Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for article source: New study reveals 'staggering' scope of how much DEI was infused into government under Biden
Fox News
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
New study reveals 'staggering' scope of how much DEI was infused into government under Biden
FIRST ON FOX: A study published this week details the degree to which the Biden administration infused DEI policies into the federal government in a report the authors say can serve as a resource for the Trump administration to continue to identify and "destroy" the practice. The new study, conducted by the Functional Government Initiative and the Center for Renewing America, identified 460 programs across 24 government agencies in the Biden administration that diverted resources to DEI initiatives. At least $1 trillion of taxpayer money was infused with DEI principles, the study states. The study lays out DEI infusion across several federal agencies, including the Defense Department's plan to "integrate environmental/economic justice tools" into training, FEMA's need to "instill equity as a foundation of emergency management," and the Labor Department's push to "embed equity in a sustainable manner that recognizes the multiple and overlapping identities held by workers." On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 13985, which was aimed at carrying out the stated goal of "advancing equity and racial justice through the federal government." "This order mandated a whole of government approach to injecting DEI philosophy into the federal budget," the study says. "In alignment with this directive, the Biden administration apparently spent trillions in DEI-related initiatives in a manner and at a speed that has shrouded public awareness of the financial burden."'DISTURBING': WHISTLEBLOWER FUMES AT BIDEN-ERA AGENCY PROMOTING DEI PROGRAM AS DEPARTMENT'S 'MISSION' The report outlines how, over the next four years, the amount spent on DEI efforts was "staggering." "The cumulative budget of these programs exceeds $1.1 trillion," the report says. "However, this figure does not encompass all DEI-related expenditures, nor does it include every program across these agencies. The findings reveal a substantial increase in DEI spending, largely attributable to policy directives under the Biden administration." "Of the programs identified, 10 are exclusively dedicated to DEI and could be considered for quick elimination; 144 allocate significant resources to DEI initiatives and should be reviewed if those are to be ended; and 306 programs incorporate DEI to varying degrees, though the extent of their DEI focus is indeterminate based on the available documentation." The report goes department by department and calculates the DEI programs and provides recommendations on how they should be addressed. "DEI is deeply rooted throughout all aspects of the federal government, and it needs to be eliminated completely," Center for Renewing America senior adviser Wade Miller told Fox News Digital in a statement. "Thankfully, the Trump administration has already embarked on a vitally necessary complete audit of each and every government program. We offer, in this report, what we hope are additional resources and tools that the new administration and Congress can use to identify, destroy and permanently remove DEI from the federal government." FGI spokesman Roderick Law explained to Fox News Digital that the dual study "could both expedite the elimination of DEI from the executive branch and show just how quickly pernicious ideologies can spread inside the government." "The nature of DEI is both divisive and anti-American," Law added, "so why force it onto the military or the Commerce Department or the EPA? After President Biden lavishly funded and pushed these controversial principles into every possible area of government, our hope is that raising these questions and offering Congress and responsible executive branch officials tools and suggestions can keep it from happening again." The Trump administration has made it a top priority to rid DEI from the federal bureaucracy and the president has signed multiple executive orders aimed at addressing what it argues is a practice that does more harm than good by ignoring meritocracy. Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for comment.
