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Donald Trump had a cautionary message for the opposition party.

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 began on Tuesday, had given him an "unprecedented opportunity."

"Today I'm meeting with Russ Vought, known for his role in Project 2025," he posted on his Truth Social website on Thursday morning.

Linking to the 2025 Plan

Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, may not be a household name.

But the 2025 initiative, a right-wing plan for governing put together mostly by previous administration figures like Vought when the GOP was not in control, played a significant role during the recent election cycle.

The 900-page policy document contained proposals for significant cuts in the size of federal government, expanded presidential authority, strict border controls, a national prohibition on abortion and other elements 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, seeking to reassure swing voters, the president attempted to separate himself from the policy document.

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

Shifting Approach

Currently, though, the president is employing the conservative blueprint as leverage to get the opposition to accept his budgetary demands.

And he is holding up the budget director, who wrote a section on the employment of presidential authority, as a sort of financial grim reaper, prepared to make cuts to government programmes important to the opposition party.

In case that particular metaphor wasn't clear, on Thursday night the president posted an computer-created spoof video on Truth Social with the director depicted as the figure of death, set to altered lyrics of the rock band's Don't Fear the Reaper.

Washington Responses

On Capitol Hill, GOP officials have echoed Trump's characterisation of Vought as the administration enforcer.

"We don't control what he's going to do," GOP Senate leader John Thune said. "This is the risk of closing federal operations and transferring control to the budget director."

Senator Mike Lee of Utah told Fox News that the director had been "getting ready for this situation since puberty."

This might be somewhat exaggerated, but Vought, who gained experience as a congressional staffer for Republican budget hawks 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 federal budget agency during Trump's first term, advancing to become its head in 2019.

Unlike many who served with Trump during those first four years, the director maintained his position - and was promptly reappointed as head of the budget office when the president came back recently.

"A lot of those who didn't return represent an old way of thinking," said a policy expert, a Heritage economic policy director who, similar to the director, started his professional life in GOP fiscal policy networks.

"Russ was ahead of his time in the initial administration and perfectly positioned currently."

While the director doesn't tend to shy away from divisive comments – he previously stated 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 salt-and-pepper facial hair, the director's remarks generally feature the controlled rhythm of a bean-counter or professor.

He doesn't possess the narrow-eyed glower and heated language of another advisor, another longtime Trump adviser who oversees White House immigration policy.

Seizing Opportunity in Shutdown

Now Trump has threatened to unleash Vought at a moment when, because of the regulatory uncertainty caused by the federal closure, their cuts might be more extensive and lasting than those implemented previously.

Former House Speaker the political veteran, a veteran of the major closure battles of the 1990s, told NPR that the director and his staff have been getting ready for precisely this situation while they were in the opposition period during the previous administration.

"They all knew a government shutdown was likely," he said. "I believe they concluded from the beginning that significant change requires the scale of change they want if you're determined and very determined and every chance you get, you seize the moment."

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 deeper than it could earlier in the year, when expenditures followed baseline appropriation amounts.

And while permanent layoffs would still have to follow a 60-day notice, Vought could start that clock ticking whenever he, and Trump, decide to.

Current Actions and Future Battles

The director has declared major infrastructure projects in the largest city and Chicago are on hold, citing the need for a examination of questionable employment policies - a review that he said cannot occur during the shutdown.

He's also terminated nearly $8bn in clean energy projects across 16 states, all of which backed Harris, Trump's opponent, in the recent election.

Democrats and federal worker unions have vowed to challenge these cuts in court and stated that Trump is making mostly bluffs to try to force them to abandoning the fight.

Many economists have pointed out that the White House reductions have been accompanied by other spending-increasing measures, which could undercut their attacks on the opposition for being the party of fiscal irresponsibility.

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

"The notion that they're committed to financial responsibility is not borne out by what they're doing."

Political Risks

Some Republicans in Congress have expressed concern that the apparent glee with which the president is promoting Vought-ordered cuts could turn public opinion against them if the shutdown stretches on.

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

Engaging in this while celebrating the new ways the government is cutting programs 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.

"We, as Republicans have never had so much ethical advantage on a spending measure in our lives… I don't understand why we would squander it, which I think is the risk of employing presidential authority in the current situation."

Thom Tills, a North Carolina senator who has chosen not to run for re-election next year, warns that administration officials "must exercise caution" in how they present any new cuts.

The Doge-directed layoffs and programme cuts were mostly disliked, according to public-opinion surveys, negatively affecting the president's approval ratings.

A repetition of this could be risky.

As the expert stated, though, the administration, and Vought, 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,"