DEATH AND TAXES

The Voters Spooked Trump. His Grimmest Reaper Fears No One

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.

Opinion

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. The Capitol stands in the background as a grim Vought appears in a black cowl, wielding a scythe.

“Now the time has come. Here the power’s gone. Russ Vought is the Reaper, he has the pen, the funds, and the brain. Here comes the Reaper.”

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Vought was the grimmest of reapers when he was tasked with shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Epidemiologists had estimated that more than 500,000 children died as a result. There was no cowl to obscure Vought’s expression when Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin questioned him about the deaths during a House Committee on Appropriations hearing in June. Pocan had been elected seven times and was running uncontested this year.

“Do you concur that multiple studies have shown that people, both adults and children, across the globe have died because of cuts to programs like USAID?” Pocan asked.

Vought’s unshadowed face clearly showed contempt and not a trace of remorse.

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“I do not concur with the validity of those studies,” Vought replied.

“One of your co-conspirators, Elon Musk, has recently been going nuts, trying to claim no one’s died,” Pocan observed. “And he asked to name names. So, let me mention a few people who’ve died because of these cuts.”

Pocan named a child who had died of starvation in a refugee camp and one of 6-month-old twins who had died in Uganda.

“If I submit some of these names of people who have allegedly died due to cuts, will you personally reach out to find out if they have, since you’re saying no one’s died?” Pocan asked.

“I will personally read all correspondence that Congress gives me and do everything I can to be responsive to them,” Vought replied.

“Is it morally wrong to facilitate the killing of children?” Pocan said.

“I think we’re not doing that,” Vought replied.

Pocan noted that Vought had described himself as a Christian nationalist who believes that our rights and duties come from God.

“Isaiah 58:7 commands, ‘Share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter,’” Pocan continued. “Are you saying God was misquoted or wrong?”

“I’m sorry, what does that have to do with the question?” Vought replied.

Vought’s glower might have been partly due to the Senate nearly rejecting his appointment as deputy director of OMB in 2018, when it turned out he had written the year before that Muslims have a “deficient theology” and “stand condemned” for failing to embrace Jesus Christ. He was now back as the director.

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Vought’s tone suggested that he saw Pocan and, no doubt, other political opponents as hindrances to his mission. But the midterms challenged the assertion in the Grim Reaper video, now that the power’s gone from the Capitol.

He has long sought to overcome Congress’s funding authority by selectively refusing to disburse the money. He withheld billions in funding for everything from cancer research to aid for Ukraine that Congress had already approved, but of which Vought had disapproved.

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President Richard Nixon attempted this in 1972 after Congress overrode his veto of $11 billion in funding for local governments to build municipal water treatment plants. New York City sued, and the U.S. Supreme Court found in its favor, noting that the founders had made clear that only the legislative branch can allocate funds.

Congress had further enshrined that with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The legal power of the executive did not include impounding or otherwise hampering appropriations made by Congress.

That did not stop Vought from holding up $4.9 billion in foreign aid. Those who spoke out against the maneuver included Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who might not have lost her seat in the midterms had she spoken out more often against the Trump administration’s transgressions.

“Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said in a statement. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”

She added: “Article I of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse. Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”

That has not stopped the Grimmest Reaper, who is all but sure to remain a ghoul among goons as the Creep State continues to use the conniving of his Project 2027 against the power of votes.

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Michael DalySpecial Correspondent

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