Democrats sound alarm over ‘extremist’ Project 2025 architect tapped to lead Trump’s budget office – live
Democrats sound alarm about Project 2025 architect in leading budget role
During their protest of Russell Vought’s confirmation, Senate Democrats sounded the alarm about Vought’s role in drafting Project 2025 and his support for vastly expanding the power of the president.
Vought, said Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin at 10:30 pm eastern time on Wednesday, “has openly called for the president to defy congress and take control of federal funding decisions that are constitutionally vested in the legislative branch.”
Schiff accused the Trump administration of unlawfully attempting to break down the separation of powers and said Vought would play a role in aiding that effort.
“This is an effort to try to consolidate power, all the power of this government, in the hands of Donald Trump and a few of his hand-picked very wealthy, billionaire friends,” said California Democrat Adam Schiff.
“Russell Vought is an extremist who will betray working families, will betray your family, and there’s simply no other way to put it,” said Nevada senator Jacky Rosen Thursday morning. “After all, he was the main architect behind [the] Project 2025 agenda.”
Key events
Musk sought to use Treasury system to block USAid funding – report
According to new reporting by CNN, associates of Elon Musk sought to use the highly-sensitive Treasury payment system to block funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
According to the report, a Musk associate asked the acting Treasury secretary, David Lebryk, to stop USAID payments using the Treasury’s internal payment system. When Lebryk pushed back, saying he lacked the “legal authority” to do so, Musk’s lieutenant suggested it would be illegal for Lebryk not to comply.
The Trump administration ramped up pressure on US government workers on Thursday to accept a buyout offer ahead of a midnight deadline as labor unions urged members to remain in their jobs and sought to block the proposal in court, Reuters reports.
In emails sent out on Thursday, the administration emphasized that the offer expires at 11:59 p.m. eastern time and told workers that those who do not accept it could still lose their jobs.
“At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position,” the message read, according to a copy seen by Reuters.
Trump says attorney general will lead task force to root out ‘anti-Christian bias’
Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to root out “anti-Christian bias” in the US, announcing that he was forming a task force led by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the “targeting” of Christians, the Associated Press reports.
Speaking at pair of events in Washington surrounding the the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump said the task force would be directed to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI — terrible — and other agencies.”
Trump said Bondi would also work to “fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.”
The president’s comments came after he joined the National Prayer Breakfast at the Capitol, a more than 70-year-old Washington tradition that brings together a bipartisan group of lawmakers for fellowship, and told lawmakers there that his relationship with religion had “changed” after a pair of failed assassination attempts last year and urged Americans to “bring God back” into their lives.
An hour after calling for “unity” on Capitol Hill, though, Trump struck a more partisan tone at the second event across town, announcing that, in addition to the task force, he was forming a commission on religious liberty, criticizing the Joe Biden administration for “persecution” of believers for prosecuting anti-abortion advocates.
Senate Democrats’ marathon session to oppose Russell Vought’s confirmation as head of the Office of Management and Budget continued through Thursday morning.
During the session, senators described the Trump administration’s efforts to sharply curtail congressionally-appropriated funding for federal grants as unconstitutional – and pointed to Vought’s support for such policies.
“At stake is our very notion of self-government, a notion that Mr. Vought appears to disdain,” said New Hampshire senator Maggie Hassan. “The right of congress, the first of the three branches of government provided for in the constitution, to make laws and appropriate funds, was made clear first in our constitution and then in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.”
Vought’s think tank, Center for Renewing America, has called the Impoundment Control Act – which limits the president’s ability to temporarily withhold congressionally-approved funding – unconstitutional.
Democrats sound alarm about Project 2025 architect in leading budget role
During their protest of Russell Vought’s confirmation, Senate Democrats sounded the alarm about Vought’s role in drafting Project 2025 and his support for vastly expanding the power of the president.
Vought, said Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin at 10:30 pm eastern time on Wednesday, “has openly called for the president to defy congress and take control of federal funding decisions that are constitutionally vested in the legislative branch.”
Schiff accused the Trump administration of unlawfully attempting to break down the separation of powers and said Vought would play a role in aiding that effort.
“This is an effort to try to consolidate power, all the power of this government, in the hands of Donald Trump and a few of his hand-picked very wealthy, billionaire friends,” said California Democrat Adam Schiff.
“Russell Vought is an extremist who will betray working families, will betray your family, and there’s simply no other way to put it,” said Nevada senator Jacky Rosen Thursday morning. “After all, he was the main architect behind [the] Project 2025 agenda.”
Democrats have objected strongly to Vought’s nomination, boycotting a vote by the Senate budget committee to pass his nomination along to the full Senate and holding overnight speeches from Wednesday to Thursday in protest.
“Why on earth would any one of us confirm someone whose entire game plan is to break the law and dare the world to stop him?” said Senator Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who serves as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Who is Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget?
Russell Vought, a key Trump ally who helped architect the Heritage Foundation’s notorious Project 2025 – a strategy document laying out plans for a rightwing presidency – is an experienced Washington operative. He filled the role of OMB director at the end of Trump’s first term and when the president left office, founded a thinktank and began plotting out policy ideas for a possible second Trump term.
His think tank, called Center for Renewing America, has advocated for the use of the Insurrection Act to send the military to the US-Mexico border, and for the president to take unprecedented control over the budgetary process – which is legally controlled by Congress.
In addition to his experience in DC, Vought is known for his far-right and Christian nationalist beliefs, and has reportedly planned to infuse them into Trump’s administration.
According to reporting by ProPublica and the research group Documented, Vought has advocated for a strategy to demoralize and reduce the size of the civil service by villainizing them.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he reportedly said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”
The Trump administration appears to be gaming Google to create the impression of mass deportations, by updating the timestamps on old Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) press releases, the Guardian’s Dara Kerr reports:
News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.
But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story.
That four-day operation in Colorado? It happened in November 2010. The 123 people targeted in New Orleans? That was February of last year. Wisconsin? September 2018. There are thousands of examples of this throughout all 50 states – Ice press releases that have reached the first page of Google search results, making it seem like enforcement actions just happened, when in actuality they occurred months or years ago. Some, such as the arrest of “44 absconders” in Nebraska, go back as far as 2008.
Today is the deadline for federal workers to accept a buyout offer issued to employees by the Office of Personnel Management 28 January.
The Washington Post reports that more than 40,000 people had accepted the buyout offer as of Wednesday, 5 February. Confusion over how and if, in fact, it would actually be implemented persisted as the deadline approached. Elon Musk, who leads the unofficial government program “Department of Government Efficiency” has touted the offer.
Meanwhile, federal employees have described chaos and confusion after Musk and his team took over the agency that manages the federal service.
Later today, Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Republican members of congress to discuss a budget resolution that has generated conflict among Republicans in the House over how to enact Trump’s legislative agenda.
Delays in the budgetary process are reportedly a result of headbutting over deep spending cuts. The government shutdown deadline is 14 March.
Trump hints at possible changes to FAA
At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Donald Trump alluded to possible changes to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Trump spoke about the catastrophic crash that killed 67 on a passenger jet and Army helicopter that collided midair near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington 29 January.
“You need one company with one set of equipment,” he said. “There are some countries that have unbelievable air controller systems, and bells would’ve gone off when that helicopter literally even hit the same height.”
Transportation secretary Sean Duffy said at an event Wednesday that Elon Musk planned to make drastic changes to the air traffic control system. Musk’s intervention in the foreign assistance agency USAID, has involved mass spending freezes and thousands of layoffs of contractors.
Key figure in Project 2025 expected to be confirmed as Trump’s budget chief
Democrats held the senate floor overnight last night to protest the nomination of Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget.
The Senate has been in session since 10:30 am eastern time on Wednesday, with Democratic senators holding speeches throughout the night to denounce Donald Trump’s nominee. Vought, who directed the OMB once before, during Trump’s first term, was a key figure in drafting Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation strategy document that envisions a dramatic consolidation of power by the executive branch.
If confirmed, Vought would lead the office that issued a memo to freeze federal grant funding two weeks into Trump’s presidency. Although Vought did not head the OMB at the time that the memo was issued, it neatly matched his vision for the executive branch wresting control of the budgetary process.
“They are refusing to let Russell Vought pillage programs like Head Start, like Meals on Wheels, like so many others,” said California senator Alex Padilla Thursday morning. “A question to my colleagues across the aisle: who are you more loyal to, your own constituents, or a reckless president?”
Vought is expected to be confirmed at 7pm Thursday.
A new and starkly different vision for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been outlined by the Trump administration – one that involves mass staff cuts, an influx of industry lobbyists and, unusually, the promotion of artificial intelligence as a key agency priority.
A set of five “pillars” issued by new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin to guide the agency, set up under Richard Nixon in 1970 to protect US public health and the environment, does include one referencing “clean land, air and water for every American”.
But the other four priorities move into areas beyond the traditional mission of the EPA, such as bolstering “American energy dominance”, a pledge to speed up the approvals of new projects such as oil and gas drilling, a focus on ensuring “a great comeback of the auto industry” and a promise to “make the United States the Artificial Intelligence capital of the world”.
The new set of priorities come amid tumult at the EPA, where more than 1,000 members of staff have been told they face being immediately fired.
Read the full story here:
As mentioned in our opening post, President Trump’s nomination for US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, is due to attend a congressional hearing as part of his confirmation process.
The hearing, before the Senate finance committee, will begin at 10am eastern time (3pm GMT).
Greer served as chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative during Trump’s first term.
He was previously in the military, serving with the legal arm of the US air force in Iraq, and is currently an attorney specialising in international trade.
Greer is expected to say his focus would be on supporting well-paid jobs for American workers and that resilient supply chains are necessary for economic and national security.
Speaking in 2023, he name-checked the UK as a possible partner for a future free trade deal last year.
“I recommend that the United States seek market access in non-Chinese markets in incremental, sectoral and bilateral agreements with other countries,” he said.
“Focusing on trading partners such as the United Kingdom, Kenya, the Philippines and India would be a good start.
We have another post now from Donald Trump’s Truth Social account, this one repeating inaccurate claims about federal funds paid to political publication Politico.
Recent days have seen a number of viral social media posts claiming that USAID, the US government’s aid agency, gave Politico $8m (£6.5m) in federal funding.
“LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN [SIC] AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS,” Trump wrote.
“THE LEFT WING ‘RAG,’ KNOWN AS ‘POLITICO,’ SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did???
“THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!”
It’s true that federal funds were spent with Politico, but the money was in fact used to buy subscriptions to Politico Pro, a premium service separate from the better-known website that provides in-depth analysis and digital tools for specialists and industry figures. Subscriptions typically cost thousands of dollars per year.
The $8m figure is also the amount spent by all government departments and agencies between fiscal years 2016 and 2025, conservative outlet The Dispatch reports. The actual figure from USAID was $44,000.
‘No US soldiers needed’ for Gaza plan, says Trump
Donald Trump has said no US soldiers would be needed to enforce his plan for the US to take control of Gaza.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He said the Palestinians in Gaza would have “already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region” and would “actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free”.
“The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth,” he said.
“No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!!!”
Here’s some more detail on that executive order President Trump signed on Wednesday banning transgender athletes from taking part in women’s sports.
The order said it was intended to “protect opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports”.
“In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports,” it read.
“This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
It called for “immediate enforcement” nationwide and threatened to cut off federal funding for any school that allows trans women or girls to compete in female competitions.
The order is likely to face legal challenges and has already drawn opposition from trans right groups.
Athlete Ally, a non-profit athletic advocacy group, said in a statement: “We’ve known this day was likely to occur for a long time, as this administration continues to pursue simple solutions to complex issues, often resulting in animus towards the most marginalized communities in our country.”
Trump order bans trans athletes from women’s sports as officials walk back from Gaza comments
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog, where still much of the focus is on Donald Trump’s comments on Tuesday that the US could “take over” Gaza.
The suggestion has been met with anger and blunt rejection from regional allies and a warning against “ethnic cleansing” from the head of the UN.
Trump officials, meanwhile, appeared intent to walk back his position and you can follow developments in our Middle East live blog here
Of course, there are still many other foreign and domestic developments as Trump’s second term gets under way.
On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports and threatening to cut off federal funding for any school that allows trans women or girls to compete in female-designated sporting competitions
Meanwhile, a federal judge who already questioned the constitutionality of Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order is set to hear arguments today over a longer-term pause of the directive, which aims to end citizenship for children born to parents not legally in the country.
US District Judge John Coughenour’s case in Seattle comes just a day after a Maryland federal judge issued a nationwide pause in a separate but similar case.
On tariffs, the first of 10,000 troops Mexico promised to send to its northern border after Trump agreed to delay the imposition of tariffs have arrived. Trump has said he wants the country to do more to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal migration into the US. He has also delayed measures against Canada but is continuing with his China tariffs.
And Trump’s nominee for US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, will appear before a Senate confirmation hearing today. Greer, who served as chief of staff to the trade representative in Trump’s first term, has previously backed trade deal with a number of other countries, including the UK, and is expected to say he would focus on securing jobs that pay American workers well.
We’ll be bringing you more on these issues and all other US politics news through the day.
