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."
OMB chief Russ Vought told House Republicans on a private call Wednesday that the administration will start mass reduction in force moves, or firings, of federal workers in a day or two, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the call. Vought and President Donald Trump have both threatened to inflict maximum pain on Democrats during the shutdown as Senate Republicans hope to peel off additional Democrats in the coming days to vote for the GOP-led stopgap to end the standoff.
In the memo, Vought instructed agencies to send "Reduction in Force (RIF) notices for all employees" in programs that are "not consistent with the president's priorities." The OMB director also announced Wednesday that $18 billion in federal funds for New York City's infrastructure projects will be frozen, and $8 billion in "Green New Scam funding" will be frozen in a dozen blue states.
