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The President had a warning for Democrats.

Soon he will decide what "opposition-supported departments" he would cut and whether those reductions 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 social media platform on Thursday.

The Project 2025 Connection

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

But Project 2025, a right-wing plan for administration put together primarily by former Trump officials like the director when the GOP was not in control, featured prominently during the recent election cycle.

The 900-page policy document contained proposals for significant cuts in the size of federal government, expanded presidential authority, strict border controls, a national prohibition on abortion and other components of an far-right social program.

It was frequently touted by Democratic presidential nominee the former vice president, as Trump's "dangerous plan" 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'm not familiar with the 2025 plan," the president stated in July 2024. "I don't agree with certain aspects of their proposal and some elements are completely unreasonable and terrible."

Shifting Approach

Now, however, the president is employing the conservative blueprint as leverage to get Democrats to accept his spending requirements.

And he is highlighting Vought, who wrote a section on the use of executive power, as a sort of budgetary angel of death, prepared to make cuts to federal programs near and dear to the opposition party.

To make the point even clearer, on Thursday night the president posted an computer-created spoof video on his social platform with the director depicted as the grim reaper, accompanied by changed words of Blue Oyster Cult's classic song.

Political Reactions

On Capitol Hill, Republican leaders have repeated the president's description of the director as the administration enforcer.

"We have no say over his actions," Republican Senate Majority Leader the senator said. "This represents the danger of closing federal operations and handing the keys to Russ Vought."

The Utah senator of his state told the news network that Vought had been "getting ready for this situation since puberty."

That may be a bit of an overstatement, but Vought, who gained experience as a congressional staffer for GOP fiscal conservatives and helped run the lobbying arm of the conservative think tank, has extensive background examining the complexities of government spending.

The Bean-Counter Behind the President

He served for twelve months as the deputy director of the federal budget agency during the initial administration, advancing to become its director in 2019.

In contrast to numerous others 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.

"Many individuals who didn't return embody outdated approaches," said a policy expert, a Heritage economic policy director who, similar to the director, began his career in conservative congressional budget circles.

"The director was innovative in the first term and perfectly positioned now."

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 exactly look the role of conservative villain.

Balding and bespectacled, with a salt-and-pepper facial hair, the director's remarks typically have the controlled rhythm of a bean-counter or academic.

He lacks the narrow-eyed glower and amped-up rhetoric of Stephen Miller, another longtime Trump adviser who oversees White House immigration policy.

Capitalizing on Government Closure

Now Trump has threatened to deploy the director at a time when, because of the legal limbo caused by the federal closure, their cuts might be deeper and more durable than those instituted earlier this year.

Former House Speaker the political veteran, a veteran of the major closure battles of the nineties, told NPR that the director and his staff have been getting ready for exactly these kind of circumstances while they were in the political wilderness during the previous administration.

"Everyone understood a government shutdown was possible," he said. "I think they had decided early on that you're only going to get the scale of change they want if you're determined and resolute and whenever possible, you seize the moment."

The advantage this shutdown presents for budget-cutters like the director is that, without congressionally approved funding, the federal operations continue in a regulatory uncertainty with reduced spending constraints.

The administration can, theoretically, slash funding and staffing more extensively than it could previously, when expenditures followed standard funding levels.

And while job eliminations would still have to abide by a 60-day notice, Vought could start that clock ticking when he, and Trump, decide to.

Present Measures and Coming Conflicts

Vought already has announced major infrastructure projects in New York City and Chicago are paused, referring to required a examination of potentially illegal racial hiring practices - a examination that he said cannot occur during the closure.

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

Opposition parties and government employee organizations have vowed to challenge these reductions in court and stated that the president is issuing mostly bluffs to try to pressure them into abandoning the fight.

Many economists have pointed out that the administration cutbacks have been paired with other deficit-ballooning policies, which could weaken their criticism on the opposition for being the party of fiscal irresponsibility.

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

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

Electoral Dangers

Certain GOP legislators have voiced worry that the visible enthusiasm with which Trump is touting Vought-ordered cuts could turn public opinion against them if the shutdown stretches on.

GOP officials have cautioned of the dire consequences of the closure on public operations - 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 undermine that approach.

"The director is less politically aware than his boss," South Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, a member of the "Doge caucus", told the news website Semafor.

"We, as Republicans have never possessed this much ethical advantage on a government funding bill in our lives… I don't understand why we would squander it, which I think is the risk of employing presidential authority in this moment."

The North Carolina senator, a North Carolina senator 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 largely unpopular, according to public-opinion surveys, causing a drag on the leader's popularity.

A repetition of this might prove perilous.

As the expert stated, however, the administration, and Vought, may view the long-term benefits as well worth the short-term challenges.

"For Russ, for myself, for anyone working on fiscal matters, the nation faces financial crisis,"