The Shadow President: From the wholesale gutting of federal agencies to the ongoing government shutdown, Russell Vought has drawn the road map for Trump’s second term.

Friends,

Every empire has its architects. In this vein, I urge you to read Andy Kroll’s extraordinary investigative report in ProPublica co-published with The New Yorker titled “The Shadow President,” to grasp the blueprint currently driving the dismantling of our democracy.

Russell Vought isn’t just a budget man. He’s another so-called Christian who wields faith as a weapon while dismantling the very institutions meant to serve the public good. With echoes of Steve Bannon's strategy of "muzzle velocity,"the overzealous architect of a shock-and-awe campaign to hollow out the federal state, Vought has consolidated unmatched power within the Office of Management and Budget—engineering mass firings, freezing funds, and paralyzing entire agencies to advance an authoritarian vision of executive supremacy. This is governance by harm: deliberate chaos, funding clawbacks, and a calculated indifference to human suffering—from refugees and educators to scientists and the elderly.

As Kroll reveals, Vought’s hand also guides Project 2025, the sweeping plan devised by the far right to concentrate power in the presidency, purge the civil service, and impose a Christian nationalist order on public life. His approach amounts to policy as punishment—a campaign that treats human consequences as collateral damage in an ideological crusade. If Trump is the showman, Vought is the strategist—the man with the map, the machinery, and the will to use both.

— Angela Valenzuela

The Shadow President: 

From the wholesale gutting of federal agencies to the ongoing government shutdown, Russell Vought has drawn the road map for Trump’s second term. 

by Andy Kroll Oct. 17, 2025, 6 a.m. EDT 
Co-published with The New Yorker

The Shadow President From the wholesale gutting of federal agencies to the ongoing government shutdown, Russell Vought has drawn the road map for Trump’s second term. Vought has consolidated power to an extent that insiders say they feel like “he is the commander in chief.” by Andy Kroll Oct. 17, 2025, 6 a.m. EDT

On the afternoon of Feb. 12, Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, summoned a small group of career staffers to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for a meeting about foreign aid. A storm had dumped nearly 6 inches of snow on Washington, D.C. The rest of the federal government was running on a two-hour delay, but Vought had offered his team no such reprieve. As they filed into a second-floor conference room decorated with photos of past OMB directors, Vought took his seat at the center of a worn wooden table and laid his briefing materials out before him.

Vought, a bookish technocrat with an encyclopedic knowledge of the inner workings of the U.S. government, cuts an unusual figure in Trump’s inner circle of Fox News hosts and right-­wing influencers. He speaks in a flat, nasally monotone and, with his tortoiseshell glasses, standard-issue blue suits and corona of close-cropped hair, most resembles what he claims to despise: a federal bureaucrat. The Office of Management and Budget, like Vought himself, is little known outside the Beltway and poorly understood even among political insiders. What it lacks in cachet, however, it makes up for in the vast influence it wields across the government. Samuel Bagenstos, an OMB general counsel during the Biden administration, told me, “Every goddam thing in the executive branch goes through OMB.”

The OMB reviews all significant regulations proposed by individual agencies. It vets executive orders before the president signs them. It issues workforce policies for more than 2 million federal employees. Most notably, every penny appropriated by Congress is dispensed by the OMB, making the agency a potential choke point in a federal bureaucracy that currently spends about $7 trillion a year. Shalanda Young, Vought’s predecessor, told me, “If you’re OK with your name not being in the spotlight and just getting stuff done,” then directing the OMB “can be one of the most powerful jobs in D.C.”

During Donald Trump’s first term, Vought (whose name is pronounced “vote”) did more than perhaps anyone else to turn the president’s demands and personal grievances into government action. In 2019, after Congress refused to fund Trump’s border wall, Vought, then the acting director of the OMB, redirected billions of dollars in Department of Defense money to build it. Later that year, after the Trump White House pressured Ukraine’s government to investigate Joe Biden, who was running for president, Vought froze $214 million in security assistance for Ukraine. “The president loved Russ because he could count on him,” Mark Paoletta, who has served as the OMB general counsel in both Trump administrations, said at a conservative policy summit in 2022, according to a recording I obtained. “He wasn’t a showboat, and he was committed to doing what the president wanted to do.”

After the pro-Trump riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many Republicans, including top administration officials, disavowed the president. Vought remained loyal. He echoed Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud and publicly defended people who were arrested for their participation in the melee. During the Biden years, Vought labored to translate the lessons of Trump’s tumultuous first term into a more effective second presidency. He chaired the transition portion of Project 2025, a joint effort by a coalition of conservative groups to develop a road map for the next Republican administration, helping to draft some 350 executive orders, regulations and other plans to more fully empower the president. “Despite his best thinking and the ­aggressive things they tried in Trump One, nothing really stuck,” a former OMB branch chief who served under Vought during the first Trump administration told me. “Most administrations don’t get a four-year pause or have the chance to think about ‘Why isn’t this working?’” The former branch chief added, “Now he gets to come back and steamroll everyone.”

“The President loved Russ because he could count on him,” said OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta of Vought, seen at the microphone in the White House in 2019. Credit: Evan Vucci/AP Images

"The Student Protestors were Arrested: The Man Who Got Violent Wasn't," by Nicole Carr with ProPublica

ProPublica, in the coming weeks, is covering school board unrest that is playing out across the U.S. and how this hateful agenda is fostering violence in our country. "Something is very wrong," is echoed by a teacher interviewed for this story. 

This is the exact point that I address in my My Mother's Day Reflection that, drawing on Nancy MacLean, shows how this is a contrived agenda as opposed to an actual, “cultural war.” Transgender youth, drag queens, immigrants, and people of color, generally, are not at war at all! Rather what we see happening right now is an outright attack on our youth and communities that just want to be free to express themselves and live lives fully not unlike the rest of us.

My reflection lays this all out as a hostile agenda that is the fruit of a decades-old political project by global elites that Dr. Nancy McLean documents so very well. I urge all to read her book, Democracy in Chains.

My hope is that we in the advocacy community not experience sadness or despair. Rather, what we have to do is double down in our shared commitment to make a better world.



I am very hopeful. There’s so much reason to be hopeful—not the least of which is a growing youth movement. Read here, for example, a counter-story about youth leader Cameron Samuels with whom I spoke last night, titled, How a Texas student packed school board meetings to challenge book bans: Cameron Samuels, a graduating senior in Katy Independent School District, organized students to fight the district’s internet content filters and book bans.

Cameron has also been involved this legislative session. My message to him and all concerned youth and parents is that we are with you in solidarity and urge you to keep on keeping on!

Do follow Cameron Samuels and the youth organization he co-founded named, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) and follow them on Instagram: @studentsengagedtx

This organization is promoting, among other things, youth advocacy and visibility in policymaking.

My grandpa used to always say in Spanish, "No hay ningún mal que dure cien años, ni tonto que lo sostenga." ["There is no evil that lasts a hundred years, nor a fool that will put up with it."] Somehow, that's always comforted me when I think of the slow pace of change in policy and society.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

#TransLivesMatter

Reference

MacLean, N. (2018). Democracy in chains: The deep history of the radical right's stealth plan for America. Penguin.

 The Student Protestors were Arrested: The Man Who Got Violent Wasn't

by Nicole Carr; Photography by Terra Fondriest for ProPublicaMay 13, 5 a.m. EDT

When one police officer heard the radio call for backup at a high school campus outside Little Rock, Arkansas, he first thought there’d been a problem at a football game. The indecipherable chanting in the background sounded like roars from the bleachers. But it turned out that the rhythmic rallying call that November night last year was coming from the lobby outside a school board meeting.

The prior two meetings, in September and October, had been held in Conway High School’s huge auditorium, equipped with ample seating and plenty of parking for what had, as of late, been larger crowds. There also had been an unusual amount of conflict. The day after the September meeting, police showed up at the homes of two residents to investigate separate incidents allegedly related to that meeting. At the October meeting, shortly before the board’s vote on policies that would restrict the rights of transgender students, a local grandfather stepped up to the microphone and warned the board about the sins of the LGBTQ+ community. “They invent ways of doing evil,” the man said during the public comment period. “But let me remind you that those that do such things deserve death.”

Alex Barnett, a junior philosophy major at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, learned about tensions at the meetings on Instagram, where a video of the anti-LQBTQ+ comment to the board had gone viral. Barnett was motivated to do something. He pulled together a group, including members of a nascent Young Democratic Socialists club, at another student’s apartment. They brainstormed ideas for voicing opposition to the school board’s decision to pass the policies on transgender students.

Alex Barnett sits in a park across from the Conway High School campus, where a school board meeting took place last fall.

Barnett had learned that the board had moved its November meeting back to the much smaller administration building and had decided to skip the part of the agenda where attendees could share their views. Given that none of the college students would be able to speak directly to board members, Barnett made a suggestion: “Well, why don’t we just go into the school board meeting and shut everything down?”

When the late-arriving backup officers got to the building, they first encountered a cluster of community members protesting on the sidewalk, some of whom had joined high schoolers staging a Conway High walkout earlier that day. Inside, the officers found a group of young people sitting on the lobby floor, their arms linked and their voices loud. “Trans Lives Matter!” they chanted. The officers warned them to clear out of the lobby. But they remained planted on the floor.

“I’ll start with this one here,” one officer said, leaning over Barnett. “You are required to leave. If you do not leave you’re being arrested. Do you understand?”

Barnett did not budge.

“Take him into custody,” the officer said, pointing to two other officers. The trio pulled Barnett off the lobby floor, clamping handcuffs on his wrists.

Another of the student protesters then calmly allowed officers to cuff him, accepting the arrest as the consequence of his resistance. A third protester kept chanting as he, too, was arrested. “These policies are discriminatory!” he yelled as officers ushered him out of the lobby. “Let them use the fucking bathroom!”

After pausing for eight minutes during the loudest of the chanting, the school board meeting resumed without interruption.

ProPublica has identified 59 people arrested or charged over an 18-month period as a result of turmoil at school board meetings across the country. The majority of the individuals railed against the adoption of mask mandates, the teaching of “divisive concepts” concerning racial inequity and the availability of books with LGBTQ+ themes in school libraries. Many of the people arrested were attempting to make a statement, narrating their interactions with police for their social-media followers. In some cases, they resorted to threats and violence.

The arrests in Conway stand out for several reasons. The college students organized in support of the issues that most other people who were arrested around the country opposed. What’s more, no arrests were made following two allegedly violent incidents stemming from the September meeting.

But the Conway arrests also reflect the pervasive challenges school districts and police departments across the country face in trying to figure out how to handle hordes of aggrieved citizens — and what to do when the clashes lead to chaos. In the coming weeks, ProPublica will be publishing stories about how that unrest has played out in various communities and has upended once-staid school board meetings.

A broken window at the home of retired teacher Cindy Nations Credit:Courtesy of Cindy Nations

The "Putinization" of Public Education: Texas superintendent tells librarians to pull books on sexuality, transgender people

What we see happening in Granbury ISD with Superintendent Glenn is nothing short of fascism, making it hard for me not to think of Vladimir Putin (read: "Putin's warning to anti-war Russians evokes Stalinist purges").

I hope folks see the irony that censorship and enforcing a fictitious narrative of heteronormativity by banning LGBTQ books is similar to what Putin is doing right now with Russians—and ostensibly, the world—to impose his fictions on the war he launched against Ukraine.

The colossal tragedy here is that there is so much freedom to be experienced in respecting and honoring difference together with observing others' dignity, especially children and youth in one's care. Hence, under the guise of upholding "the values of our community" Superintendent Glenn's words and actions send a terrible message of contempt toward those same children and youth that he should be protecting.

If, on the other hand, his motivations really are to purge Granbury ISD of those he sees as "scum and traitors," this would make Putin very proud.

Friends, this is full-blown fascism. We're a democracy. It's in our DNA.

We need to vote, run for office, and get involved in the legislative process. This hateful, fear-mongering, backwards, and morally bankrupt leadership needs to occupy the dustbin of history. The sooner, the better.

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas superintendent tells librarians to pull books on sexuality, transgender people

The Granbury superintendent’s comments, made on a leaked recording, raise constitutional concerns, legal experts said.

March 23, 2022, 12:30 PM CDT

By Mike Hixenbaugh and Jeremy Schwartz, ProPublica/The Texas Tribune

For months, conservative parents and politicians across Texas had been pressuring districts to remove from school libraries any books that contain explicit descriptions of sex, labeling several young adult novels as “pornography.” Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called for criminal investigations into school employees who make such content available to students.

Many of the titles targeted statewide have featured queer characters and storylines, but those calling for the books’ removal have repeatedly said they are concerned only with sex and vulgarity, not with suppressing the views of LGBTQ students and authors.

Glenn made a similar argument during his closed-door meeting with librarians in Granbury, which is about an hour’s drive southwest of Dallas.

“I don’t want a kid picking up a book, whether it’s about homosexuality or heterosexuality, and reading about how to hook up sexually in our libraries,” Glenn said.

He also made it clear that his concerns specifically included books with LGBTQ themes, even if they do not describe sex. Those comments, according to legal experts, raise concerns about possible violations of the First Amendment and federal civil rights laws that protect students from discrimination based on their gender and sexuality.

“And I’m going to take it a step further with you,” he said, according to the recording. “There are two genders. There’s male, and there’s female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women. And there are women that think they’re men. And again, I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries.”

Minutes later, after someone asked whether titles on racism were acceptable, Glenn said books on different cultures “are great.” 

“Specifically, what we’re getting at, let’s call it what it is, and I’m cutting to the chase on a lot of this,” Glenn said. “It’s the transgender, LGBTQ and the sex — sexuality — in books. That’s what the governor has said that he will prosecute people for, and that’s what we’re pulling out.”

Over the next two weeks, the school district embarked on one of the largest book removals in the country, pulling about 130 titles from library shelves for review. Nearly three-quarters of the removed books featured LGBTQ characters or themes, according to a ProPublica and Texas Tribune analysis. Others dealt with racism, sex ed, abortion and women’s rights. 

Two months later, a volunteer review committee voted to permanently ban three of the books and return the others to shelves. But that may not be the end of the process. 

In his recorded comments to librarians, Glenn described the review of 130 titles as the first step in a broader appraisal of library content, and a new policy approved by the school board later in January grants him and other administrators broad authority to unilaterally remove additional titles they deem inappropriate, with no formal review and no way for the public to easily find out what has been pulled from shelves.

Legal, education and First Amendment experts contacted by NBC News, ProPublica and the Tribune said the audio of the superintendent, combined with the decision to abruptly remove books from circulation, even temporarily, raises constitutional concerns.

Glenn’s comments also call into question the district’s commitment to fostering a safe and inclusive school environment for LGBTQ students and could be grounds for a complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces federal anti-discrimination laws, the experts said.

“This audio is very much evidence of anti-LGBTQ and particularly anti-trans discrimination,” said Kate Huddleston, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, who reviewed the recording at the request of NBC News, ProPublica and the Tribune. “It is very much saying the quiet part out loud in a way that provides very significant evidence that book removals in the district are occurring because of anti-LGBTQ bias.”

In a written statement, Glenn said the district was committed to supporting students of all backgrounds. And although he said the district’s primary focus is educating students, “the values of our community will always be reflected in our schools.”

“In Granbury and across Texas we are seeing parents push back and demand elected officials put safeguards in place to protect their children from materials that serve no academic purpose, but rather push a political narrative,” Glenn said in the statement. “As a result, classrooms and libraries have turned schools into battle grounds for partisan politics.”

None of Granbury’s school board trustees responded to messages requesting comment. District spokesperson Jeff Meador sent a statement emphasizing that all of the books permanently removed from shelves in Granbury are “sexually explicit and not age-appropriate” and noting that district libraries “continue to house a socially and culturally diverse collection of books for students to read, including books which analyze and explore LGBTQ+ issues.” 

The three books the committee voted to remove were “This Book Is Gay,” a coming out guide for LGBTQ teens by transgender author Juno Dawson that includes detailed descriptions of sex; “Out of Darkness,” by Ashley Hope Pérez, a young adult novel about a romance between a Mexican American girl and a Black boy that includes a rape scene and other mature content; and “We Are the Ants,” by Shaun David Hutchinson, a coming-of-age novel about a gay teenager that includes explicit sexual language.

At least one member of the volunteer review committee was dissatisfied that only three books have been permanently removed so far, and she has started calling for a second review of the ones that have been returned.

“There are people who want to tear down values and force theirs and then also force acceptance,” Monica Brown, the committee member, said in a Facebook video following the decision. Brown did not respond to a request for comment. 

One of the Granbury ISD employees in attendance at the Jan. 10 meeting with librarians said that regardless of which books are pulled from shelves or returned, Glenn’s comments left her afraid to display or purchase LGBTQ books going forward — a chilling effect that she said could limit the diversity of Granbury library catalogs for years to come. The staff member, who was not the source of the audio, spoke on the condition that she not be named, because she feared retaliation from the district.

“He literally said books on trans issues have no place in a school,” she said. “It was alarming.”

The superintendent’s comments reflect a broader national debate. Conservative state legislatures across the country have been considering bills to restrict the ways educators teach about gender and sexuality in schools. This month, the Florida Legislature passed the Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics, which restricts or bans discussion of LGBTQ issues in the classroom.

Conservative activists and politicians pushing these changes nationally say the goal is to prevent teachers from having sensitive conversations with students unless the parents give their consent. Some have at times conflated sex and sexual orientation, accusing educators of attempting to “groom” young children because the teachers had discussed the existence of transgender people and same-sex relationships. Opponents contend that the measures discriminate against LGBTQ students and educators and violate federal laws meant to prevent discrimination in schools.

These changes coincide with attempts in several conservative states to limit the rights of transgender minors to participate in school sports and to access gender-affirming medical care. Last month, Abbott issued a directive — temporarily halted by a Texas judge — ordering the state’s child welfare agency to open abuse investigations into any reported instances of minors receiving such medical care, including the prescription of puberty blockers or hormones. 

As superintendent of a district that’s home to more than 7,400 students, Glenn is responsible for implementing and enforcing policies that ensure that children are not discriminated against based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. 

After listening to the recording of Glenn’s remarks, Lou Whiting, a nonbinary junior at Granbury High School, said they were outraged. Whiting and another student who’s part of the LGBTQ community said classmates at Granbury have harassed them at school, but they’ve avoided reporting the harassment because they worried administrators wouldn’t take their complaints seriously.

Lou Whiting, a nonbinary junior at Granbury High School, said they were angry when they learned the district was pulling dozens of LGBTQ-themed books from libraries.Shelby Tauber for ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, NBC News