How Russell Vought Broke the U.S. Government

The New Yorker staff writer E. Tammy Kim joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how the government shutdown is affecting the federal workforce. They talk about how the shutdown began and what it means for hundreds of thousands of civil servants who have been furloughed, laid off, or required to work without pay. They also examine the Administration’s new “reductions in force,” or mass layoffs across key agencies, and how those cuts are being used in the effort to shrink and politicize federal agencies—and how those efforts could weaken not just essential public services but the long-term stability and nonpartisan functioning of the federal government itself. This week’s reading: “Inside the Trump Administration’s Assault on Higher Education,” by Emma Green “The Indictment of Letitia James and the Collapse of Impartial Justice,” by Ruth Marcus “The Real Problem Is How Trump Can Legally Use the Military,” by Jeannie Suk Gersen “The End of Israel’s Hostage Ordeal,” by Ruth Margalit “What Zohran Mamdani Knows About Power,” by Eric Lach Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Next month, New York City may elect as its next mayor a man who was pretty much unknown to the broader public a year ago. Zohran Mamdan, who is currently thirty-three years old and a member of the State Assembly, is a democratic socialist who won a primary upset against the current mayor, Eric Adams, and the former governor Andrew Cuomo, who was trying to stage a political comeback. Mamdani now leads the race by around twenty percentage points in most polls. His run for mayor is a remarkable story, but it has not been an easy one. His campaign message of affordability—his ads widely tout a rent freeze in the city—resonates with voters, but his call for further taxing the top one per cent of earners has concerned the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul. In Congress, Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have yet to even endorse him. “There are many people who will say housing is a human right, and yet it oftentimes seems as if it is relegated simply to the use of it as a slogan,” Mamdani tells David Remnick at his campaign headquarters, in midtown Manhattan. “It often comes back to whether you’re willing to fight for these ideals that you hold.” Donald Trump, for his part, dubs Mamdani a Communist, and has threatened to withhold federal funds from New York if he’s elected, calling such a vote “a rebellion.” An attack by the President “will be an inevitability,” Mamdani says, noting that the city’s legal department is understaffed for what may be an epic battle to come. “This is an Administration that looks at the flourishing of city life wherever it may be across this country as a threat to their entire political agenda. And New York City looms large in their imagination.” Zohran Mamdani’s campaign was chronicled by Eric Lach, a staff writer covering New York politics and life for The New Yorker. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses the President’s use of the military for political ends, and the “almost unlimited” powers he would unlock by invoking the Insurrection Act, with Kori Schake, the director of foreign-and-defense-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Donald Trump’s decisions—sending the National Guard into American cities over the objections of local leaders and firing Judge Advocate General’s Corps lawyers who help determine if an order is legal—send a message to the historically apolitical armed forces. “What he’s trying to do is circumvent the disciplined senior leadership and appeal for personal loyalty to the younger, noncommissioned and enlisted soldiers,” Schake says. “The pressure from this Administration—there’s been nothing like it since at least the constitutional crisis of 1866-68.” Schake is the author of the forthcoming book “The State and the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States.” This week’s reading: “Trump, the Self-Styled ‘President of PEACE’ Abroad, Makes War at Home,” by Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and the ‘War from Within,’ ” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “Nixon Now Looks Restrained,” by Ruth Marcus “Hope and Grief in Israel After the Gaza Ceasefire Deal,” by Ruth Margalit “The Volunteers Tracking ICE in Los Angeles,” by Oren Peleg Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker contributing writer Ruth Marcus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Donald Trump’s “revenge tour”—his effort to use the levers of government to settle personal and political scores. They talk about the indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, why legal experts see the case against Comey as alarmingly weak, and how Trump’s campaign of retribution has expanded to include prosecutors, lawmakers, and even the families of his critics. They also consider how Trump’s quest for vengeance is testing the limits of American law, and whether the country can avoid a permanent cycle of political retaliation and lawfare.This week’s reading: “The Flimsy, Dangerous Indictment of James Comey,” by Ruth Marcus “What Will Bari Weiss Do to CBS News?,” by Jon Allsop “Who Can Lead the Democrats?,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “The Volunteers Tracking ICE in Los Angeles,” by Oren Peleg “Why Israel and Hamas Might Finally Have a Deal,” by Isaac Chotiner Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Robert P. George is not a passive observer of the proverbial culture wars; he’s been a very active participant. As a Catholic legal scholar and philosopher at Princeton University, he was an influential opponent of Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage, receiving a Presidential medal from President George W. Bush. George decries the “decadence” of secular culture, and, in 2016, he co-wrote an op-ed declaring Donald Trump “manifestly unfit” to serve as President. Although George disagrees with the Administration’s tactics to change universities’ policies by punishment, he agrees with its contention that campuses have become hotbeds of leftism that stifle debate. He regards this not as a particular evil of the left but as “human nature”: “If conservatives had the kind of monopoly that liberals had,” George tells David Remnick, “I suspect we’d have the same situation, but just in reverse.” His recent book, “Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth: Law and Morality in Our Cultural Moment,” tries to chart a course back toward civil, functioning debate in a polarized society. “I encourage my students to take courses from people who disagree with me, like Cornel West and Peter Singer,” the latter of whom is a controversial philosopher of ethics. “Cornel and I teach together for this same reason. Peter invites his students to take my courses. That’s the way it should be.”  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker contributing writer Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the Supreme Court’s new term and the cases that could test the boundaries of executive authority and separation of powers. They talk about challenges to Presidential power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, disputes over voting rights and racial gerrymandering, and a First Amendment fight over state bans on conversion therapy. They also consider the Court’s increasing reliance on its emergency docket and what John Roberts’s twenty years as Chief Justice reveals about the conservative legal movement’s influence on the Court.This week’s reading: “Harvard’s Mixed Victory,” by Jeannie Suk Gersen “Is Donald Trump’s Sweeping Gaza Peace Plan Really Viable?,” by Robin Wright “Why Democrats Shut Down the Government,” by Jon Allsop “Have Cubans Fled One Authoritarian State for Another?,” by Jon Lee Anderson “The Age of Enshittification,” by Kyle Chayka Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The author and podcaster Ezra Klein may be only forty-one years old, but he’s been part of the political-culture conversation for a long time. He was a blogger, then a Washington Post columnist and editor, a co-founder of Vox, and is now a writer and podcast host for the New York Times. He’s also the co-author of the recent best-selling book “Abundance”. Most recently, Klein has drawn the ire of progressives for a column he wrote about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, in which he praised the late conservative activist for practicing politics “the right way.” He’s also been making a case for how the Democrats can reëmerge from the political wilderness. But some of his other ideas have also invited their share of detractors. Klein tells David Remnick, “I try to take seriously questions that I don’t love. I don’t try to insist the world works the way I want it to work. I try to be honest with myself about the way it’s working.” In response to criticism that his recent work has indicated a rightward shift in his thinking, Klein says, “One thing I’ve been saying about the big tent of the Democratic Party is the theory of having a big tent doesn’t just mean moving to the right; it also means accepting in the left.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses how, in the wake of the reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel’s show, public resistance has a chance to turn the tide against autocratic impulses in today’s politics. They are joined by Hardy Merriman, an expert on the history and practice of civil resistance, to discuss what kinds of coördinated actions—protests, boycotts, “buycotts,” strikes, and other nonviolent approaches—are most effective in a fight against democratic backsliding. “Acts of non-coöperation are very powerful,” Merriman, the former president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, says. “Non-coöperation is very much about numbers. You don’t necessarily need people doing things that are high risk. You just need large numbers of people doing them.” This week’s reading: “Donald Trump Keeps Finding New Ways to Shock the World,” by Susan B. Glasser “Is Trump’s Attack on the Media Following Putin’s Playbook?,” by Joshua Yaffa “Where Should the Democrats Go from Here?,” by Jon Allsop “Donald Trump’s Firing of a Federal Prosecutor Crosses the Reddest of Lines,” by Ruth Marcus “Seeing Enemies Everywhere,” by Jonathan Blitzer “Can Progressive Mayors Redeem the Democratic Party?,” by Bill McKibben Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The New Yorker contributing writer Dhruv Khullar joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Donald Trump is transforming the nation’s approach to vaccines and immunization during his second term. They talk about the repopulating of federal agencies and advisory panels with skeptics, the politicization of once technical debates under the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, and what happens when people distrustful of the medical establishment end up running American public-health policy. They also examine how states are stepping in to fill the vacuum left by Washington, creating a patchwork of approaches to vaccines across the country.This week’s reading: “A New Era of Vaccine Federalism,” by Dhruv Khullar “Can Progressive Mayors Redeem the Democratic Party?,” by Bill McKibben “Donald Trump’s Firing of a Federal Prosecutor Crosses the Reddest of Lines,” by Ruth Marcus “What Trump Wants from a TikTok Deal with China,” by Clare Malone “Can Liberalism Be Saved?,” by Isaac Chotiner Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices