The Freedom From Religion Foundation is raising the alarm about Russell Vought’s return as director of the Office of Management and Budget in the second Trump administration.
Vought’s tenure as OMB director from 2020 to 2021 and his actions since make it clear that his leadership would entrench a Christian nationalist agenda in the federal government — undermining the constitutional principle of state/church separation and radically endangering our secular nation.
Before working for the first Trump administration, Vought was the vice president of Heritage Action for America, which is related to the Heritage Foundation. Serving as OMB director, Vought sought to use Trump’s 2020 “Schedule F” executive order to strip away job protections from nonpartisan government workers, aligned federal budget priorities with the Trump administration’s ideological goals, sought cuts to science-based programs and health initiatives, even during critical times such as the pandemic, promoted faith-based initiatives over secular and science-based programs, and supported religious exemptions that allowed organizations to discriminate against LGBTQ-plus individuals and others under the guise of religious freedom.
Since leaving office, Vought has continued to promote religious extremism through his organization, the Center for Renewing America, which actively champions policies rooted in Christian nationalist ideology. His organization has supported the banning of books and curricula addressing systemic racism and LGBTQ-plus rights under the guise of fighting “woke” culture. The Center’s mission is “to renew a consensus of America as a nation under God” and its work focuses on blocking regulation of conservative big tech companies, opposing the spread of critical race theory and advocating for stricter security measures in U.S. elections. The group was also on Project 2025’s advisory board.
Vought’s nomination to OMB would signal a major win for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Vought wrote the Project 2025 chapter that covers the “Executive Office of the President,” laying the groundwork for a broad expansion of presidential powers, which he calls “radical constitutionalism.” “We are living in a post-constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a 2022 essay, arguing that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions. Vought “plans to deploy the military in response to domestic unrest, defund the Environmental Protection Agency and put career civil servants ‘in trauma’”:
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. … 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. … We want to put them in trauma.”
Vought also recommends reviving the presidential “impoundment” power to withhold funding appropriated by Congress. Impoundment was outlawed after President Nixon left office, but Vought has called that “unconstitutional.” He also supports invoking the Insurrection Act, a law last updated in 1871 that allows the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.
Vought unabashedly embraces Christian nationalism, penning an essay in 2021 that disputed allegations of bias and asked, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’” He argued for “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.” In a podcast interview last year, Vought said it’s appropriate to question whether immigrants “have any sense of the Judeo-Christian worldview that this country was founded on,” adding, “And that doesn’t mean we don’t give religious liberty, but it does mean — are they wanting to come here and assimilate?”
Vought’s public statements and actions make it clear that he does not see a role for religious pluralism in government. A second term at the OMB would undoubtedly see Vought advancing policies that decimate the line between church and state, elevating his personal religious views above the secular values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
As the director of OMB, Vought would, once again, have the power to shape budget priorities that reflect his Christian nationalist framework. This could include funding cuts for public education in favor of voucher programs that support religious institutions, reductions in programs serving low-income Americans under the pretense of promoting “personal responsibility,” and further efforts to defund science-based initiatives addressing climate change and public health.
“Russell Vought is entitled to his personal religious beliefs — but he’s demonstrated time and again that he would use governmental authority to impose those beliefs on every American through federal policy,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This is a direct assault on the First Amendment and our nation’s founding principles.”
“Russell Vought has made it his mission to infuse his narrow, sectarian religious beliefs into public policy,” adds FFRF Director of Governmental Affairs Mark Dann. “Reappointing him to head the OMB would be a giant step toward institutionalizing Christian nationalism within the federal government.”
The American people deserve a government that represents all citizens, regardless of their religious or nonreligious beliefs. Russell Vought’s vision for America stands in direct opposition to that ideal.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation urges lawmakers, media and the public to scrutinize the implications of Vought’s potential return to federal leadership. As an organization dedicated to protecting the constitutional principle of state/church separation, FFRF will continue to challenge efforts to enshrine religious ideology in public policy.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
