🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump had a warning for Democrats.

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

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

"Today I'm meeting with the budget director, known for his role in Project 2025," he posted 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 widely known to the public.

But Project 2025, a right-wing plan for administration put together mostly by previous administration figures like Vought when the GOP was not in control, featured prominently during the recent election cycle.

The 900-page policy document contained suggestions for dramatic reductions in the size of federal government, increased executive power, strict border controls, a nationwide abortion ban and other components of an ultra-conservative social agenda.

It was frequently touted by the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, as Trump's "dangerous plan" for the coming years if he was to be elected.

During the campaign, seeking to reassure undecided voters, Trump tried to distance himself from the proposal.

"I'm not familiar with Project 2025," the president stated in mid-2024. "I don't agree with certain aspects of their proposal and some elements are absolutely ridiculous and terrible."

Shifting Approach

Now, however, the president is employing the conservative blueprint as leverage to get the opposition to agree to his budgetary demands.

And he is highlighting Vought, who authored a chapter 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.

In case that particular metaphor wasn't clear, on Thursday night the president posted an computer-created spoof video on his social platform with the director depicted as the grim reaper, set to altered lyrics of the rock band's classic song.

Washington Responses

In Congress, Republican leaders 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 Russ Vought."

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

This might be a bit of an overstatement, but Vought, who gained experience as a congressional staffer for GOP fiscal conservatives and assisted in managing the advocacy division of the Heritage Foundation, has extensive background examining the intricacies of the federal budget.

The Bean-Counter Behind the President

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

In contrast to numerous others who worked for the president during that initial term, Vought had staying power - and was promptly reappointed as head of the budget office when the president came back this year.

"Many individuals who didn't return represent an old way of thinking," said a policy expert, a think tank official who, like Vought, began his career in conservative congressional budget circles.

"Russ was ahead of his time in the first term and perfectly positioned currently."

While the director doesn't tend to avoid controversial statements – he once said that he aspired to be "the person who crushes the deep state" – he doesn't exactly look the part of a Republican bogeyman.

Thinning hair and wearing glasses, with a greying beard, Vought's public statements typically have the controlled rhythm of a bean-counter or professor.

He lacks the narrow-eyed glower and amped-up rhetoric of another advisor, another longtime Trump adviser who manages administration border measures.

Capitalizing on Government Closure

Currently the president has warned to unleash Vought at a moment when, because of the regulatory uncertainty caused by the federal closure, their reductions could become deeper and more durable than those implemented previously.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a participant in the major closure battles of the 1990s, told NPR that Vought and his team have been getting ready for exactly these kind of circumstances while they were in the opposition period during the previous administration.

"They all knew a federal closure was possible," he said. "I believe they concluded early on that you're only going to get the scale of change they want if you're very tough and resolute and every chance you get, you take the opportunity."

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

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

And while job eliminations would still have to follow a two-month warning, the director could begin that clock ticking whenever he, and Trump, so choose.

Present Measures and Coming Conflicts

Vought already has announced major infrastructure projects in New York City and the midwestern metropolis are paused, citing the need for a review of questionable employment policies - a review that he said cannot occur during the closure.

He's also terminated nearly $8bn in renewable energy initiatives across 16 states, all of which backed the Democratic candidate, Trump's opponent, in last year's presidential race.

Opposition parties and government employee organizations have promised to fight these reductions in the legal system and claimed that the president is issuing largely empty threats to try to pressure them into giving up their opposition.

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

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

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

Electoral Dangers

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

Republicans have been warning of the dire consequences of the closure on public operations - part of a concerted effort to depict the opposition as the ones to blame.

Doing so while celebrating the new ways the administration is slashing programmes could undermine that approach.

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

"We, as Republicans have never had so much moral high ground on a government funding bill in our lives… I don't understand why we would squander it, which represents the danger of being aggressive with presidential authority in this moment."

Thom Tills, a legislator who has chosen not to run for re-election next year, cautions that government representatives "must exercise caution" in how they announce additional reductions.

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

A reprise of that could be perilous.

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

"For Russ, for myself, for anybody who's in the budget space, this country is going bankrupt,"