This is In Conversation from Apple News.

I'm Shemitabasu.

Today, how one man is quietly reshaping the federal government.

Late last year, investigative news outlet ProPublica published a video of a private speech given by a former Trump official in 23, describing his goal of defunding and shrinking federal agencies.

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. The person speaking was Russell Vote,

Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget,

OMB, in the first administration.

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. We want to put them in trauma.

Today, vote is back in charge of OMB and one of the most influential figures in the current Trump administration.

He's been at the center of moves to dismantle agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and has encouraged sweeping layoffs across the government.

When ProPublica reporter Andy Kroll first came across that recording a year ago, it made a lasting impression on him.

It got me thinking, why does this guy want to traumatize federal workers, the kinds of people that he worked with for four years when he was in the first administration?

This just really stuck with me in a way that I thought, I got to keep reporting on this person.

Andy has just come out with a profile of vote called The Shadow President, published with the New Yorker.

The piece includes newly released

videos of vote discussing his views, beliefs, and plans for a second Trump term. Andy argues that

much of what we're watching play out in the Second Trump administration is a result of votes' hard

work and meticulous preparation, particularly in the years leading up to the 2024 election.

Vote himself declined to be interviewed for Andy's piece, and his spokesperson wouldn't answer a list of detailed questions.

But when I spoke with Andy, in the midst of the government shut down, another battle where vote has played a central role,

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