Natalie Kitroff

White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said that after Trump had a call with Putin last week, the Russian leader had committed to sitting down with him.

Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin and Caitlin O'Keefe.

It was edited by Brendan Klinkenberg.

Fact-checked by Susan Lee.

Contains music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Marion Lozano.

And was engineered by Chris Wood.

That's it for The Daily.

I'm Natalie Kittroweth.

See you tomorrow.

From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroff.

This is The Daily.

We're six days into the government shutdown, and the Trump administration is capitalizing on the moment.

by freezing billions of dollars in spending in cities and states run by Democrats and threatening to lay off thousands of government workers.

So who is the man who appears to have the high trust of President Trump and gets to decide which federal workers will stay and which will go?

The man at the center of that push to dismantle and reshape the American government.

Is White House budget director Russell Vogt.

Today, my colleague Coral Davenport explains how Vote, a once obscure bureaucrat who worked on Project 2025, became one of the most influential figures in Washington.

It's Monday, October 6th.

Coral, Russell Vogt is someone I've generally been aware of.

But right now, because of the shutdown, he has taken on much more of a protagonist role in the Trump administration.