Comedian and podcast host Marc Maron has called President Donald Trump a “thug” who is a “puppet” of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russ Vought.
Newsweek contacted the OMB and the White House for comment via email outside of regular working hours.
Why It Matters
Project 2025 outlines sweeping plans to consolidate presidential authority, fire thousands of career civil servants, and overhaul regulatory agencies. Now that Trump is back in office and key figures such as Vought hold leadership roles, significant portions of the blueprint are being implemented across federal departments.
The plan, initially developed in anticipation of a second Trump term, is designed to institutionalize a long-term conservative agenda through the direct exercise of executive power rather than reliance on congressional negotiations or bipartisan consensus.
Supporters describe it as a necessary restructuring to rein in what they call an entrenched bureaucracy and inefficiency, while critics have warned it represents an unprecedented far-right power grab.
Trump has denied having any part in Project 2025.
What To Know
“We’ve got a president who is a thug,” Maron said while speaking with host Jon Lovett on the August 23 episode of Pod Save America as part of a wider conversation about contemporary comedy and media.
Referring specifically to Vought, one of the authors of the Heritage Foundation’s influential Project 2025, Maron said: “However you see Trump, he’s still a puppet to something that is bigger that he doesn’t give a s*** about, as long as he can be the guy out front.”
Vought, in his role as OMB director, is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the president’s policies, management and regulatory agendas across the executive branch.
GETTY
Who Is Russ Vought?
Before joining the Trump administration, Vought spent over 20 years in Washington with grassroots and policy groups. He was vice president of the Heritage Action for America advocacy group, policy director for the House Republican Conference under former Vice President Mike Pence, and executive director of the Republican Study Committee, according to the White House.
“Russ has spent many years working in Public Policy in Washington, D.C., and is an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies,” Trump wrote in a statement announcing his intention to appoint Vought to the OMB in 2024, prior to his inauguration.
“Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People. We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity.”
Project 2025 and the Trump Administration
According to Project 2025 Tracker, while the president has distanced himself from the agenda, a total of 317 objectives from the blueprint have been completed throughout Trump’s second term and 63 are in progress.
Many of Trump’s appointees contributed to the publication, and key policies from the project have been implemented, including the president’s wide-ranging trade tariffs, eliminating U.S.-provided overseas aid projects, cutting diversity, equality and inclusion measures, and the Department of Government Efficiency’s federal cost cuts.