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The President had a cautionary message for Democrats.

Soon he will decide what "Democrat agencies" he would reduce and whether those cutbacks would be temporary or long-lasting.

He said the federal closure, which began on Tuesday, had given him an "unprecedented opportunity."

"Today I'm meeting with the budget director, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame," he wrote on his Truth Social website on Thursday morning.

The Project 2025 Connection

The budget director, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, may not be a household name.

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

The comprehensive policy guide contained proposals for dramatic reductions in the size of federal government, increased executive power, rigorous immigration enforcement, a national prohibition on abortion and other elements of an far-right social program.

It was often highlighted by Democratic presidential nominee the former vice president, as Trump's "dangerous plan" for the coming years if he was to win.

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

"I know nothing about Project 2025," the president stated in July 2024. "I don't agree with certain aspects of their proposal and some elements are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."

Shifting Approach

Now, however, the president is employing the right-wing plan as a threat to get the opposition to agree to his spending requirements.

And he is holding up Vought, who wrote a section on the use of executive power, as a sort of budgetary angel of death, ready to take a scythe to federal programs near and dear to Democrats.

In case that particular metaphor wasn't clear, on Thursday night the president posted an AI-generated parody music video on his social platform with the director depicted as the grim reaper, accompanied by changed words of Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper.

Washington Responses

On Capitol Hill, GOP officials have echoed Trump's characterisation of the director as the administration enforcer.

"We don't control what he's going to do," Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. "This represents the danger of closing federal operations and transferring control to the budget director."

Senator Mike Lee of Utah told the news network that the director had been "preparing for this moment for many years."

That may be somewhat exaggerated, but the director, who gained experience as a Capit Hill aide for GOP fiscal conservatives and assisted in managing the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, has extensive background digging through the complexities of government spending.

The Numbers Expert in the Administration

He served for twelve months as the assistant head of the federal budget agency during the initial administration, rising to be its director in that year.

Unlike many who served with Trump during that initial term, Vought had staying power - and was quickly reinstalled as head of the budget office when the president came back recently.

"A lot of those who didn't come back embody outdated approaches," said a policy expert, a think tank official who, like Vought, began his career in GOP fiscal policy networks.

"The director was innovative in the first term and right on time currently."

Although Vought isn't one to shy away from divisive comments – he once said that he aspired to be "the individual who dismantles the deep state" – he doesn't particularly appear the part of a Republican bogeyman.

Balding and bespectacled, with a greying beard, the director's remarks typically have the controlled rhythm of a bean-counter or professor.

He doesn't possess the intense stare and heated language of Stephen Miller, a different presidential consultant 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 implemented previously.

Former House Speaker the political veteran, a veteran of the big shutdown fights of the nineties, told the media outlet that the director and his staff have been getting ready for exactly these kind of circumstances while they were in the opposition period during the previous administration.

"Everyone understood a federal closure was possible," he said. "I think they had decided from the beginning that significant change requires the level of transformation they want if you're very tough and very determined and every chance you get, you seize the moment."

The advantage the closure offers for budget-cutters like Vought is that, lacking legislative authorization, the government is operating in a legal grey area with reduced spending constraints.

The administration can, in theory, cut budgets and personnel deeper than it could earlier in the year, when expenditures followed baseline appropriation amounts.

And while job eliminations would still have to follow a two-month warning, Vought could start the countdown whenever he, and Trump, so choose.

Current Actions and Future Battles

Vought already has announced major infrastructure projects in New York City and Chicago are paused, citing the need for a examination of questionable employment policies - a examination that he said can't take place during the shutdown.

He's also terminated nearly $8bn 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 court and stated that the president is issuing mostly bluffs to try to force them to abandoning the fight.

Many economists have noted that the administration cutbacks have been accompanied by other spending-increasing measures, which could undercut their attacks on Democrats for being the group favoring excessive spending.

"The GOP is raising expenditures in different sectors and reducing revenue at the same time," an economics professor, an economics professor at the prestigious institution commented.

"The idea 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 apparent glee with which Trump is touting Vought-ordered cuts could alienate voters if the closure continues.

Republicans have been warning of the serious effects of the shutdown on government services - part of a concerted effort to depict the opposition as the responsible party.

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

"Russ is less politically in tune than his boss," South Dakota Senator the senator, a participant in the efficiency group, told the news website Semafor.

"Our party have never had so much moral high ground on a spending measure in our lives… I don't understand why we would waste it, which represents the danger of being aggressive with presidential authority in the current situation."

The North Carolina senator, a legislator who has decided against campaigning for re-election next year, cautions that government representatives "must exercise caution" in how they present any new cuts.

The Doge-directed layoffs and program reductions were mostly disliked, according to public-opinion surveys, causing a drag on the president's approval ratings.

A reprise of that now perilous.

According to Stern, though, the White House, and the director, may view the long-term benefits as worth the immediate difficulties.

"For the director, for me, for anybody who's in the budget space, the nation faces financial crisis,"