According to The Mandate for Leadership, Veronique de Rugy is Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, a conservative think-tank at George Mason University.
Notably, she is against Trump’s leadership in the Republican Party, and has a highly opinionated X account that she has made posts on about this topic including a post where she states, “It’s not just Trump Republicans need to dump, it’s also the protectionist big government agenda.”
As stated in her Mercatus article on improper payments, Veronique de Rugy is opposed to the amount of government spending on anti-poverty programs such as Medicaid, EITC, RSDI, SSI, the NSLP, and UI. She also casually stated without further elaboration that “programs that have seen expanded eligibility over the years (e.g., Social Security disability and food stamps) might have relatively low improper payment rates, but they are also distributing money to people under questionable—and in some cases, objectionable—circumstances,” leaving readers to wonder what exactly she found objectionable about aid given to impoverished people.
Tellingly, she did not include programs not focused on anti-poverty in her piece, despite some programs such as federal farm price supports having very high improper payment rates. This is something that provides context to her ‘objectionable’ statement, as an LA Times column piece explored.
Veronique de Rugy ironically stated in an opinion piece that she has “long believed the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition are indispensable ingredients [for the United States’ success].” Despite this, she has chosen to join The Mandate for Leadership project by the Heritage Foundation, a project set on denying these rights to the people.
