Trump boasts of meeting with Project 2025 architect to cut 'Democrat agencies'

President Donald Trump — who spent the 2024 campaign denying any knowledge of Project 2025 — appointed its chief architect, Russell Vought, to lead the Office of Management and Budget upon taking office. On the second day of the government shutdown, the President boasted that he would meet with his OMB director to cut “Democrat agencies,” calling the standoff an “unprecedented opportunity” — a claim experts say is false, since a shutdown grants the president no new authority to abolish agencies or make permanent layoffs.

“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said less than two months before the 2024 election, PBS News reported at the time. “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.”

Thursday morning, Trump praised the program.

“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.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DJT.”

In an MSNBC opinion piece earlier this week, U.S. Rep. James R. Walkinshaw (D-VA) wrote: “Russ Vought’s directive to fire federal workers during a shutdown is illegal.”

The Center for American Progress, also earlier this week, said that “an emergency shutdown provides no justification for making permanent layoffs. In addition, legal barriers as well as Office of Personnel Management (OPM) precedent have long stood in the way of executing permanent reductions in force (RIFs) during a shutdown.”

And on Thursday, Brendan Duke of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote: “the government shutdown provides Trump *no additional authority* to lay off staff.”

Meanwhile, unrelated to federal firings, Vought announced on Wednesday that he was freezing $18 billion in infrastructure funding for New York City, a move that also affects New Jersey. He then announced an even more blue-state-targeted move: cutting $8 billion in what he described as “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.”

Those cuts are across sixteen states — not one of which voted for Trump in the 2024 election.

Critics are blasting the President.

“Trump embracing Project 2025 (after distancing himself during campaign) and vowing to implement deep cuts envisioned by Russ Vought amid shutdown,” observed CNN’s Manu Raju.

“Remember the good ole days where Trump told us he didn’t know what Project 2025 was?” wrote Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov.

“Trump last year: ‘I have nothing to do with Project 2025.’ Trump now: ‘Boy am I excited to see what the government will be shaped like after Mr. Project 2025 is done recreating it,'” wrote The Bulwark’s Andrew Egger.

“Trump scammed you. He is, and was always, Project 2025,” The Lincoln Project noted.

“Remember when Trump pretended to have nothing to do with project 2025? It should be a scandal that he brazenly lied to the American people about his plans when he was trying to get their votes,” wrote political commentator Krystal Ball.

“And there it is,” wrote a popular social media commentator. “Trump admits he wants the shutdown to further implement project 2025. Do you get it now?”