Secret Video Shows Project 2025 Author Bragging About Ties to Trump

A key author of Project 2025 was caught in a secret recording bragging about how close he is to Donald Trump and admitting his love of “Christian nation-ism.”

Russell Vought, who is reportedly in line for chief of staff in a second Trump administration, said that his group, the Center for Renewing America, is leading the charge drafting executive orders and policy memos to help Trump immediately take action upon entering the Oval Office. He was caught on camera by two undercover British journalists from the nonprofit Centre for Climate Reporting, which published the secret recording on Thursday.

Vought revealed his group plans to create “shadow” agencies to implement its draconian vision to solidify the “Judeo-Christian worldview value system.”

“We’ve been too focused on religious liberty, which we all support, but we’ve lacked the ability to argue we are a Christian nation,” said Vought.

“I want to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation,” he said. “And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism. That’s pretty close to Christian nationalism because I also believe in nationalism.”

The investigative reporters secretly recorded their nearly two-hour conversation with Vought, who served as the policy director of the Republican National Convention committee and recently helped to rewrite the official GOP platform. Vought, former Office of Management and Budget director under Trump, said he has personally been in talks with the former president over recent months and even received a personal “assignment.”

“He’s raised money for our organization, he’s blessed it,” Vought continued, saying that Trump is “very supportive of what we do.”

Vought’s organization, the Center for Renewing America, is one of the many right-wing groups that are a part of Project 2025; Vought authored the chapter discussing the executive office of the president in the 900-page master plan. Trump has been trying to deny the influence of Project 2025 on his campaign.

“President Trump’s campaign made it clear that only President Trump and the campaign, and NOT any other organization or former staff, represent policies for the second term,” Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the campaign, told CNN in response to the latest report.

But Vought wasn’t bothered. “I see what he’s doing is just very, very conscious, distancing himself from a brand,” he said in the secretly recorded interview. “It’s interesting, he’s in fact not even opposing himself to a particular policy.”

Donald Trump is looking for one more get-out-of-jail free card, but the last-ditch effort is unlikely to work this time.

The convicted felon asked New York Justice Juan Merchan one more time on Wednesday to delay his New York hush-money criminal sentencing until after the November election. The historic event—which marks the first criminal sentencing of a former U.S. president—is currently scheduled for September 18.

In a pre-motion letter to the judge, Trump’s legal team suggested that delaying the sentencing would mitigate the “appearances of impropriety.” The letter pointed to Merchan’s daughter’s prior work for Democratic candidates, including Vice President Kamala Harris, and her business partner’s contributions to the Harris-Walz campaign, notably those made by Michael Nellis, the founder of Authentic Campaigns.

“Sentencing is currently scheduled to occur after the commencement of early voting in the Presidential election,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote. “By adjourning the sentencing until after that election—which is of paramount importance to the entire Nation, including tens of millions of people who do not share the views of Authentic, its executives, and its clients—the Court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings.”

“There is no basis for continuing to rush,” he added.

Merchan seems the least likely of Trump’s trial judges to offer him any favors, especially after enduring Trump’s endless mud-slinging throughout the grueling, seven-week trial. Trump’s attacks were primarily aimed at a gag order on the former president, which prevented him from targeting witnesses, jurors, courtroom staff, and their family in his venomous statements to the press—but did not prevent him from hurling vitriol at Merchan.

Trump repeatedly falsely claimed Merchan was violating his First Amendment right to free speech, but despite the constant heat, Merchan never broke. Appellate lawyers described Merchan’s behavior throughout the trial as “flawless” and have predicted that the attacks wouldn’t play well for Trump’s numerous appeals.

But if their background weren’t enough of an indication of how Wednesday’s request will proceed, another recent filing by Merchan might shed some light. The day before Trump filed his latest plea, Merchan plainly rejected an even bolder petition calling for his recusal from the wrapped New York case.

“Defendant has provided nothing new for this Court to consider. Counsel has merely repeated arguments that have already been denied by this and higher courts” Merchan wrote in his ruling posted Wednesday, noting that Trump’s arguments were “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims.”

Donald Trump seems incapable of staying on message, and it’s seriously beginning to worry Republican lawmakers, according to a report NOTUS published Thursday. 

Trump’s campaign attempted to debut a smaller messaging event on Wednesday, as part of a new strategy to get the president to stay on topic. Trump predictably detoured into his typical racist fearmongering and personal attacks against his opponent, Kamala Harris. 

Despite the Trump team’s efforts to curb its loquacious candidate and its insistence on running a  “disciplined” campaign, it seems that nothing the team does can prevent Trump from, well, being Trump. And Republican lawmakers aren’t impressed. 

“Let’s be real: He lost in ’20. He has a solid base but has done nothing, or worse, alienated anyone from coming back to him,” one Republican lawmaker told NOTUS. “It’s like the sixth or seventh season of a show that was once funny but now panders to his base.

“If he continues down this road and Harris stays her course and the economy starts to show signs of improvement, he will be a two-time loser,” the Republican added.

Another Republican congressperson who spoke anonymously to NOTUS warned that Trump “needs to get back on message and start talking about policy differences.

“If he doesn’t do this I think he will lose and probably cost Republicans the House and Senate,” the GOP lawmaker said. 

A third House GOP member told NOTUS that Trump was “rattled” and needed to “get on message.”

Trump has reportedly been struggling to manage his frustration following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race. What was once a sleepy, one-event-a-week campaign has turned into an actual race, against a younger candidate with considerable energy and enthusiasm behind her. This anger seems to be coming out in different ways, and undermining Trump’s ability to effectively campaign without alienating his supporters and backers. 

Last month, just days after Harris announced her campaign, one of Trump’s aides fired off some extremely angry texts to wealthy GOP backer Miriam Adelson on behalf of the former president, according to The New York Times. Adelson, who is worth roughly $30 billion, is one of the Republican party’s wealthiest backers. 

The texts accused Adelson of having allowed RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) to run her Preserve America PAC. Trump and Adelson were scheduled to meet and make up this week, and it’s not clear that the comments will affect Adelson’s giving. 

Last week, Trump repeatedly attacked Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, much to the dismay of his allies and supporters, who believe it will hurt his chances in Georgia. One House Republican told NOTUS it was “extremely foolish” for Trump to go after Kemp. 

“If he displayed self-discipline and impulse control, he’d win,” the lawmaker explained to NOTUS. “The issues favor us. He’s been unable to focus on the issues and is behind. This is his race to lose, and he’s shooting himself in the foot. There’s some Trump fatigue too, and if he’d focus on issues and get off the personality attacks, he’d connect more with voters.”

But Trump hasn’t proven that he’s able to do that. The former president was meant to speak solely about the U.S. economy on Wednesday, but the Republican nominee couldn’t help but play into what his audience was most responding to, and they seemed excited by his jokes and jabs at Harris. But, ultimately, Trump’s audience of supporters isn’t representative of the electorate.

Typically, an election cycle has two or three presidential debates and just one showdown between the vice presidential candidates. But J.D. Vance wants to mix that formula up.

On Thursday, the Ohio senator announced that he would commit himself to more debates against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, believing that the “American people deserve as many debates as possible.”

“Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both!” Vance wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday morning.

But there may be more than meets the eye to the unprecedented second debate invitation, as September 18 holds a different kind of significance for the Republican campaign: It also marks Donald Trump’s sentencing date after a New York court found the former real estate mogul guilty of felony business fraud charges.

It’s not yet clear if Walz has agreed to the second debate—but doing so could divert attention from the first criminal sentencing of a former president in U.S. history.

“CNN invited both Senator Vance and Governor Walz to a Vice Presidential debate this fall, and Senator Vance has accepted,” a CNN spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

“We are always in communication with the campaigns around opportunities for the American public to hear from leading candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, and we look forward to this programming in the fall,” the spokesperson said.

Tim Walz and J.D. Vance will be debating on CBS News on October 1.

CBS News invited Walz and Vance for a debate in New York City on Wednesday, offering them a choice of September 17, September 24, October 1, and October 8. Walz quickly confirmed his willingness, posting on X that afternoon, “See you on October 1, JD.”

And on Thursday morning, Vance finally agreed. He even tried to pressure Walz into a second debate hosted by CNN in September, a clear sign that things are not going well for him.

Typically, the vice presidential candidates don’t debate more than once leading up to an election, and many see the proposition as desperation from Vance and the Trump campaign.

When Vance was initially asked by Fox News’s Laura Ingraham Wednesday evening if he would show up to the October 1 debate, he waffled.

“I strongly suspect we’re going to be there on October 1, but we’re not going to do one of these fake debates where they don’t actually have an audience there, where they don’t actually set the parameters in a right way where you can have a good exchange of ideas,” Vance told Ingraham.

“In other words, we’re not going to walk into a fake news media garbage debate. We’re going to do a real debate, and if CBS agrees to it, then certainly we’ll do it,” Vance added.

But things clearly changed in the Trump team’s calculus. Vance’s debate follows Donald Trump’s decision last week to debate Kamala Harris, after weeks of hesitating and complaining about Harris replacing Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. He attempted to schedule a new debate on GOP-friendly Fox News, only to face criticism from his own supporters. It seems that now Trump and Vance are getting desperate in the face of Harris and Walz’s surge in the polls.