Trump’s ‘Grim Reaper’ Announces $11 Billion in Paused Projects — New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Trump Budget Director Russ Vought announced Friday on X that the Army Corps of Engineers would be pausing $11 billion in funding for “lower-priority projects” in the Democratic cities of New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore, and considering them for cancellation.
“The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects,” he wrote, before promising “more information to come from the Army Corps of Engineers.”
In early October, President Donald Trump likened Vought to the Grim Reaper in a video posted to Truth Social, seemingly celebrating federal firings and cuts. Both Trump and Vought have continued to emphasize their focus on only cutting Democratic programs, with the president saying, “That’s the way it works. They wanted to do this, so we will give them a little taste of their own medicine,” in a Cabinet meeting last week.
On Wednesday, during an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show, Vought said, “We’ll probably end up being somewhere north of 10,000” while discussing federal firings. Just shortly after his comments, however, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the layoffs, citing the “human cost” of the mass terminations.
Trump and his allies have continued to blame Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown, insisting — without evidence — that the left is determined to divert taxpayer funds to provide health care for undocumented immigrants. With an equally ludicrous excuse, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) insisted Friday morning that the “spectacle [of the anti-Trump ‘No Kings Day’ protests across the country] is the reason the Democrats have refused to reopen the government.”
