The Voters Spooked Trump. His Grimmest Reaper Fears No One

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He may not grab the headlines like Stephen Miller, but Russell Vought is the White House’s true go-to ghoul—just ask the children he’s taken food from.

Stephen Miller is the most manifestly malevolent figure of the Creep State that remains in power, despite the Trump administration’s reckoning with the electorate.

But the greater threat to our democracy is an unholy warrior whose name is ironically pronounced “vote.”

Russell Vought has said he considered becoming a preacher but that “God had other plans.” The 50-year-old director of the Office of Management and Budget apparently believes the Almighty intended him to be not only the author of Project 2025’s scheme to extend executive power but also, as indicated by Trump during an October campaign speech, a major planner of what might be termed Project 2027.

“We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks, right, Russ?” Trump said in October. “He’s going to be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion.”

Trump said that before the midterms, but Vought and votes are independent enough of each other that the outcome is unlikely to have scuttled those still-unnamed “big surprises.”

Vought will no doubt continue to be the primary agent of the Deep State, a lesser-known figure who has already played a more prominent role in Trump’s schemes than most people realize. He appears to have been the foremost agent in selecting targets for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“DOGE is underneath the OMB,” Michelle Martin of Citizens for Renewing America, a conservative nonprofit founded by Vought, reportedly said in 2025. “Honestly, a lot of what Elon began pinpointing… was at the direction of Russ.”

Martin subsequently married Vought, but her estimate of his influence in the Trump administration has not been challenged.

In October 2025, Trump posted a video featuring an AI image of Vought that was apparently meant as a parody but isn’t at all funny. An AI Trump rings a cowbell as JD Vance plays the drums to kick off a cover of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult.

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