Trump plans new way to torment Democrats as his shutdown continues

President Donald Trump has found a new way to weaponize the government shutdown. On Thursday, he announced that he will be meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to decide which “Democrat Agencies” should be cut.

“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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The federal government is now two days into its first shutdown since 2019 after lawmakers failed to pass a spending bill. At the center of the fight is whether the package should include an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, which Democrats argue are vital to protecting health care coverage, while Republicans contend that the issue should be handled separately.

GOP leaders have tried to frame the dispute as Democrats pushing for health care for undocumented immigrants, a claim that has been debunked. Democrats, however, counter that their goal is to ensure that lawful residents and U.S. citizens are covered.

Even though Republicans control every level of government, Trump has been eager to pin the crisis on Democrats—and now seems ready to use the shutdown as cover for mass layoffs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day of the shutdown. But OMB has gone a step further, circulating a memo asking agencies to prepare full-blown reduction-in-force plans.

Ahead of Trump’s meeting with Vought on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that layoffs will likely be “in the thousands.”

Unions representing federal employees have already filed suit, calling the administration’s threats “contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.” Democrats, too, say the firings would be illegal.

Still, Vought told House Republicans Wednesday that mass cuts could begin “in a day or two.” And Trump has been openly gleeful about it.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” he wrote. “Maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Meanwhile, the White House is trying to spin layoffs as a necessity.

“If [Democrats are] so worried about the effect this is having on the American people—and they should be—what they should do is reopen the government, not complain about how we respond,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters Wednesday

Trump, of course, doesn’t have the power to eliminate agencies created by Congress, but there are other levers. Vought has already announced $8 billion in energy cuts across 16 states—all of which voted for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024—and is now threatening to pull infrastructure funding for New York City.

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What’s striking about Trump’s post is how he’s suddenly leaning into Vought’s ties to Project 2025. He spent months pretending to keep his distance from the Heritage Foundation blueprint, which Democrats made a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign. Now he’s bragging about having one of its architects by his side.

Project 2025 was written as a 900-page playbook to overhaul the federal government, expand presidential authority, and embed right-wing control across federal agencies. Vought helped write it, and now he’s deciding which “Democrat Agencies” to target as the shutdown drags on.

Vought pushes what he calls “radical constitutionalism,” a brand of Christian nationalism that tosses aside the usual checks on presidential power. In practice, it treats Congress as essentially irrelevant and casts the president as something closer to a monarch than a constitutional leader.

In other words, Trump is turning a shutdown of his own making into a test run for Project 2025—and pushing to see just how far he can bend the system before it breaks.

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