Trump's Grim Reaper: Starting with Project 2025 to Government Closure Enforcer

Donald Trump had a cautionary message for the opposition party.

Soon he will decide what "opposition-supported departments" he would reduce and whether those reductions would be temporary or permanent.

He said the federal closure, which started this week, had given him an "unique chance."

"I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, known for his role in Project 2025," he posted on his social media platform on Thursday morning.

Linking to the 2025 Plan

Vought, the head of the federal budget office, may not be a household name.

But Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for administration put together primarily by former Trump officials like the director when the Republicans were out of power, featured prominently during the recent election cycle.

The comprehensive policy guide contained suggestions for significant cuts in the federal bureaucracy, increased executive power, rigorous immigration enforcement, a nationwide abortion ban and other elements of an ultra-conservative social agenda.

It was often highlighted by the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, as what she called a risky proposal for the future if he was to be elected.

At the time, trying to calm undecided voters, Trump tried to distance himself from the policy document.

"I know nothing about Project 2025," Trump wrote in mid-2024. "I don't agree with certain aspects of their proposal and some of the things they're saying are completely unreasonable and abysmal."

Shifting Approach

Currently, though, the president is employing the conservative blueprint as leverage to get Democrats to agree to his budgetary demands.

And he is highlighting Vought, who wrote a section on the employment of presidential authority, as a sort of financial grim reaper, prepared to make cuts to federal programs important to the opposition party.

In case that particular metaphor wasn't clear, on Thursday evening Trump shared an AI-generated parody music video on Truth Social with Vought portrayed as the figure of death, set to altered lyrics of the rock band's classic song.

Washington Responses

On Capitol Hill, Republican leaders have echoed Trump's characterisation of Vought as the White House heavy.

"We have no say over his actions," GOP Senate leader the senator said. "This represents the danger of closing federal operations and handing the keys to the budget director."

The Utah senator of his state told the news network that the director had been "preparing for this moment for many years."

This might be a bit of an overstatement, but Vought, who gained experience as a congressional staffer for Republican budget hawks and helped run the advocacy division of the conservative think tank, has extensive background examining the intricacies of the federal budget.

The Bean-Counter Behind the President

He served for twelve months as the deputy director of the White House budget office during Trump's first term, advancing to become its director in that year.

In contrast to numerous others who served with Trump during those first four years, Vought had staying power - and was promptly reappointed as head of the budget office when Trump returned recently.

"A lot of those who didn't return embody outdated approaches," said a policy expert, a think tank official who, similar to the director, started his professional life in GOP fiscal policy networks.

"Russ was ahead of his time in the first term and right on time currently."

Although Vought isn't one to shy away from controversial statements – he once said that he aspired to be "the person who crushes the bureaucratic establishment" – he doesn't particularly appear the role of conservative villain.

Balding and bespectacled, with a salt-and-pepper facial hair, the director's remarks generally feature the controlled rhythm of a numbers expert or professor.

He doesn't possess the narrow-eyed glower and amped-up rhetoric of another advisor, another longtime Trump adviser who manages administration border measures.

Seizing Opportunity in Shutdown

Now Trump has threatened to unleash Vought at a time when, because of the regulatory uncertainty caused by the government shutdown, their reductions could become deeper and more durable than those instituted earlier this year.

Ex-congressional leader Newt Gingrich, a participant in the major closure battles of the 1990s, told the media outlet that Vought and his team have been preparing for precisely this situation while they were in the opposition period during the previous administration.

"Everyone understood a federal closure was possible," he said. "I believe they concluded from the beginning that you're only going to get the level of transformation they want if you're very tough and resolute and whenever possible, you seize the moment."

The opportunity the closure offers for budget-cutters like Vought is that, lacking legislative authorization, the federal operations continue in a legal grey area with reduced spending constraints.

The White House can, in theory, slash funding and staffing deeper than it could previously, when spending was governed by standard funding levels.

And while job eliminations would still have to abide by a two-month warning, the director could begin the countdown whenever he, and Trump, so choose.

Current Actions and Future Battles

The director has declared major infrastructure projects in the largest city and the midwestern metropolis are paused, referring to required a review of potentially illegal racial hiring practices - a review that he said cannot occur during the shutdown.

He's also terminated almost eight billion dollars in clean energy projects across multiple states, all of which backed the Democratic candidate, the president's rival, in last year's presidential race.

Democrats and federal worker unions have vowed to challenge these cuts in the legal system and claimed that the president is issuing largely empty threats to try to pressure them into giving up their opposition.

Many economists have pointed out that the White House reductions have been paired with other deficit-ballooning policies, which could weaken their criticism on the opposition for being the group favoring excessive spending.

"The GOP is raising expenditures in other areas and reducing revenue at the identical period," an economics professor, an economics professor at the prestigious institution noted.

"The notion that they're devoted to fiscal prudence is not borne out by what they're doing."

Electoral Dangers

Some Republicans in Congress have voiced worry that the visible enthusiasm with which the president is promoting Vought-ordered cuts could turn public opinion against them if the closure continues.

GOP officials have cautioned of the dire consequences of the shutdown on government services - as part of a strategy to portray Democrats as the ones to blame.

Doing so while applauding the methods the administration is slashing programmes could derail those efforts.

"Russ is less politically in tune than the president," The legislator the senator, a member of the "Doge caucus", told the news website Semafor.

"Our party have never possessed this much ethical advantage on a spending measure in our lives… I just don't see why we would waste it, which represents the danger of being aggressive with presidential authority in the current situation."

Thom Tills, a legislator who has decided against campaigning for another term, cautions that government representatives "must exercise caution" in how they announce additional reductions.

The efficiency group-mandated job cuts and programme cuts were mostly disliked, according to public-opinion surveys, negatively affecting the president's approval ratings.

A reprise of that could be risky.

According to Stern, though, the White House, and Vought, may consider the future advantages as worth the immediate difficulties.

"For Russ, for myself, for anybody who's in the budget space, this country is going bankrupt,"