• Fox’s Jesse Watters: “Trump’s going to treat Denver like a woman. He’s going to protect the city whether they like it or not.”

• Fox’s Laura Ingraham called for “consequences” for those who prosecuted Trump. 
• War Room host Steve Bannon: “We’re for 100% deportations … everybody’s got to go.” 
• Fox’s Brian Kilmeade said young unaccompanied undocumented children should be put on a plane and sent “right back to El Salvador.”

• Benny Johnson: “Put Matt Gaetz in charge of rooting out election fraud as a special counsel all around the country.” 
• Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan: “If every woman in Congress went home, the world would run fine.”

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Russ Vought, a Christian nationalist who has plotted to remake the federal workforce in MAGA’s image, to serve as his administration’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought held the same position during Trump’s first term. Since leaving office, he has been a leading architect of Project 2025. 

In his role at Project 2025, Vought was instrumental in ensuring that decimating the ranks of federal civil service became a conservative priority. He also went on an anti-woke crusade, repeatedly defending and promoting Christian nationalism. At one point, he called for an “army” of right-wing activists with “biblical worldview" to staff the next Republican administration. Vought also has pushed to implement hard austerity measures throughout the country and is a leading proponent of a radical interpretation of executive authority that claims the president can unilaterally refuse to spend money allocated by Congress. 

Now, as he reprises his role as the head of OMB, he will yield considerable influence within the Trump administration and will almost certainly play a central role in the likely purge of the federal workforce.

Though Trump tried throughout the 2024 campaign to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation-led initiative Project 2025, his transition team has named several individuals with tight connections to the initiative to key posts in his forthcoming administration. This is no surprise. Of the 267 total contributors to the Project 2025, 144 worked in the first Trump administration or in his campaign or transition teams. 

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts has expressed his appreciation for Trump’s nominees, saying he’s “ecstatic” about them and the selections are “exceeding our expectations." Roberts acknowledged that “it would be very difficult” for a Trump administration to make policy “without at least consulting” Project 2025. 

Media Matters prepared this piece detailing Trump’s Project 2025 allies who may be joining his administration.

• Fox News guests and medical contributors encouraged Trump’s worst impulses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, he’s picking familiar faces from the right-wing propaganda outlet to staff the government’s health bureaucracy. 
• National TV news networks dedicated only 57 minutes to this year's COP29 compared to 5 hours and 42 minutes in 2023. 
• On MSNBC, Media Matters President Angelo Carusone explained how Project 2025 is already in motion with the goal to “end multiculturalism.”