Chuck Schumer thought he had Trump cornered with a government shutdown.
Democrats were convinced they could force the President to cave on their radical spending demands.
But Trump found one way to turn the Democrat shutdown into his biggest victory yet.
President Donald Trump just pulled off one of the most brilliant political jujitsu moves in modern history.
While Democrats pat themselves on the back for shutting down the government, Trump announced Thursday he would meet with Budget Director Russ Vought to determine which federal agencies deserve the chopping block.
"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 on Truth Social.¹
The President couldn't contain his glee at the golden opportunity Democrats just handed him.
"I can't believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity," Trump continued. "They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"²
You have to love Trump's sense of humor here.
Democrats thought they were playing hardball by forcing a shutdown.
Instead, they just gave the master dealmaker exactly what he needed to permanently shrink the federal government.
Russ Vought isn't waiting around to start making cuts.
Since Wednesday, Vought has pulled the plug on roughly eight billion dollars worth of climate change spending that was headed straight to Democrat strongholds across the country.³
But that's not all.
New York got hit especially hard when Vought froze eighteen billion dollars earmarked for major transportation projects in the city - we're talking about the Hudson Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway getting put on ice.⁴
You have to appreciate the strategic thinking here.
This money was flowing directly to the political bases of Chuck Schumer and other Democrats who thought they could strong-arm Trump.
Now those same Democrats are watching their favorite projects get the axe.
Meanwhile, Vought has been systematically dismantling other pieces of the federal bureaucracy.
Congress already gave him the green light to shut down USAID entirely, along with defunding PBS and NPR to the tune of nine billion dollars.⁵
Talk about draining the swamp.
The beauty of this whole operation is that it's completely above board - Congress already signed off on these moves when they passed the spending cuts earlier this year.
Here's where things get really interesting.
The Trump administration just processed buyout packages for over 154,000 government workers who decided to take the money and run.⁶
That's more federal employees than live in most American cities, and they all walked out the door in a single week.
But Trump and Vought are just getting started.
By the end of this year, they're planning to shrink the federal workforce by somewhere north of 300,000 positions.
For folks who've watched the federal bureaucracy grow like a cancer for decades, this is the kind of news that makes you want to celebrate.
Of course, Trump has made it crystal clear that the important stuff won't get touched.
Border agents, military personnel, Social Security workers, Medicare staff, and veterans' healthcare - all of that keeps running.⁷
What's getting the boot are all those Democrat-created programs and agencies that spend taxpayer money on nonsense.
You want to know what makes this situation so beautiful?
Democrats actually think they're winning.
They're convinced that shutting down the government puts pressure on Trump to cave to their demands for $200 billion in spending on illegal aliens over the next decade.
He's treating the shutdown as a strategic opportunity to take "irreversible" steps in cutting programs Democrats love.
And he's warned them that any reductions enacted during this funding lapse might become permanent.
The President has basically turned their own weapon against them.
Every day this shutdown continues, Trump gets to eliminate more wasteful spending and shrink more agencies.
Democrats thought they were backing Trump into a corner.
Instead, they've given him the perfect cover to accomplish what conservatives have wanted for generations - a dramatic reduction in the size and scope of the federal government.
This is what happens when you try to outmaneuver a master negotiator who wrote The Art of the Deal.
Trump isn't just surviving this shutdown - he's using it to fundamentally transform how Washington operates.
And the best part is that Democrats handed him the opportunity on a silver platter.