“We Want the Bureaucrats Traumatically Affected”: Russell Vought on Trump’s Military and Government Plans
AP Photo/ Evan Vucci
In a recently surfaced video, former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russell Vought discussed strategies to sidestep Defense Department resistance and deploy the U.S. military against American citizens during protests. Speaking earlier this year, Vought outlined his vision for Donald Trump’s potential second term, where the former president could invoke the Insurrection Act to bypass Pentagon objections, according to a report from ProPublica on Monday.
“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,’” Vought stated in the video, emphasizing the intention to prevent legal or bureaucratic barriers to Trump’s deployment of military forces within U.S. borders.
The possibility of Trump using military action against U.S. citizens has gained attention recently, fueled by Trump’s comments on potentially using the armed forces against what he described as “the enemy within” — a phrase he used to describe certain political opponents, including Democratic Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.
The rhetoric has alarmed some of Trump’s former top advisors, including John Kelly, his former chief of staff, who publicly warned that Trump could use military forces against Americans if elected again. Kelly further accused Trump of harboring authoritarian tendencies, saying his actions reflected a “fascist” mindset.
Besides invoking the Insurrection Act, Vought’s discussion highlighted plans to undermine certain federal agencies, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He detailed a vision to drastically cut the EPA’s funding, aiming to weaken its regulatory capacity, especially concerning environmental rules that impact the energy sector.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought explained. “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 their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t make all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.”
Vought’s comments reveal a broader strategy that extends beyond protests and military action. His remarks suggest a targeted campaign to “demoralize” federal workers, effectively encouraging them to quit their positions by creating an atmosphere of hostility and financial strain within government agencies.
This approach, according to Vought, would position the federal workforce as obstacles to Trump’s goals and portray them as “villains” who hinder his policy objectives. The revelations from Vought’s statements underscore the divisive strategies potentially on the horizon, with an emphasis on altering the federal government’s structure, particularly within agencies that oppose the administration’s energy policies, and an unprecedented stance on domestic military deployment.
