Trump Embraces Project 2025 During Government Shutdown Battle/ Newslooks/ WASHINGTON/ J. Mansour/ Morning Edition/ Donald Trump is no longer distancing himself from Project 2025, a sweeping conservative plan to reshape government. The former president now embraces its policies, using the shutdown to push cuts and expand executive power. Key figures from Project 2025 now occupy top roles in his administration.
Project 2025 Shutdown Agenda: Quick Looks
- Trump openly aligns with Project 2025 after previously rejecting it during 2024 campaign.
- The former president uses the shutdown to initiate permanent cuts to federal agencies.
- Key Project 2025 authors now hold top roles in Trump’s administration.
- Shutdown strategy includes laying off federal workers, not just furloughs.
- Democrats accuse Trump of deceiving the public about his true agenda.
- Billions in Democrat-backed green and transportation projects are being slashed.
- Project 2025 calls for expanded presidential control over agencies.
- GOP leadership supports using shutdown leverage to consolidate executive power.
Deep Look
Trump Now Backs Project 2025 as Shutdown Becomes Conservative Weapon
President Donald Trump is no longer keeping his distance from Project 2025, the controversial right-wing roadmap to overhaul the federal government. Instead, he is now embracing its principles, using the ongoing government shutdown as a launchpad to implement the Heritage Foundation-backed plan.
Once criticized by Trump during the 2024 election cycle, Project 2025 has emerged as a guiding doctrine for his administration’s goals — particularly its focus on reducing the size of the federal workforce, defunding Democratic initiatives, and shifting power away from federal agencies and toward the presidency.
On Thursday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would be meeting with budget director Russ Vought — a lead architect of Project 2025 — to discuss which “Democrat Agencies” should be permanently eliminated or temporarily shut down. Calling many of these agencies “a political SCAM,” Trump hinted at long-term structural changes to the federal government.
This marks a sharp reversal from his previous stance. During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from the nearly 1,000-page Project 2025 document, claiming he had no knowledge of it or the individuals behind it — despite the involvement of close allies and former administration officials such as Vought, Stephen Miller, and John Ratcliffe.
In July 2024, Trump declared, “I have no idea who is behind [Project 2025]. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying… some of the things are absolutely ridiculous.” His campaign team echoed that message, warning Project 2025 organizers not to misrepresent their influence on the campaign.
Now, Trump has staffed much of his second-term leadership with key figures from the project. Vought, who has likened the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “a President’s air-traffic control system,” is helping implement its vision of expanding executive power, sidelining bureaucratic agencies, and making OMB central to all federal policy decisions.
Paul Dans, another architect of the blueprint and a Senate candidate in South Carolina, said he’s “excited” to see the agenda finally taking shape. “It’s gratifying. We’re proud of the work done to give a doer like Trump something to work from on Day One,” he said.
Shutdown Strategy as a Weapon of Reform
The current government shutdown has become a vehicle for enacting portions of Project 2025. Rather than using the typical method of furloughing non-essential federal workers, the administration is reportedly preparing for outright layoffs.
In a private call with House Republicans, Vought stated that these layoffs could begin within days, signaling a significant deviation from past shutdown practices.
Trump’s administration has also begun targeting funding in Democratic strongholds. Canceled initiatives include $8 billion in green energy programs and $18 billion in transportation infrastructure funding in New York — projects championed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
These moves represent a deeper strategy laid out in Project 2025: shrinking government, especially programs linked to Democratic policy goals, and concentrating decision-making power in the executive branch.
Democratic Backlash: “We Were Right”
The administration’s pivot has drawn strong criticism from Democrats who, during the 2024 election, warned that Project 2025 would define a second Trump term.
“Donald Trump and his stooges lied through their teeth,” said Ammar Moussa, a Democratic strategist. “There’s no comfort in being right — just anger.”
Shalanda Young, the Biden-era OMB director, expressed frustration: “I guess Democrats were right, but that doesn’t make me feel better… This is happening after being told the document wouldn’t be central to this administration.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson downplayed the shift, instead blaming Democrats for the shutdown itself.
“Democrats are desperate to talk about anything aside from their decision to hurt the American people,” she said.
GOP Embraces Executive Power Expansion
Top Republican lawmakers are cheering Trump’s use of the shutdown as a means to redefine government control. Senator Mike Lee stated on Fox News that Vought “has a plan,” and it’s unfolding successfully. House Speaker Mike Johnson declared that the legislative branch has effectively ceded control to the executive due to the shutdown.
Johnson criticized Democrats for voting to shut down the government, saying they “turned off the legislative branch” and “handed the keys of the kingdom to the president.”
But Young dismissed that argument, insisting the Constitution does not authorize such unilateral executive power.
“The keys are gone. They’re lost. They’re down a drain,” she said. “This shutdown is not what lost the keys — abandoning accountability did.”
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