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Donald Trump had a warning for Democrats.

Soon he will decide what "Democrat agencies" he would reduce and whether those reductions would be temporary or long-lasting.

He said the federal closure, which began on Tuesday, had given him an "unique chance."

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

But Project 2025, a right-wing plan for administration put together mostly by former Trump officials like the director when the GOP was not in control, featured prominently during last year's presidential campaign.

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

It was often highlighted by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, as what she called a risky proposal for the coming years if he was to win.

At the time, trying to calm undecided voters, the president attempted to separate 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

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

And he is holding up Vought, who wrote a section on the employment of presidential authority, as a sort of financial grim reaper, ready to take a scythe to government programmes near and dear to Democrats.

In case that particular metaphor wasn't clear, on Thursday evening the president posted an AI-generated parody music video on Truth Social with Vought portrayed as the grim reaper, accompanied by changed words of Blue Oyster Cult's classic song.

Washington Responses

On Capitol Hill, GOP officials have echoed Trump's characterisation of Vought as the White House heavy.

"We have no say over what he's going to do," GOP Senate leader John Thune said. "This is the risk of closing federal operations and transferring control to Russ Vought."

Senator Mike Lee of Utah told the news network that Vought had been "preparing for this moment since puberty."

This might be a bit of an overstatement, but the director, who gained experience as a Capit Hill aide for GOP fiscal conservatives and helped run the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, has extensive background 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, rising to be its head in 2019.

In contrast to numerous others who served with Trump during those first four years, Vought had staying power - and was quickly reinstalled as head of the budget office when Trump returned recently.

"A lot of those who didn't come back represent an old way of thinking," said a policy expert, a Heritage economic policy director who, like Vought, began his career in conservative congressional budget circles.

"Russ was ahead of his time in the initial administration and right on time now."

While the director doesn't tend to shy away from controversial statements – he once said that he hoped to become "the person who crushes 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 generally feature the controlled rhythm of a numbers expert or academic.

He doesn't possess the intense stare and amped-up rhetoric of another advisor, a different presidential consultant who manages administration border measures.

Capitalizing on Government Closure

Currently the president has warned to unleash Vought at a moment when, because of the legal limbo created by the government shutdown, their reductions could become deeper and more durable than those instituted earlier this year.

Ex-congressional leader Newt Gingrich, a participant in the big shutdown fights of the 1990s, told the media outlet that the director and his staff have been preparing for exactly these kind of circumstances while they were in the opposition period during the Biden years.

"They all knew 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 determined and very determined and whenever possible, you seize the moment."

The opportunity the closure offers for budget-cutters like the director is that, lacking legislative authorization, the federal operations continue in a regulatory uncertainty with reduced spending constraints.

The administration can, in theory, slash funding and staffing deeper than it could earlier in the year, when expenditures followed standard funding levels.

And while permanent layoffs would still have to follow a two-month warning, Vought could start the countdown whenever he, and Trump, so choose.

Current Actions and Future Battles

The director has declared significant construction initiatives in New York City and Chicago are paused, referring to required a review of questionable employment policies - a examination that he said can't take place during the shutdown.

He's also cancelled almost eight billion dollars in clean energy projects across multiple states, all of which backed the Democratic candidate, the president's rival, in the recent election.

Opposition parties and government employee organizations have vowed to challenge these reductions in court and claimed that the president is issuing largely empty threats to try to force them to abandoning the fight.

Many economists have pointed out that the White House reductions have been accompanied by other deficit-ballooning policies, which could weaken their criticism on the opposition for being the party of fiscal irresponsibility.

"Republicans are increasing spending in other areas and reducing revenue at the same time," Brett House, an academic expert at the Columbia University School of Business commented.

"The idea that they're committed to fiscal prudence is not supported by what they're doing."

Political Risks

Some Republicans in Congress have voiced worry that the apparent glee with which Trump is touting director-mandated reductions could alienate voters if the closure continues.

Republicans have been warning of the serious effects of the shutdown on government services - part of a concerted effort to depict the opposition as the ones to blame.

Engaging in this while applauding the methods the government is cutting programs could undermine that approach.

"The director is less politically aware than the president," The legislator the senator, a participant in the efficiency group, told the news website Semafor.

"Our party have never had so much ethical advantage on a spending measure in recent memory… I just don't see why we would waste it, which I think is the risk of being aggressive with presidential authority in this moment."

Thom Tills, a legislator who has decided against campaigning for re-election next year, warns that administration officials "need to be really careful" in how they present any new cuts.

The Doge-directed layoffs and programme cuts were largely unpopular, according to public-opinion surveys, negatively affecting the leader's popularity.

A repetition of this might prove risky.

As the expert stated, though, the White House, and the director, may consider the future advantages as well worth the short-term challenges.

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