President Donald Trump on Thursday said Democrats have given him an “unprecedented opportunity” to slash federal agencies, signaling plans to harm his political opponents during the 2-day-old government shutdown while blaming them for causing it.
Trump’s warning came a day after his administration froze about $18 billion for two major infrastructure projects in New York City and canceled roughly $8 billion more for climate-related projects in Democratic-leaning states.
The top Democrats leading the shutdown fight, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both represent New York.
Both of the funding halts were first announced by Russell Vought, the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, not by the departments that have oversight of the projects.
Trump said he will soon meet with Vought “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut.”
The two men will also weigh “whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” he added.
The Trump administration, in a memo released by Vought’s OMB, had warned federal agencies last week to prepare for mass firings in the event of a shutdown.
Trump, asked about that memo, said, “there could be firings and that’s their fault.”
“We could cut projects that they wanted, favorite projects, and they’d be permanently cut,” he said in a recent interview with conservative news outlet OAN.
Top White House officials — including Vought and Vice President JD Vance — said Wednesday that those firings would begin within days.
And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the number of federal layoffs is “likely going to be in the thousands.”
It was unclear when Trump and Vought were scheduled to meet. The White House responded to a request for details about the meeting with an automated message blaming Democrats for the shutdown and warning that its correspondence with the press may be delayed as a result.
Vought was a key author of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for massively reforming the U.S. government.
Trump repeatedly disavowed Project 2025 while running for president, saying he and his campaign had “nothing to do with it.”
But in Thursday’s post, Trump touted Vought as “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.”
The federal shutdown began Wednesday after a divided Congress could not pass a bill to keep the government fully funded past the fiscal year that ended Tuesday.
Republicans, who hold the White House and slim majorities in the House and Senate, wanted to pass a stopgap bill to maintain funding at current levels until late November.
Democrats, whose support is needed to overcome the 60-vote Senate filibuster, want any short-term funding to include an extension of enhanced Obamacare tax credits, which are due to lapse at year’s end. The enhanced subsidies reduce the costs of health insurance premiums for a wider swath of Affordable Care Act enrollees.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday morning on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that Democrats are negotiating like “terrorists.”
Bessent also said he “can guarantee there’s not going to be an agreement” with regard to the dispute over the ACA credits.
Past government shutdowns have cause hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be furloughed, meaning placed on unpaid leave. But they generally are guaranteed back pay upon their return once the government reopens.
Vance, asked Wednesday why the Trump administration is gearing up to fire workers instead of merely furlough them, said, “We haven’t made any final decisions about what we’re going to do with certain workers.”
“What we’re saying is that we might have to take extraordinary steps, especially the longer this goes on,” he said.
Competing short-term funding bills that were reintroduced by Republicans and Democrats both failed to pass the Senate on Wednesday.
No votes were scheduled for Thursday due to the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, meaning the shutdown will last until at least Friday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said his chamber will vote again on Republicans’ stopgap measure on Friday.
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