Chapter 1: What is the significance of the government shutdown in this episode?
This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, the founder of Dealbook. Every year, I interview some of the world's most influential leaders across politics, culture, and business at the Dealbook Summit, a live event in New York City. On this year's podcast, you'll hear my unfiltered conversations with Gavin Newsom, the CEO of Palantir and Anthropic, and Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk.
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From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroff. This is The Daily.
Capitol Hill is still closed for business as the government shutdown heads into week two.
We're six days into the government shutdown, and the Trump administration is capitalizing on the moment.
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Chapter 2: Who is Russ Vought and why is he important in the Trump administration?
Far from working to end the shutdown, Donald Trump is using it as an excuse to ramp up his slash-and-burn cuts to the government.
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.
Russell Vogt.
Chapter 3: How has Russ Vought's role changed during the government shutdown?
Russell Vogt? Who is Russ Vogt?
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. Everyone seems to be talking about him. So just to start, who is Russ Vogt?
So Russ Vogt is the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is normally a pretty wonky role. But at this moment in the shutdown, he has really taken center stage. He has had this plan to... cut the government, cut spending, cut agencies, cut workers. And now it's kind of Russ Vogt's time to shine to do that.
Chapter 4: What strategies is Vought using to reshape federal government spending?
And we've seen that this week as Democrats have painted him as this villain in the shutdown scenario. And even Senate Republican leader John Thune said, we don't even know what this guy's going to do. And sort of most spectacularly of all...
president posted this video of russ vote as the grim reaper so in this video you see vote as literally the grim reaper striding in front of the capitol and trump on the cowbell They sing like, now the time has come, their power's gone, he ties your hands, Russ wields the pen, the funds, and the brain. You know, this video is nuts, but it's also sort of the core of it is really accurate.
In so many ways, that's what's going on right now. The plan that Russ Vote has been putting in place is about taking power away from Congress, tying the hands of Congress, bringing the power over to the White House, to the president. So... You know, it's like this crazy internet meme that is kind of spot on.
Okay, so setting aside the question of whether we can fact check the AI imagery in this truly wild video, you're saying it accurately assesses votes roll, right?
Absolutely. I mean, normally the role of the White House budget director is just this very kind of behind the scenes job that's really about taking the president's policy agenda and translating it into a budget. Vote does far more than that.
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Chapter 5: What is the concept of impoundment and why is it crucial for Vought's plans?
He is really using the role as an agenda setter itself. He has spent years preparing this vision for the entire federal government. And I should say, This comes from a place of thinking of the federal bureaucracy as something that is deeply problematic. He calls it woke and weaponized, and he really thinks that the federal government is the problem.
And I should say another thing that comes up in my reporting a lot is the word nerd. He really is this like hardworking policy nerd who has focused his whole career on this objective of smaller government with less spending and less workers. He's such a true believer. He even named his dog Milton for Milton Friedman, the free market economist.
Wow.
And now he has met this moment of shrinking federal government.
Okay, you described him as a true believer. How does he arrive at those beliefs?
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Chapter 6: How does Vought plan to navigate legal challenges to his spending cuts?
How does he get to where he is now on this mission to radically change the shape of government?
Natalie, I have spent weeks and weeks of reporting trying to get at that. And I should say that Russ Vogt did not grant me an interview for this piece, but I have read hundreds of pages of his writings. I've listened to hours and hours of his podcasts. I talked to between 30 and 40 people. who are kind of in his orbit and have worked with him and know him and are his friends.
And what kind of came up is someone who really has believed this for a very, very long time.
I have spent my entire career caring about taxpayers and families.
He talked about that in his very first Senate confirmation hearing.
I come from a blue-collar family. I'm the son of an electrician and a public school teacher.
He grew up in a conservative, religious, blue-collar family. He is the youngest of seven children, grew up in Trumbull, Connecticut. His father, interestingly, was a union electrician, and he was a Marine Corps veteran.
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Chapter 7: What are the potential consequences of Vought's approach to government spending?
His mother was a public school teacher. In both of those cases, you know, I don't think of that as being something that would lead you into trying to work to minimize government, but he has described... how his parents worked incredibly hard to support him and his siblings.
I know what they went through to balance their budget and save for the future. My parents worked really long hours to put me through school, but they also worked long hours to pay for the high levels of government in their own life.
I think he really genuinely sees the burden of paying for taxes and government as weighing so heavily on families like his own.
My old boss called them the wagon pullers in our country. Others have referred to them as the forgotten men and women. They have always been my test for federal spending.
Did a particular program or spending increase help the nameless wagon pullers across our country working hard at their job, trying to provide for their family and future without the luxury of watching C-SPAN at that particular moment to know that we might increase their burden at that minute?
It sounds like he was kind of turned against the idea of big government from the very beginning as a child seeing his parents navigate this country.
Yeah, and you really see that through line.
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Chapter 8: How could Vought's vision impact the future of American government?
You know, as soon as he graduated college, he went straight to Washington and got a job working for Senator Phil Graham, a Texas Republican who was at the time known as this icon of fiscal conservatism, fiscal austerity. And I talked to Phil Graham about Russ Vogt, and he said something interesting.
He said, usually, you know, people come to work for me because they really want to come and work for me. You know, that they're really sort of driven by this idea of slashing government. And I asked him, you know, what he remembered about Russ Vogt. And he said he remembered him as almost working too hard.
You know, working by day to support the agenda of cutting government and then going to law school at night.
So it's passion that's combined with this really intense work ethic.
Passion plus discipline. Absolutely. So after Phil Graham, he goes to work for the House Republicans. He focuses on budget policy. This is kind of during the time of the rise of the Tea Party. So there's this wave of intense fiscal conservatism, anti-government sweeping through Washington, and he's a natural fit with all of that. And then he goes from there to the Trump administration.
But I should say, it wasn't necessarily an automatic fit for him. You know, one way that Russ Vogt is very different from President Trump is he's very religious. He takes his faith really seriously. He teaches adult Bible study at his church.
And before joining the first Trump administration, he actually thought about kind of leaving the world of Washington policy and going to seminary and studying to be a pastor. Roosevelt doesn't curse. President Trump has a foul mouth. He refers to Christians in the third person. I think just culturally, there was some discomfort with that fit.
But in the end, the call of the White House won out and he joins the first Trump administration. He's there from the very beginning.
And what does he do in that first Trump term?
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