FILE PHOTO: Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
President Donald Trump shared an AI-made video that used an image of Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought dressed as the Grim Reaper. It prompted a confused MSNBC host to question why Trump would use such an allegation that wasn't a positive thing.
Speaking to Brendan Buck, a former strategist who worked under two House speakers, Paul Ryan (R-WI) and John Boehner (R-OH), Katy Tur read off the latest round of federal staffing cuts, which have been ongoing since Trump entered office.
"The president has depicted Russ Vought, his OMB director, as the Grim Reaper. It's confusing, and I had to double-check this just to make sure, because you would think that depicting one of your officials as the Grim Reaper, in normal times, wouldn't that be a bad thing?" Tur asked.
"In normal times, yes," Buck said, chuckling.
"But I think that what that clearly tells you is that they're using the threat or the follow-through of some of these RIFs, or layoffs, as a threat to Democrats. And I think Democrats are largely calling their bluff on it a bit," Buck said. "Now, for all 4,000 of those people and their families that's a crisis. And that's a personal crisis for them, but it is still just a fraction of the amount of layoffs that we were hearing about, rumored about, that Russ Vought was going to take."
He recalled people throwing around numbers, such as 100,000 people being cut from the government.
"And it took a really long time for them to get to this point. And I think what happened here was they kept threatening to do this, and didn't do it, and eventually they had to do something or else it was going to be very clear that this was just an empty threat," Buck said.
Tur returned to the phrasing of the reaper, asking as a communications expert, how it was helping to characterize Vought as the Grim Reaper or having Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) saying Vought has been dreaming about firing people "since puberty."
"They're putting a positive message, or they're making it sound like they really enjoy laying people off. Is that a good communications strategy?" Tur asked.
Buck agreed it wasn't a good strategy and noted that Republicans seem to be failing in the messaging battle on the shutdown.
"I just wonder how people take it, Brendan, I mean, if you are trying to message that this is not your fault, that the government shutdown is the Democrats' fault, that's the messaging that I'm confused by," Tur confessed.