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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 afforded him an "unprecedented opportunity."

"Today I'm meeting 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 widely known to the public.

But Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for administration put together primarily by previous administration figures like the director when the Republicans were out of power, featured prominently during the recent election cycle.

The 900-page policy document contained suggestions for significant cuts in the size of federal government, increased executive power, rigorous immigration enforcement, a nationwide abortion ban and other components of an far-right social program.

It was often highlighted by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, as Trump's "dangerous plan" for the future if he was to be elected.

At the time, seeking to reassure undecided voters, Trump tried to distance himself from the proposal.

"I'm not familiar with Project 2025," the president stated in July 2024. "I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are completely unreasonable and terrible."

Shifting Approach

Now, however, the president is employing the right-wing plan as a threat to get Democrats to agree to his budgetary demands.

And he is highlighting Vought, who wrote a section on the employment of presidential authority, as a kind of budgetary angel of death, prepared to make cuts to government programmes near and dear to Democrats.

To make the point even clearer, on Thursday evening Trump shared an AI-generated parody music video on his social platform with the director depicted as the figure of death, accompanied by changed words of Blue Oyster Cult's classic song.

Washington Responses

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

"We don't control his actions," Republican Senate Majority Leader the senator said. "This represents the danger of shutting down the government and transferring control to the budget director."

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

That may be a bit of an overstatement, but Vought, who cut his teeth as a congressional staffer for GOP fiscal conservatives and helped run the advocacy division of the conservative think tank, has a wealth of experience examining the intricacies of the federal budget.

The Bean-Counter Behind the President

He served for twelve months as the assistant head of the federal budget agency during the initial administration, advancing to become its head in that year.

Unlike many who served with Trump during that initial term, the director maintained his position - and was quickly reinstalled as director of OMB when Trump returned this year.

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

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

Although Vought isn't one to shy away from controversial statements – he once said that he hoped to become "the person who crushes the bureaucratic establishment" – he doesn't exactly look the part of a Republican bogeyman.

Balding and bespectacled, with a salt-and-pepper facial hair, 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 Stephen Miller, another longtime Trump adviser who oversees White House immigration policy.

Capitalizing on Government Closure

Currently the president has warned to deploy the director at a time when, because of the regulatory uncertainty caused by the government shutdown, their reductions could become deeper and more durable than those instituted earlier this year.

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

"Everyone understood a government shutdown was possible," he said. "I believe they concluded from the beginning that you're only going to get the scale of change they want if you're determined and resolute and every chance you get, you take the opportunity."

The opportunity this shutdown presents for budget-cutters like Vought is that, without congressionally approved funding, the government is operating in a legal grey area with fewer budgetary restrictions.

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

And while permanent layoffs would still have to follow a two-month warning, the director could begin that clock ticking whenever he, and the president, decide to.

Present Measures and Coming Conflicts

Vought already has announced major infrastructure projects in the largest city and Chicago are on hold, citing the need for a review of potentially illegal racial hiring practices - a review 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 Harris, 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 largely empty threats to try to pressure them into abandoning the fight.

Many economists have pointed out that the administration cutbacks have been accompanied by other deficit-ballooning policies, which could undercut their attacks on the opposition for being the group favoring excessive spending.

"Republicans are increasing spending in other areas and cutting taxes at the identical period," an economics professor, an academic expert at the Columbia University School of Business commented.

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

Political Risks

Some Republicans in Congress have expressed concern that the visible enthusiasm with which Trump is touting director-mandated reductions could alienate voters if the closure continues.

GOP officials have cautioned of the dire consequences of the shutdown on government services - part of a concerted effort to portray Democrats as the ones to blame.

Doing so while applauding the methods the administration is slashing programmes could undermine that approach.

"Russ is less politically in tune than his boss," South Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, a participant in the efficiency group, told the news website Semafor.

"We, as Republicans have never possessed this much ethical advantage on a spending measure in recent memory… I don't understand why we would squander it, which represents the danger of being aggressive with executive power 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 public-opinion surveys, causing a drag on the leader's popularity.

A repetition of this might prove risky.

According to Stern, though, the administration, and the director, may view the long-term benefits as well worth the short-term challenges.

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