There are a lot of main characters in the second Trump administration. Donald Trump himself, of course, but also Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and JD Vance.

Russell Vought does not make that list. The soft-spoken bureaucrat was recently confirmed to lead the Office of Management and Budget, not exactly a sexy post. His name isn’t well-known outside of policy circles.

But it probably should be.

“I think you can almost view Elon Musk and DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, as Russ Vought’s shock troops,” Simon Rabinovitch, US economics editor for The Economist, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. “Musk is kind of hyperactive and moving every which way, every direction, but ultimately … the person who’s really leading this is Russ Vought. And he’s the general. He’s also the scholar … to the extent that there is a legal justification, this is something that Russ Vought is working on and has been working on for years leading up to the moment that we now face today.”

Rabinovitch talked to King about Vought’s backstory, his Christian nationalist beliefs, and where he wants to take the country in the second Trump administration. Below is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Simon Rabinovitch

Vought has something of a blue-collar background. He had a a big family, and is the youngest of seven children. He’s talked about having a very strong Christian upbringing. He went to college at an evangelical Christian school. All of this matters because part of the way that he views his role in government is not just trying to change the way the presidency operates, but also trying to infuse it with Christian nationalism, his kind of self-defined ideology.

He spent many, many years as a staffer for Republicans in DC, and worked his way up the totem........

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