He realized this presents a perfect opportunity to undermine the legislature for a popular reason. Under traditional rules, he doesn't have the authority to just not enforce laws passed by congress. It was tried before, and the court clearly ruled that a president can't do that.
However, establishment members of congress would need to actually challenge Trump on this, which would be unpopular with his supporters and younger people. Then the court will need to back up congress, which normally wouldn't matter, except Trump wants a popular mandate to remove all checks on his power.
Project 2025 is designed to make every branch and agency powerless by any means necessary. This will include violence, but first Trump needs to make them unpopular. He will eventually execute a Night of Long Knives against disloyal members of his own party, but he needs to to build up to that by putting the legislature and judiciary into no win situations like this. It's the literal Nazi playbook.