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The President had a cautionary message for Democrats.

In the near future he will determine what "Democrat agencies" he would cut and whether those cutbacks would be temporary or long-lasting.

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

"Today I'm meeting with Russ Vought, known for his role in Project 2025," he posted on his social media platform on Thursday.

The Project 2025 Connection

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

But Project 2025, a right-wing plan for governing put together primarily by previous administration figures like Vought when the Republicans were out of power, played a significant role during the recent election cycle.

The 900-page policy document contained proposals for significant cuts in the size of federal government, expanded presidential authority, rigorous immigration enforcement, a national prohibition on abortion and other components of an ultra-conservative social agenda.

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

During the campaign, trying to calm undecided voters, the president attempted to separate himself from the proposal.

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

A Change in Strategy

Now, however, the president is employing the right-wing plan as leverage to get the opposition to agree to his budgetary demands.

And he is highlighting the budget director, who wrote a section on the employment of presidential authority, as a sort of financial grim reaper, ready to take a scythe to federal programs near and dear to Democrats.

In case that particular metaphor wasn't clear, on Thursday night Trump shared an computer-created spoof video on his social platform with Vought portrayed as the figure of death, set to altered lyrics of the rock band's classic song.

Political Reactions

In Congress, Republican leaders have repeated the president's description of the director as the White House heavy.

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

Senator Mike Lee of Utah told Fox News that Vought 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 helped run the advocacy division of the Heritage Foundation, has a wealth of experience examining the intricacies of the federal budget.

The Numbers Expert in the Administration

He spent a year as the assistant head of the federal budget agency during Trump's first term, advancing to become its director in 2019.

In contrast to numerous others who worked for the president during those first four years, the director maintained his position - and was promptly reappointed as head of the budget office when the president came back this year.

"A lot of those who didn't return represent an old way of thinking," said a policy expert, a think tank official who, similar to the director, started his professional life in conservative congressional budget circles.

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

Although Vought isn't one to shy away from controversial statements – he previously stated that he hoped to become "the individual who dismantles the deep state" – he doesn't exactly look the role of conservative villain.

Balding and bespectacled, with a greying beard, Vought's public statements typically have the measured cadence of a bean-counter or professor.

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

Capitalizing on Government Closure

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

Ex-congressional leader Newt Gingrich, a veteran of the big shutdown fights of the 1990s, told the media outlet that the director and his staff have been getting ready for precisely this situation while they were in the political wilderness during the previous administration.

"They all knew a government shutdown was likely," he said. "I think they had decided early on that significant change requires the level of transformation they want if you're very tough and very determined and every chance you get, you take the opportunity."

The advantage the closure offers for spending reducers like the director is that, without congressionally approved funding, the federal operations continue in a legal grey area with fewer budgetary restrictions.

The administration can, in theory, slash funding and staffing deeper than it could previously, when spending was governed by baseline appropriation amounts.

And while permanent layoffs would still have to follow a two-month warning, Vought could start that clock ticking whenever he, and Trump, decide to.

Current Actions and Future Battles

Vought already has announced major infrastructure projects in New York City and Chicago are on hold, citing the need for a examination of questionable employment policies - a review that he said cannot occur during the shutdown.

He's also cancelled almost eight billion dollars in clean energy projects across 16 states, each supporting the Democratic candidate, Trump's opponent, in the recent election.

Opposition parties and government employee organizations have promised to fight these cuts in the legal system and claimed that the president is issuing mostly bluffs to try to pressure them into abandoning the fight.

Numerous financial experts have pointed out that the White House reductions have been paired with other spending-increasing measures, which could undercut their attacks on Democrats for being the party of fiscal irresponsibility.

"Republicans are increasing spending in other areas and reducing revenue at the identical period," an economics professor, an academic expert at the prestigious institution noted.

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

Electoral Dangers

Certain GOP legislators have voiced worry that the visible enthusiasm with which the president is promoting director-mandated reductions could alienate voters if the closure continues.

GOP officials have cautioned of the dire consequences of the closure on public operations - part of a concerted effort to portray Democrats as the responsible party.

Doing so while celebrating the new ways the government is cutting programs could derail those efforts.

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

"Our party have never possessed this much moral high ground on a spending measure in our lives… I don't understand why we would waste it, which I think is the risk of employing presidential authority in this moment."

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 mostly disliked, according to polling data, negatively affecting the leader's popularity.

A repetition of this now perilous.

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

"For the director, for me, for anyone working on fiscal matters, the nation faces financial crisis,"