President Donald Trump is treating the current shutdown not as a crisis, but as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the federal bureaucracy — and he isn’t hiding it.
On Thursday, Trump revealed that he would sit down with Russ Vought, his Office of Management and Budget director and key architect of Project 2025, to determine which “Democrat Agencies” should be cut. Some cuts, he hinted, might be temporary. Others could be permanent.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The tone isn’t just combative. It’s triumphant. Trump sees Democrats’ refusal to backstop federal spending without concessions as political malpractice — a blunder that hands him leverage to prune agencies long accused of bloated budgets, partisan mission creep, and outright waste.
And Vought has already started swinging the axe. This week, he announced the cancellation of nearly $8 billion in “Green New Scam” climate funding, much of it tied to projects in deep-blue states like California, New York, and Washington. The Department of Energy confirmed that 321 financial awards, valued at $7.65 billion, supporting 223 projects had been terminated. Energy Secretary Chris Wright was blunt: the projects “were not economically viable, did not advance the nation’s energy needs, and would not yield a positive return on taxpayer investment.”
The timing raised eyebrows. Roughly one-quarter of those awards were rushed through between Election Day 2024 and Trump’s inauguration — fueling the administration’s case that Biden’s team tried to lock in billions for allies before leaving office.
And the cuts aren’t stopping there. On Wednesday, Vought also announced the freeze of $18 billion in New York infrastructure funds — a direct shot at Democratic powerbrokers Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, who have led opposition to Trump’s funding proposals.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained the broader strategy: “There are unfortunate consequences to a government shutdown, and the federal government is not receiving any cash at the moment. The Office of Management and Budget has been tasked with looking over the receipts and looking over the budget of the entire federal bureaucracy.”
Trump himself is clear about the goal: use the shutdown to root out “dead wood, waste, and fraud.” Billions, he argues, can be saved if Republicans seize the moment instead of fearing the optics.
