Donald Trump has been relishing the government shutdown with insensitive memes and posts on social media, even depicting Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought as the grim reaper. That particular AI slop grim reaper video has been described as “incredibly weird” by some online.
Vought has been in Trump’s orbit since his first administration, when he served as Deputy Director of the same agency he now leads. Between Trump’s first and second terms, Vought developed an extensive governance blueprint titled Project 2025. During the 2024 campaign, Project 2025 was treated as a political stigma, and Trump went so far as to claim he had nothing to do with it — despite his former appointee being its architect.
