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The President had a warning for the opposition party.

Soon he will decide what "Democrat agencies" he would cut and whether those reductions would be short-term or long-lasting.

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

"I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame," he posted on his Truth Social website on Thursday.

Linking to the 2025 Plan

Vought, the head of the federal budget office, may not be widely known to the public.

But the 2025 initiative, a right-wing plan for administration put together mostly by previous administration figures like Vought when the Republicans were out of power, featured prominently during the recent election cycle.

The 900-page policy document contained proposals for dramatic reductions in the size of federal government, increased executive power, rigorous immigration enforcement, a national prohibition on abortion and other components of an ultra-conservative social agenda.

It was often highlighted by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, as Trump's "dangerous plan" for the future if he was to be elected.

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

"I know nothing about Project 2025," Trump wrote in July 2024. "I disagree with certain aspects of their proposal and some of the things they're saying are completely unreasonable and terrible."

Shifting Approach

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

And he is highlighting Vought, who wrote a section on the use of executive power, as a kind of financial grim reaper, prepared to make cuts to federal programs near and dear to the opposition party.

In case that particular metaphor wasn't clear, on Thursday night 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 Don't Fear the Reaper.

Political Reactions

In Congress, Republican leaders have echoed Trump's characterisation of the director as the administration enforcer.

"We have no say over what he's going to do," Republican Senate Majority Leader the senator said. "This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought."

The Utah senator of his state told Fox News that Vought had been "getting ready for this situation for many years."

That may be a bit of an overstatement, but the director, who gained experience as a congressional staffer for GOP fiscal conservatives and helped run the advocacy division 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 deputy director of the federal budget agency during the initial administration, advancing to become its head in 2019.

Unlike many who served with Trump during those first four years, the director maintained his position - and was quickly reinstalled as head of the budget office when Trump returned recently.

"Many individuals who didn't return represent an old way of thinking," said Richard Stern, a Heritage economic policy director who, like Vought, started his professional life in GOP fiscal policy networks.

"The director was innovative in the initial administration and perfectly positioned currently."

Although Vought isn't one to avoid divisive comments – he once said that he aspired to be "the person who crushes the bureaucratic establishment" – he doesn't exactly look the part of a Republican bogeyman.

Balding and bespectacled, with a salt-and-pepper facial hair, Vought's public statements generally feature the measured cadence of a bean-counter or academic.

He doesn't possess the narrow-eyed glower and amped-up rhetoric of another advisor, another longtime Trump adviser who oversees White House immigration policy.

Seizing Opportunity in Shutdown

Now Trump has threatened to unleash Vought at a time when, because of the legal limbo caused by the government shutdown, their cuts might be more extensive and lasting than those implemented previously.

Former House Speaker the political veteran, a veteran of the big shutdown fights of the 1990s, told NPR that Vought and his team have been preparing for precisely this situation while they were in the opposition period during the Biden years.

"Everyone understood a federal closure was likely," 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 very determined and whenever possible, you seize the moment."

The advantage this shutdown presents for spending reducers 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, slash funding and staffing deeper than it could previously, when spending was governed by baseline appropriation amounts.

And while job eliminations would still have to follow a 60-day notice, Vought could start that clock ticking whenever he, and the president, so choose.

Current Actions and Future Battles

The director has declared major infrastructure projects in the largest city and the midwestern metropolis are on hold, referring to required a examination of questionable employment policies - a examination that he said can't take place during the shutdown.

He's also cancelled nearly $8bn in clean energy projects across multiple states, each supporting the Democratic candidate, Trump's opponent, in last year's presidential race.

Democrats and federal worker unions have vowed to challenge these reductions in court and stated that the president is issuing largely empty threats to try to pressure them into abandoning the fight.

Numerous financial experts have pointed out that the administration cutbacks have been accompanied by other spending-increasing measures, which could undercut their attacks on the opposition for being the group favoring excessive spending.

"Republicans are increasing spending in other areas and reducing revenue at the identical period," Brett House, an economics professor at the Columbia University School of Business commented.

"The notion that they're committed to financial responsibility is not supported by their actions."

Electoral Dangers

Some Republicans in Congress have expressed concern that the visible enthusiasm with which the president is promoting Vought-ordered cuts could alienate voters if the closure continues.

GOP officials have cautioned of the dire consequences of the closure on public operations - as part of a strategy to depict the opposition as the responsible party.

Engaging in this while celebrating the new ways the government is cutting programs 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 recent memory… I just don't see why we would squander it, which represents the danger of being aggressive with executive power in the current situation."

Thom Tills, a North Carolina senator who has decided against campaigning for re-election next year, cautions that government representatives "must exercise caution" in how they announce additional reductions.

The efficiency group-mandated job cuts and program reductions were largely unpopular, according to public-opinion surveys, negatively affecting the leader's popularity.

A reprise of that now perilous.

According to Stern, though, the administration, and Vought, may view the long-term benefits as worth the immediate difficulties.

"For the director, for me, for anyone working on fiscal matters, this country is going bankrupt,"