As the US government was plunged into a shutdown, Donald Trump was no doubt relishing the idea of the days ahead.
Four months after Elon Musk and his cost-cutting lieutenants left the administration under a cloud, the shutdown has given the president another chance to take a hatchet to federal bureaucracy, and achieve the massive government savings he promised.
The administration’s promised $2 trillion (£1.5 trillion) in cuts, to be carried out by Mr Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), never materialised despite the sacking of a spate of government workers.
