House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., front, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., right, speaks during a news conference at the Capitol on Thursday in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has seized on the government shutdown as an opportunity to reshape the federal workforce and punish detractors, meeting with budget director Russ Vought on Thursday to talk through “temporary or permanent” spending cuts that could set up a lose-lose dynamic for Democratic lawmakers.

Trump announced the meeting on social media Thursday morning, saying he and Vought would determine “which of the many Democrat Agencies” would be cut — continuing their efforts to slash federal spending by threatening mass firings of workers and suggesting “irreversible” cuts to Democratic priorities.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump wrote on his social media account. “They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump has been very direct about his intentions in saying that he believes the Democrats would get the blame if he chooses to fire people or cut spending as part of the shutdown.

“There could be firings and that’s their fault,” the president said in an interview with One America News set to air Thursday. “I mean, we could cut projects that they wanted, favorite projects, and they’d be permanently cut.”

The Truth Social post was notable in its explicit embrace of Project 2025, a controversial policy blueprint drafted by the Heritage Foundation that Trump distanced himself from during his reelection campaign. The effort aimed to reshape the federal government around right-wing policies, and Democrats repeatedly pointed to its goals to warn of the consequences of a second Trump administration.

Vought on Wednesday offered an opening salvo of the pressure he hoped to put on Democrats. He announced he was withholding $18 billion for the Hudson River rail tunnel and Second Avenue subway line in New York City that have been championed by both Democratic leaders, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, in their home state. Vought is also canceling $8 billion in green energy projects in states with Democratic senators.

“Trump’s so-called ‘maximum pain’ plan isn’t hurting Democrats — it’s hurting American families,” Schumer said in a statement Thursday. “He’s snatching paychecks, threatening jobs, and deliberately inflicting suffering on working people just to score petty political points.”

Meanwhile, the White House is preparing for mass firings of federal workers, rather than simply furloughing it as is the usual practice during a shutdown. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week that layoffs were “imminent.”

“If they don’t want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government,” Leavitt said Thursday said of Democrats.

The bespectacled and bearded Vought has emerged as a central figure in the shutdown — promising possible layoffs of government workers that would be a show of strength by the Trump administration as well as a possible liability given the weakening job market and existing voter unhappiness over the economy.

The strategic goal is to increase the political pressure on Democratic lawmakers as agencies tasked with environmental protection, racial equity and addressing poverty, among other things, could be gutted over the course of the shutdown.

But Democratic lawmakers also see Vought as the architect of a strategy to refuse to spend congressionally approved funds, using a tool known as a “pocket rescission” in which the administration submits plans to return unspent money to Congress just before the end of the fiscal year, causing that money to lapse.

All of this means that Democratic spending priorities might be in jeopardy regardless of whether they want to keep the government open or partially closed.

Ahead of the end of the fiscal year in September, Vought used the pocket rescission to block the spending of $4.9 billion in foreign aid.

Democrats are holding fast to their demands to preserve health care funding and refusing to back a bill that fails to do so, warning of price spikes for millions of Americans nationwide.