Despite initially distancing himself from it, Donald Trump is now using the initiative as a cudgel to taunt Democrats.
President Donald Trump has vowed to use the levers of federal power to punish blue states and Democratic lawmakers who have defied him. On Truth Social, the president announced he was meeting with Russell Vought—the former Office of Management and Budget director and a key architect of the far-right ‘Project 2025′ playbook—to decide “which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM,” should be eliminated.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies… he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” TrumpDemetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images “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!” Project 2025, the sprawling transition plan organized by the Heritage Foundation and allied Trump loyalists, outlines how a second Trump administration could gut federal agencies, consolidate executive power, and purge the civil service of employees deemed insufficiently loyal. Vought’s role in the project centers on budget-slashing and restructuring federal programs to align with Trump’s agenda. Vought’s agenda reportedly clashed with that of Elon Musk’s. He, too, had a go at gutting federal agencies and their spending when he briefly headed up the Department of Government Efficiency. Vought reportedly felt undercut by the Tesla chief’s brief efforts to make sweeping reforms. “We’re going to let DOGE break things, and we’ll pick up the pieces later,” Vought told his staff, three people toldwhich claimed that “THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO GIVE YOUR HEALTHCARE MONEY TO ILLEGAL ALIENS AND OPEN OUR BORDERS TO THE CRIMINALS OF THE WORLD, A DEADLY COMBINATION BECAUSE EVERYBODY WILL COME!” On Wednesday evening, Vought said he had put Trump’s rhetoric into action. He announced the cancellation of nearly $8 billion in clean energy projects, bragging on X that he was pulling back “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.” Every project targeted was in a blue state that Trump lost in 2024—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. All of those states have Democratic senators, and every one of those senators voted against the short-term Republican funding bill Trump backed to keep the government open. Vought watches as Vice President JD Vance speaks ahead of a September 30 deadline to fund the government on September 29.Vought didn’t disclose which specific projects were being cut or where the clawed-back money would land, only writing that the Department of Energy would provide “more to share.” During the 2024 campaign trail, Trump tried to publicly distance himself from Project 2025 after critics characterized it as proof that he wanted to impose an authoritarian government. in August last year, the now-president described it as “seriously extreme” and “absolutely ridiculous.” In the ABC News Presidential Debate against Kamala Harris in September 2024, he even explicitly distanced himself from it. “I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump declared.
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