The Republican-led Senate is expected to confirm a chief architect of Project 2025 as director of the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday, despite round-the-clock speeches by Democrats who lack the votes to stop it. Russ Vought is working closely with Elon Musk to vastly reduce the size and capacity of the federal government, the nation’s largest employer.
While Vought awaits confirmation, Musk has orchestrated an unprecedented financial incentive for people to leave their government jobs, promising several months of pay in return for their resignation. More than 2 million workers face a deadline of 11:59 p.m. EST Thursday to decide if they should leave.
Shockwaves continue from Trump’s proposal to take over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and redevelop it without its 2.3 million Palestinians. The idea has been roundly rejected by the Palestinians and U.S. allies across the Middle East with the exception of Israel, which said it has begun preparations to move them out by land, sea and air. Human Rights Watch and other groups say it would amount to “ethnic cleansing,” the forced removal of an entire population through violence.
Here’s the latest:
President Donald Trump says “no soldiers by the U.S. would be needed” to carry out his proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and redevelop the war-torn territory.
The comments come two days after Trump, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his side, laid out his vision for relocating Gaza residents and redeveloping the land for people from around the world.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” Trump said in a posting on his Truth Social platform. He added that Palestinians would be “resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.”
He added that the U.S. would work “with great development teams from all over the World,” and “slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth.”
Trump reasserted his commitment to his Gaza plan the day after his top diplomat and his chief spokesperson walked back that the president is advocating for the permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza, after American allies and even Republican lawmakers rejected the U.S. taking “ownership” of the territory.
The Republican-led Senate is expected to confirm a chief architect of Project 2025 as director of the Office of Management and Budget on Thursday.
Senate Democrats vowed to give around-the-clock speeches to protest Trump’s nomination of Russ Vought to the influential position, and all 47 of them said they would vote against him. But as the minority party in the Senate, that’s not enough to stop his confirmation.
Vought also is influential in the effort to broadly dismantle the federal government, led by Elon Musk’s DOGE team.