Coral Davenport

First out, he sends this request to Congress saying, hey, I want you to cut about $8 billion in foreign aid that we don't want to spend, that you've already appropriated.

Congress is very uncomfortable with this.

Even a lot of Republicans are very uncomfortable with this.

So what Vogt does is he inserts in that package something that he thinks that will make it irresistible to his fellow conservatives.

Which is cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And that strategy ends up working.

And Vote gloated about this.

He said, we budgeteers, we conservatives have tried for years and years to kill the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And now we've finally done it.

So then he escalates this idea of taking the power of the purse from Congress.

And what he said is, look, we have about another $5 billion in foreign aid that you, Congress, have appropriated that we don't want to spend.

Hmm.

We're not going to spend it.

We're going to cancel it.

Unless you vote otherwise by the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30th.

Kind of daring them to do this.

Yes, but they didn't do it.

And so essentially that allows the White House to kind of roll over them and say, all right, that money is now canceled.

There is this congressional watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office, that says this is absolutely illegal.

And what I have been told by people close to vote is that he would like to see them sue.