President Donald Trump announced that he will meet with his budget director on Thursday to hash out which federal programs to cut as the government shutdown continues.

Trump said he will confer with ​​White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought about whether the cuts will be temporary or permanent. Trump’s announcement comes after he urged Republicans earlier this week to “save billions of dollars” by using the government shutdown as an opportunity to “clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud” in the federal bureaucracy.

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“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,” Trump said, suggesting that the government shutdown over funding disputes is the Democrats’ fault and has opened the portal for bureaucracy cuts.

“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought….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 continued in a Truth Social post referencing Vought’s ties to Project 2025. 

Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blueprint for the president’s second term, when Democrats vigorously attacked it on the campaign trail last year. However, since being reelected, the White House has hired personnel connected to Project 2025, such as Vought. The budget director wrote the project’s chapter on the Executive Office of the President, arguing that the bureaucracy is riddled with inefficiencies and corruption.

In a private conference call with House GOP lawmakers on Wednesday afternoon, Vought said some federal layoffs will start in the next day or two, according to ABC News. The move is part of the administration’s effort to initiate a reduction-in-force targeting furloughed federal employees. Approximately 750,000 employees are currently furloughed due to the shutdown, and it is unclear how many of them would be affected by the layoffs.

Vought’s comments to House Republicans come after Trump teased mass firings of federal workers and “irreversible” cuts to government programs accused of waste, fraud, and abuse. The White House has framed the government shutdown as a chance to further antibureaucracy initiatives, such as those spurred under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which purported to have slashed $206 billion in federal spending since January.

“They’re taking a risk by having a shutdown. We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible,” Trump said of Democrats during an event at the Oval Office on Monday. “Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

Trump has touted Vought as the man for the job.

“He can trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way,” Trump said of Vought earlier this week.

Vought said on Tuesday, “There are all manners of authorities to be able to keep this administration’s policy agenda moving forward, and that includes reducing the size and scope of the federal government.”

“We will be looking for opportunities to do that,” he told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow.

At a White House briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Vice President JD Vance responded to Democratic criticism that Republicans are weaponizing the shutdown to take away people’s government jobs.

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“If they are so worried about the effect this is having on the American people, and they should be, what they should do is reopen the government, not complain about how we respond,” he said.

The next votes to consider opening the government are scheduled for Friday afternoon.