Democrats Grill Project 2025 Co-Author on Support for Abortion ‘Abolition,’ Ending Government ‘Wokeness’

More ghouls are slated to be confirmed to the Trump 2.0 cabinet in the coming days, and one of those ghouls will likely be Russell Vought, a co-author of the far-right Project 2025 agenda, who’s been tapped to manage Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The position would allow Vought to play an outsized role in enacting Project 2025, as Vought has previously described OMB as the president’s “air-traffic control system,” directing key budget and policy decisions. 

But first, Vought faced a confirmation hearing before the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday, which saw Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) take him to task over his alarming positions on reproductive rights. A defining feature of Project 2025—a 900-page document that goes into excruciating detail on how the executive branch, sans Congress, can destroy our society—is its blueprint for a federal abortion ban; it calls for enforcement of the Comstock Act of 1873 to ban the mailing of abortion pills or abortion-related supplies across all states. 

“You were a lead author of the anti-abortion Project 2025. You were also caught just a few months ago saying that when it comes to abortion, you ‘want to get to abolition.’ Now, people should understand that abortion abolition means zero abortions—under any circumstance whatsoever,” Murray said. The “abolitionist” movement not only calls for zero abortions but recognizes people who have abortions as murderers; many abortion “abolitionists” call for abortion patients, not just providers, to be punished, with some even advocating for the death penalty for these patients.

Murray highlights that Vought, Trump’s pick for OMB director, believes in the *abolition* of abortion — with no exceptions at all

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 22, 2025 at 11:08 AM

“You have said that you don’t believe in exceptions for rape, for incest, or the life of the mother,” Senator Murray continued. “Is that your position?” In response, Vought offered a non-answer, claiming his “views are not important” because he’s “here on behalf of the president.” I’d argue sitting before the Senate on behalf of the president makes Vought’s views exponentially more important. As he continued to decline to answer, Murray conceded her time but pointed out that, “it’s very clear what your stance is on this. People in this country, women and men alike, should know that.”

At a time when state legislatures in several abortion-banned states are rolling out bills that would potentially charge abortion patients with homicide, and threaten them with the death penalty, confirming a self-identified “abolitionist” to a key position in the White House should raise serious alarms. After all, the Trump administration has already signaled its support for fetal personhood—an ideology that regards embryos and fetuses as citizens with rights at odds with the pregnant person’s—with a directive that defines “male” and “female” as “a person belonging, at conception” to assigned sex in utero. (To be clear, all embryos start as female… so!)

At the same hearing, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) also took Vought to task over his history of disturbing comments and publications, including a lengthy outline from his organization, the Center for Renewing America, mapping a path to weeding out “wokeness” from the government. Among many government programs Vought deemed “woke” were SNAP, a program to help feed low-income kids, Medicaid for low-income families, tenant-based rental assistance, low-income housing energy assistance, and more. Kaine repeatedly pressed Vought to explain how any of these were “woke and weaponized,” and Vought demurred each time.

Tim Kaine is really good at this pic.twitter.com/X0LZQSx9De

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2025

“This was all in your document about ending woke and weaponized government. OK, let’s see, we want to traumatize federal employees,” Kaine said, further quoting Vought, “and then we want to take all of these programs that help everyday people who are struggling and cut them because they’re ‘woke and weaponized.’ Those are your words, not mine. From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

At a hearing earlier this month, and again on Wednesday, Vought refused to say whether he’d follow the Impoundment Control Act, which affirms that Congress holds the power of the purse and the president must listen to Congressional votes on where to direct funding. “You’re telling me why you don’t agree with the law. But the law is the law. Will you follow the law?” Murray asked. Vought said the Trump administration intended to challenge its constitutionality and wouldn’t commit to following it, placing a range of federal programs at risk.

Vought has openly called himself a Christian nationalist; he’s appeared to call for a ban on medication abortion, and for Congress to not wait for courts to take action. In 2022, he called for Planned Parenthood to be defunded, pushing the right-wing smear that the organization unethically harvests fetuses. His brain child, Project 2025, is a catastrophic document detailing plans to terrorize and deny health care to queer youth, accelerate the climate crisis, defund nearly every public good, and terrorize and remove immigrants en masse. 

After passing the Senate Budget Committee, he could face a confirmation vote as early as this weekend.