How Russell Vought Broke the U.S. Government

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

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🗓️ 4 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

The Washington Roundtable discusses how this week’s government shutdown can be best understood by looking at the background and influence of Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Vought is a Christian nationalist who served in the first Trump Administration. He was a chief architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and has written that the country is in a “post constitutional moment.” Amid the shutdown, Vought has threatened to lay off federal workers en masse and to withhold funds from Democratic-leaning states. The panel considers whether these moves are not just an expansion of Presidential power but a fiscal “partitioning” of America.

This week’s reading:

“Donald Trump’s Shutdown Power Play,” by Susan B. Glasser
“Can the Democrats Take Free Speech Back from the Right?,” by Jay Caspian Kang
“Why Democrats Shut Down the Government,” by Jon Allsop
“Is Donald Trump’s Sweeping Gaza Peace Plan Really Viable?,” by Robin Wright
“Eric Adams Slips Out the Side Door,” by Eric Lach
“The Politics of Faith After Charlie Kirk,” by Michael Luo
“Grace and Disgrace,” by David Remnick

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Here we are. Somebody tweeted the other day. It's their six shutdown of their life as a journalist covering Washington. And I thought, my God, I've been here for all of these shutdowns, too, going back to the Newt Gingrich shutdown. But that's when people found it shocking now. I don't even know how shocked at anybody is.
0:20.0	It's like an annual dance practically. I don't even know how shocked anybody is. It's kind of like an annual dance
0:21.8	practically. I mean, it seems almost meaningless. Yeah, there's sort of like the only question is,
0:27.6	okay, how long is this one going to last for? Right, except for, of course, the poor people who
0:31.7	aren't getting their paycheck. I have to say flying back into Washington hours after the shutdown started,
0:37.3	I thought, well, it's not optimal to have those air traffic controllers at work without getting paid. Yeah, they're working essentially for the love of the game right now. Yeah, well, not to mention for all of us. I hope they have a lot of love for all of us. I mean, there is a difference, though, this year, and we can talk about this a little bit. But one of the differences is that they're not just talking about
0:57.0	furlowing these workers. They're talking about laying them all forever. And it's a huge difference.
1:01.8	Which has never happened, by the way. Never. Never. This is a war on the government,
1:06.3	not just an interregnum. Good point. That's what this shows about.
1:14.5	Welcome. to interregnum. Good point. That's what this shows about. Welcome to the political scene from the New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big
1:19.3	questions in American politics.
1:21.6	I'm Jane Mayer, and I'm joined by my colleagues Susan Glasser and Evan Osnos.
1:30.3	Hi, Susan. Hey there. Great to be with you. Hi Evan. Great to see you guys. We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected.
1:38.3	We want when they woke up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.
1:47.5	We want to put them in trauma.
1:50.0	We want their...
1:50.8	That is Russell Vote, a name most Americans had never heard of before this week, but he's been central to the Trump world for years.
2:00.2	He is Trump's budget chief, directing the White House Office of Management and Budget. He's a longtime fiscal hawk, Christian nationalist, and co-author of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. If you want to understand the choices and tactics coming out of this White House,
2:20.5	you really need to understand what's happening inside Russell Votes' mind.
2:27.4	And this week, his influence has been impossible to ignore. On Thursday, Trump announced he'd
2:34.0	speak with vote about which so-called
2:36.7	Democrat agencies should be cut during the shutdown. Votes fingerprints are all over the strategic
	...

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