DOGE Lives On Through Russell Vought [View all]

Trump’s White House OMB director has quietly institutionalized the government demolition agenda set in motion by Elon Musk’s wrecking crew.

https://prospect.org/2026/02/05/doge-russell-vought-elon-musk-office-management-budget/


Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought listens during a cabinet meeting at the White House, January 29, 2026, in Washington. Credit: Evan Vucci/AP Photo

The Revolving Door Project recently published a comprehensive accounting of Trump 2.0’s deadly rampage across the federal government. “" target="_blank">DOGE: From Meme to Government Erosion Machine” is a nearly 70-page audit of the Department of Government Efficiency’s origins, architects, and scorched-earth campaign against the federal government’s public-interest responsibilities.

More than a timeline of DOGE’s infiltration of the Treasury Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to name a few of the agencies covered, the report details how former shadow president Elon Musk and current Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought “eagerly shred political, professional, and legal precedent in their effort to dismantle the essential functions of the federal government—and most importantly, democracy at large.”

From rural elders forced to live in dilapidated homes to families abandoned in the midst of carbon pollution–intensified disasters, real people are experiencing material harms as a result of DOGE’s attacks on the administrative state. DOGE, foolishly embraced by lawmakers across the political spectrum, should have never existed.

Although Musk’s wrecking crew officially disbanded last year, many of its operatives have “burrowed into” federal agencies “like ticks,” Wired has reported. Moreover, the reality is that DOGE’s reactionary mission was being carried out in parallel—and continues to be executed today—by Vought, a far quieter, but no less villainous, figure.

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