On Thursday morning, Trump said he was meeting with Vought to follow through on plans for mass layoffs, taunting Democrats by referencing his role as a co-author of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint Trump disowned in the campaign but that his administration has often turned to. “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 wrote on Truth social. There is no shortage of irony in Vought’s starring role in a government shutdown battle.