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Donald Trump had a cautionary message for Democrats.

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

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

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

Linking to the 2025 Plan

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 governing put together mostly by previous administration figures like Vought when the GOP was not in control, featured prominently during last year's presidential campaign.

The comprehensive policy guide contained proposals for significant cuts in the size of federal government, expanded presidential authority, strict border controls, a nationwide abortion ban and other components 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.

During the campaign, trying to calm swing voters, the president attempted to separate himself from the policy document.

"I know nothing about the 2025 plan," Trump wrote in mid-2024. "I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some elements are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."

Shifting Approach

Now, however, the president is employing the conservative blueprint as a threat to get Democrats to agree to his spending requirements.

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

To make the point even clearer, on Thursday night Trump shared an computer-created spoof video on Truth Social with Vought portrayed as the figure of death, set to altered lyrics of Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper.

Washington Responses

In Congress, Republican leaders have repeated the president's description of the director as the administration enforcer.

"We have no say over his actions," GOP Senate leader the senator said. "This is the risk of closing federal operations and transferring control to the budget director."

Senator Mike Lee of his state told Fox News that the director had been "preparing for this moment for many years."

That may be a bit of an overstatement, but the director, who cut his teeth as a congressional staffer for Republican budget hawks and assisted in managing the lobbying arm of the conservative think tank, has extensive background examining the complexities of government spending.

The Numbers Expert in the Administration

He spent a year as the deputy director of the White House budget office during Trump's first term, rising to be its director in that year.

In contrast to numerous others who served with Trump during that initial term, the director maintained his position - and was promptly reappointed as director of OMB when the president came back recently.

"A lot of those 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 GOP fiscal policy networks.

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

While the director doesn't tend to avoid 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.

Thinning hair and wearing glasses, with a greying beard, the director's remarks typically have the measured cadence of a numbers expert or academic.

He lacks the narrow-eyed glower and amped-up rhetoric of another advisor, a different presidential consultant who manages administration border measures.

Seizing Opportunity in Shutdown

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

Ex-congressional leader the political veteran, a veteran of the big shutdown fights of the nineties, told NPR that Vought and his team have been getting ready for precisely this situation while they were in the political wilderness during the previous administration.

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

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

The White House can, theoretically, cut budgets and personnel deeper than it could previously, when spending was governed by baseline appropriation amounts.

And while permanent layoffs would still have to abide by a 60-day notice, the director could begin the countdown whenever he, and the president, so choose.

Current Actions and Future Battles

Vought already has announced major infrastructure projects in the largest city and the midwestern metropolis 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 almost eight billion dollars in clean energy projects across multiple states, each supporting the Democratic candidate, Trump's opponent, in the recent election.

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

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

"Republicans are increasing spending in different sectors and reducing revenue at the identical period," Brett House, an academic expert at the Columbia University School of Business commented.

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

Electoral Dangers

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

Republicans have been warning of the dire consequences of the closure on public operations - as part of a strategy to portray Democrats as the responsible party.

Doing so while celebrating the new ways the administration is slashing programmes could derail those efforts.

"The director is less politically aware than the president," South Dakota Senator the senator, a member of the "Doge caucus", told the media outlet.

"Our party have never possessed this much moral high ground on a government funding bill in our lives… I just don't see why we would squander it, which I think is the risk of employing executive power in the current situation."

The North Carolina senator, a North Carolina senator who has decided against campaigning for another term, cautions that government representatives "need to be really careful" in how they present any new cuts.

The Doge-directed layoffs and program reductions were mostly disliked, according to polling data, negatively affecting the leader's popularity.

A reprise of that now perilous.

As the expert stated, though, the administration, and Vought, may view the long-term benefits as worth the immediate difficulties.

"For Russ, for myself, for anyone working on fiscal matters, this country is going bankrupt,"