President Donald Trump is leaning heavily into his budget director Russell Vought's "Project 2025" fame as he threatens to make cuts to Democratic spending priorities.
The president called the government shutdown "an unprecedented opportunity" to slash government spending and continue efforts by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to cut the federal workforce, and he made clear that approved of Vought's role in developing the right-wing blueprint for his second administration.
"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 posted Thursday morning on Truth Social. "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."
Other social media users pointed out that Trump, during last year's re-election campaign, tried to distance himself from the Project 2025 blueprint developed under the leadership of The Heritage Foundation, although his administration has already implemented almost half of the policies listed in the massive document.
"Trump embracing Project 2025 (after distancing himself during campaign) and vowing to implement deep cuts envisioned by Russ Vought amid shutdown," noted CNN's Manu Raju.
"Remember the good ole days where Trump told us he didn’t know what Project 2025 was?" wondered Fox News commentator Jessica Tarlov.
"Every journalist who published a piece about how nothing linked Trump to Project 2025 needs to lose a job," posted Bluesky user Aubrey Gillaran.
"Remember Trump told the news that he didn’t know what Project 2025 was and that a lot of it seemed crazy to him and the media was like ok sounds good," agreed Bluesky user Brendel.
"Huh," sighed historian Stephen West, adding a quote from Trump telling Kamala Harris during their debate that he had "nothing to do" with Project 2025 and had no interest in learning about it.
"Everyone should question what else Trump lied about, from the risk of a deadly airborne disease to (vanishingly rare) election fraud to the Russian interfering in our elections," posted Bluesky user Alexander Howard.
"He’s following the Project 2025 plan, and he’s not hiding it anymore," argued geopolitical analyst Joni Askola.
"My most vivid memory from the 2024 election is CNN anchors desperately tripping over themselves to stress that 'Trump has disavowed Project 2025' every time it was mentioned," recalled scholar Gabriel Lonsberry.
"There are many things we need to talk about, but one of them is why anyone was willing to run with the outright lie that Trump didn't know about Project 2025," said social media strategist Sara Lang. "He clearly did. There was no plausible deniability, and yet too many political press were willing to go along with the charade."
"Remember when Trump pretended he knew ‘nothing about Project 2025’? Cute," posted the Voter Protection Project. "Now he’s huddling with its author to slash government agencies. Guess his memory came back."