President Donald Trump has made an ominous comment about what the Project 2025 architect Russ Vought has in store.
Trump, 80, mentioned Vought during a speech at the future site of a Navy submarine manufacturing plant in Baltimore. Vought attended, as did Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration officials.
“We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks, right, Russ?” Trump said to Vought, who now leads the White House budget office. “He’s going to be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion. He’s got some great things happening.”
Though Vought, 50, largely stays behind the scenes, his job is one of the most influential in the administration.
During his tenure as director of the Office of Management and Budget, he has overseen the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the civil service and the dispensing of funds appropriated by Congress. Vought had the same job during the second half of Trump’s first term; then, he froze $214 million in security aid for Ukraine and redirected Defense Department money for the southern border wall after Congress refused to fund it.
Trump has called Vought his “Grim Reaper” because of his cuts, and Vought has used other roles beyond OMB to live up to that moniker.
While serving as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Vought tried to fire over 90 percent of staff, and did not even request funding for the agency. Its funding source, the Federal Reserve, was illegal, he argued in an attempt to “put it out.” But in December, a judge ruled that CFPB funding cannot lapse.
Last August, Vought was also tasked with “overseeing” the closeout of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast about what Trump hinted at regarding Vought.
In the Trump administration’s budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, which began last week, one priority was “reinvigorating” the military through a massive funding increase.
“The Budget builds upon the historic $1 trillion overall Defense topline for 2026 and requests $1.5 trillion in total budgetary resources for 2027,” an OMB release states. “This is a $445 billion or 42-percent increase from the 2026 total resource level. Of this amount, the Budget includes $1.1 trillion in base discretionary budget authority specifically for [the Defense Department] in 2027.”
This substantial ask comes after seven months of Trump’s unpopular war against Iran, which he said at the outset would last only four to six weeks.
During congressional testimony in July, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed the cost of the war up to that point: $37.5 billion. He then asked lawmakers for $67 billion more to continue it.
