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Andy Kroll

Andy Kroll
@AndyKroll

Oct 29
16 tweets
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1/ Hey, y’all - I’ve got a new investigation out. We obtained never-before-seen videos featuring RUSS VOUGHT, a leader in the MAGA movement and former Trump official. He lays out his sweeping plans for a second Trump admin — and his extreme vision for the country. It's 🧵 time

A photo of Trump ally and former Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought.
2/ Along w/ @ProPublica’s @Molly Redden + @Documented, we obtained two videos of speeches that Vought delivered. These videos were not public. They’re the clearest view yet of what Vought believes & how he'd empower Trump's extreme policies if Trump wins. propublica.org/article/video-
Private videos reveal Trump adviser Russ Vought’s “shadow” plans for using the military on protesters, defunding the EPA and villainizing civil servants.
propublica.org/article/video-…
“Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda
3/ Who is Russ Vought? He’s an influential figure in Trumpworld. Ran the Office of Management and Budget under Trump. Policy director of the RNC's platform committee. And an architect of Project 2025, whose secret training videos @ProPublica revealed: propublica.org/article/inside
“Eradicate climate change references”; only talk to conservative media; don’t leave a paper trail for watchdogs to discover. In a series of never-before-published videos, Project 2025 details how a...
propublica.org/article/inside…
Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos
4/ Trump has criticized Project 2025. His reps told us Project 2025 has nothing to do with the campaign. But behind the scenes, Vought said that Trump “blessed” the Center for Renewing America, Vought’s think tank that's part of Project 2025. Per @CNN: cnn.com/2024/08/15/pol
Russell Vought, a co-author of Project 2025, was caught on a secretly recorded video saying that Trump’s denials of any connection with the conservative policy blueprint were politics.
cnn.com/2024/08/15/pol…
In secretly recorded video, Project 2025 co-author says he’s drafted hundreds of executive orders...
5/ Put simply, we should take seriously what Vought has to say. Especially in private. In the videos we obtained, Vought describes “shadow” planning to - use the military on American soil - defund agencies like the EPA - put civil servants “in trauma” propublica.org/article/video-
Private videos reveal Trump adviser Russ Vought’s “shadow” plans for using the military on protesters, defunding the EPA and villainizing civil servants.
propublica.org/article/video-…
“Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda
6/ Not only did we publish an exclusive story with our reporting about the Vought videos. We published excerpts of Vought’s speeches. You can watch them here: youtube.com/watch?v=zhrhyB
7/ Vought says his team drafted legal rationales for executive actions like using the Insurrection Act. “We want to be able to shut down the riots & not have the legal community or the defense community come in and say, ‘That’s an inappropriate use of what you’re trying to do.’”
A story excerpt that reads: Vought laid out how his think tank is crafting the legal rationale for invoking the Insurrection Act, a law that gives the president broad power to use the military for domestic law enforcement. The Washington Post previously reported the issue was at the top of the Center for Renewing America’s priorities. “We want to be able to shut down the riots and not have the legal community or the defense community come in and say, ‘That’s an inappropriate use of what you’re trying to do,’” he said. Vought held up the summer 2020 unrest following George Floyd’s murder as an example of when Trump ought to have had the ability to deploy the armed forces but was stymied.
8/ Another priority, Vought said, was to “defund” independent federal agencies and demonize career civil servants including scientists and issue experts. Project 2025’s plan to revive Schedule F aligns with Vought’s vision. Here’s a Schedule F explainer: protectdemocracy.org/work/trumps-sc
In October 2020, the Trump Administration issued an executive order called Schedule F that would have stripped protections from civil servants perceived as disloyal.
protectdemocracy.org/work/trumps-sc…
Trump’s Schedule F plan, explained
9/ Vought goes much further in these speeches about his plan to villainize nonpartisan gov’t workers. He wants to demoralize them. Or as he says, “We want to put them in trauma.” WATCH 👇 youtube.com/watch?v=oBH9Tm
10/ Vought endorsed a plan to invoke war powers to deploy military forces to the U.S.-Mexico border. He said he helped seed this idea with Arizona’s AG in 2022. “We said, ‘Look, you can write your own opinion, but here’s a draft opinion of what this should look like,’” he said.
A story excerpt that reads: Vought also revealed the extent of the Center for Renewing America’s role in whipping up right-wing panic ahead of the 2022 midterms over an increase in asylum-seekers crossing at the U.S.-Mexico border. In February 2022, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich released a legal opinion claiming the state was under “invasion” by violent cartels and could invoke war powers to deploy National Guard troops to its southern border. The legally dubious “invasion” theory became a potent Republican talking point. Vought said in the 2023 speech that he and Cuccinelli, the former top Homeland Security official for Trump, personally lobbied Brnovich on the effort. “We said, ‘Look, you can write your own opinion, but here’s a draft opinion of what this should look like,’” Vought said.
11/ The videos also give us a rare glimpse at a MAGA movement leader’s worldview and broad vision for the country. At its core, Vought’s ideology says the “Marxist” left and federal gov’t have waged a “quiet revolution,” replacing democracy w/ a “post-constitutional regime.”
A story excerpt that reads: The two speeches delivered by Vought, taken together, offer an unvarnished look at the animating ideology and political worldview of a key figure in the MAGA movement. Over the last century, Vought said, the U.S. has “experienced nothing short of a quiet revolution” and abandoned what he saw as the true meaning and force of the Constitution. The country today, he argued, was a “post-constitutional regime,” one that no longer adhered to the separation of powers among the three branches of government as laid out by the framers. He lamented that the conservative right and the nation writ large had become “too secular” and “too globalist.” He urged his allies to join his mission to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.”
12/ Interestingly, he blamed both liberals and conservatives for this. In particular, he blasted the Federalist Society, co-chaired by Leonard Leo, and “originalist judges” for upholding this supposedly illegitimate “regime.”
A story excerpt that reads: Yet in his 2024 speech, Vought accused the Federalist Society and “originalist judges” of being a part of the problem, perpetuating the “post-constitutional structure” that Vought lamented by not ruling more aggressively to weaken or dismantle independent regulatory agencies that Vought and his allies view as illegitimate or unconstitutional. It was “like being in a contract quietly revoked two decades ago, in which one party didn’t tell the other,” he said. “At some point, reality needs to set in. Instead, we have the vaunted so-called Federalist Society and originalist judges acting as a Praetorian Guard for this post-constitutional structure.”
13/ He said in the private speeches that the US has become “too secular” and “too globalist,” and needed to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.” He also made a chilling analogy as he echoed Trump’s 2020 stolen-election claims, which are, of course, unproven.
A story excerpt that reads: “In the aftermath of the election, we had all these people going around saying, ‘Well, I don’t see any evidence of voter fraud. The media’s not giving enough [of] a compelling case,’” he said. “Well, that compelling case has emerged. But does a Christian in China ask and come away saying, ‘You know, there’s no persecution, because I haven’t read about it in the state regime press?’ No, they don’t.”
14/ But perhaps the most alarming rhetorical flourish of Vought’s was when he compared the 2024 elections to two specific dates in time: 1776 and 1860. Moments in our history when the country was facing all-out war. “God put us here for such a time as this,” he said.
A story excerpt that reads: “We are here in the year of 2024, a year that very well [could] — and I believe it will — rival 1776 and 1860 for the complexity and the uncertainty of the forces arrayed against us,” Vought told his audience, referring to years when the colonies declared independence from Britain and the first state seceded over President Abraham Lincoln’s election. “God put us here for such a time as this.”
15/ Vought and the Center for Renewing America did not respond to ProPublica’s repeated requests for comment. The Trump campaign and Arizona’s AG did respond. We included their comments in the story. You can read them both below.
A story excerpt that reads: "Since the Fall of 2023, President Trump’s campaign made it clear that only President Trump and the campaign, and NOT any other organization or former staff, represent policies for the second term,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement. She did not directly address Vought’s statements. Karoline Leavitt, his campaign’s national press secretary, added there have been no discussions on who would serve in a second Trump administration. In addition to running his think tank, Vought was the policy director of the Republican National Committee’s official platform committee ahead of the nominating convention. He’s also an architect of Project 2025, the controversial coalition effort mapping out how a second Trump administration can quickly eliminate obstacles to rolling out a hard-right policy agenda.
A story excerpt that reads: Brnovich wrote in an email to ProPublica that he recalled multiple discussions with Cuccinelli about border security. But he added that “the invasion opinion was the result of a formal request from a member of the Arizona legislature. And I can assure you it was drafted and written by hard working attorneys (including myself) in our office.”
16/END - Please read and share our story. Watch the videos. If you’re an **insider** with a tip or documents you can share, I’m on Signal at 202-215-6203. propublica.org/article/video-
Private videos reveal Trump adviser Russ Vought’s “shadow” plans for using the military on protesters, defunding the EPA and villainizing civil servants.
propublica.org/article/video-…
“Put Them in Trauma”: Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda
Andy Kroll

Andy Kroll

@AndyKroll
@ProPublica reporter. Send me tips and ideas: https://t.co/RVUvn1D8Pw Read/listen to my book, A DEATH ON W STREET: https://t.co/CDQuADvL1d
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