In dark times, is there anything more cheering than a little white Christian nationalist hypocrisy scandal? Performative sanctimony is so embedded in American political culture that these moments come around with the seasons: Jerry Falwell Jr. and the poolboy, Robert Morris of megachurch Gateway going to jail for pedo sex abuse, American Conservative Union leader Matt Schlapp repeatedly accused of sexual transgressions with men.
Now comes Russ Vought, Trump’s little white nationalist budget manager, a barely-there but relentlessly scheming lifetime conservative Washington insider. Vought’s piety is matched only by his passionate loathing for government employees, who he famously promised to put “in trauma.” Given the power to do exactly that by Trump, he now gets some credit – though maybe not as much as Elon Musk – for putting hundreds of thousands of workers on the street.
In his strangely personal craving for vengeance, Vought (who we featured in a Freak of the Week earlier this year) has traveled far from the “love thy enemy” message of the messiah he claims to follow. But what made him so mad?
Around the time he told political donors that he wanted to put federal employees into trauma, he was experiencing a major trauma of his own: In August 2023, Vought was divorced by his wife, the mother of his two daughters. Details are buried in the Arlington County case record, but it took only 20 days from filing to decree.
Ex-wife Mary Grace Vought is at least as crazily right wing as Russ. She cut her teeth working for white supremacy-sympathizer Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, runs her own consulting company, Vought Strategies, and double-dips in MAGAland as vice president of communications at the Heritage Foundation.
Her longtime “personal and professional relationship” with a Texas political strategist is at the heart of a little mini-scandal out in Oklahoma that appears to have ended the political career of that state’s notorious Superintendent of Public Instruction, baby-faced Bible banger Ryan Walters. Starting in fall 2023, not long after her divorce, Walters was wildly overpaying Vought Strategies on a de facto no-bid contract, a situation that eventually came to the attention of the Oklahoma legislature.
Vought was granted a contract, apparently without any competitive bids, to arrange “national media appearances” for Walters. Walters would soon rocket into lib-baiting stardom on the national scene with stunts including forcing all Oklahoma teachers to have Trump-branded Bibles in their classrooms, initiating a statewide public school curriculum partnership with right-wing PragerU, and creating a library book review committee headed by controversial “LibsofTikTok” influencer Chaya Raichik.
For a while, LibsofTikTok and other MAGA influencers even pushed Ryan for Trump’s education secretary – a role that went, more appropriately given the administration’s stance on books and experts, to the World Wrestling Entertainment founder’s wife.
A local Oklahoma Fox affiliate tallied more than 400 national media appearances over two years by Walters as he sought to raise his national profile. The attention wasn’t cheap: Walters hired Vought Strategies to book media interviews and write op-eds for $200 per hour. The initial contract was for four months with three one-year extensions possible, for a potential total of at least $210,000 in taxpayer funds. And Vought’s bid for $5,000 per month was attached to the contract, along with an even more detailed pricing proposal totaling $5,000 per week.
The contract caught the attention of Oklahoma state representatives who were looking into another deal Walters had struck with his campaign manager turned chief policy advisor, Matt Langston. Langston runs a Texas-based consulting firm, Engage Right, LLC. After working on Walters’ campaign, he took a position as his chief policy advisor – making six figures.
By March 2024, state legislators discovered that Ryan Walters had never bothered to create a formal Oklahoma state employment agreement for Langston. In fact, Langston didn’t even live in the state of Oklahoma – he hung his hat in Texas. But his influence crossed the panhandle. “Matt Langston is the puppeteer,” Oklahoma Republican State Rep. McBride said. “He’s the guy that pulls Ryan Walters’ strings.”
It turns out the Vought and Langston contracts were connected. While investigating last year, Oklahoma City-based news station KFOR obtained thousands of emails between Mary Grace Vought and Matt Langston spanning more than a decade, indicating they had a personal relationship and had done business together for years.
A few months before the Vought divorce, Oklahoma City attorney Cameron Spradling tweeted the full text of a scathing email Langston’s ex-wife sent to a reporter. She called him a sociopath, accused him of tax evasion, serial infidelity including with a woman in Wisconsin, and failing to pay child support for their five children.
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Walters accidentally put up a porn video from his office computer while giving a staff talk.
By this fall, the game was up. Walters was forced to send Langston packing. And last month, Walters himself quit. He announced that he was moving on to run Teacher Freedom Alliance, an outfit that, according to its website, aims to assist educators in developing “free, moral and upright” American citizens. The organization of a few thousand members is dwarfed by the nationwide teachers’ union, American Federation of Teachers, with 1.8 million members, but Walters promised to tilt at that great Marxist windmill. Announcing his new job on Fox, Walters promised: “We’re going to destroy the teachers’ unions.”
Mary Grace Vought’s name made the Oklahoma news. But her DC reputation remains intact.
As a member in good standing of a clan of men who make fake uxoriousness a brand enhancer, the fact that Mr. Family Values Russ Vought was cut loose by his wife like Steve Carell in Crazy, Stupid Love has always amused the Freakshow. It turns out Vought’s personal life fascinates his boss as much as it does us!
Donald Trump has been trying to play wingman for the newly-minted middle aged DC stud with the Palm Beach ladies.
Here’s the nauseating report from Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo news correspondent Asawin “Swin” Suebsang:
By mid-2024, Donald Trump and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought were talking on the phone fairly regularly. But it often wasn’t about policy. Trump – when he had downtime from campaigning and plotting his fascist presidency – appeared preoccupied with getting the recently divorced Vought laid, two knowledgeable sources tell me. Trump spoke to Vought… about the ‘gorgeous’ and ‘beautiful ladies’ who roam Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago, so often that it ‘weirded out’ some of his advisers, in one source’s words. Trump offered to be Vought’s wingman. And Trump spoke crudely of all the ‘p——’ that Vought would surely get as the president’s favorite ‘bachelor.’
The executive branch incel dipshits who craft AI clips of Trump shitting on America made a cartoon hero of Vought set to Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper.
Russ is suddenly cool, maybe for the first time in his life. Look sharp, ladies. To update Jane Austen for Mar-a-Lago 2025: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single white man in possession of a White House job must be in want of a plastic-enhanced Florida femme.
SUBSTACK LIVE TOMORROW
On Thursday 10/23 at 1 PM ET, I will be joined by Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz. We will talk about his take on the Trump administration’s media strategy, including threats and litigation terrorism, corporate obsequiousness, the effects of Fox’s continued spew of lies, and his recent scoop that Fox anchor Laura Ingraham is in business with Donald Trump Jr.
Email us in advance with your questions.
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Vought is another example of the fraudulent, bankrupt, so-called "Christian" right. His obsession with putting hard working public servants out of work is weird and creepy. Does firing people that help people give him an erection?
Maybe Vaught needs one of those AI generated Femme fatales!