Washington Week with The Atlantic

“We've seen even before the shutdown, they were canceling projects, they were rescinding funding,” Desiderio added. “And that's part of what Democrats are saying in response to this targeting of blue states, is that, yes, it's bad, but he's been doing it whether we're in a shutdown or not.”

In the past week, Vought has withheld and canceled billions of dollars in funding for infrastructure and green energy projects in Democratic-led states, and vowed more mass layoffs of the federal workforce.

Vought is "really a central player, probably the central player in the executive branch, aside from the president himself. He has an immense amount of power,” Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News told Washington Week moderator Jeffrey Goldberg.

Vought was the main architect of Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint that President Donald Trump denounced during his reelection campaign but is now enacting.

Amid the current federal funding fight between Republicans and Democrats, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has turned out to be a key player in the ensuing government shutdown.

"It's also important to know that Democrats are also looking at how Trump is weaponizing this shutdown against their constituents," said Toluse Olorunnipa.

"They are watching to see the various projects that are being taken away, the people who are potentially going to be laid off."

"[OMB Director Russell Vought] is really a central player, probably the central player in the executive branch aside from the president himself. He has an immense amount of power," said @andrewdesiderio.bsky.social.

"This has become a very normal course of doing business in Washington," said @lacaldwelldc.bsky.social.

"This is the only leverage that Democrats feel like they have in a system right now where the administration and the president is just rolling, you know, so fast over Democrats."

What is Trump getting out of the government shutdown?

"It's not necessarily something he would have chosen, but he likes a fight. He thinks publicly, gleefully, that it benefits him and Republicans politically," said @ashleyrparker.bsky.social. "He's also enjoying the trolling aspect."

"The sort of the sequence of events that led up to this moment and in particular, Donald Trump tweeting at his attorney general to go get this guy because I don't like him."

"Firing of the previous prosecutors, the reporting, widespread, credible, I believe, that all of these prosecutors didn't think there was enough to bring a case," Hayes added.

"We'll learn more about the case, we'll learn what they're going to argue in the coming days and weeks, but I think it's the stuff that preceded the indictment that is the most troubling," said Stephen Hayes of The Dispatch on Friday’s episode of Washington Week.

Comey was charged on two felony counts, obstruction of a congressional proceeding and making a false statement, in connection to his involvement with the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Lindsey Halligan, who was previously one of Trump's personal attorneys, was appointed to Siebert's post and brought Comey's indictment before a grand jury Thursday.

Former federal prosecutor Erik Siebert had resigned in Virginia after pressure from Trump to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, another perceived enemy of Trump.

The president publicly called for Comey’s prosecution in a direct message to Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media last week.

James Comey, former FBI director and a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, was indicted by a federal grand jury this week. The move marked an extraordinary escalation in Trump’s campaign promise to seek political retribution against his opponents.

"Trump's own appointed U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia essentially refused to [indict James Comey] after the president specifically called for it, so he was removed. A new acting U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, was put in," said @ktumulty.bsky.social.

"I think a lot of people in the American public saw this as an attack on the First Amendment, and so they could speak up in a way that actually had financial impact," said @nancyayoussef.bsky.social.

"They could cancel the Disney membership to sort of force a change of events."

"Congress has at every turn seen controversial nominees who are loyal to the president and really that's their only qualification, and they have put aside their concerns to just go along with the president," said @alivitali.bsky.social.

"Trump has benefited from that at every single turn."

"We'll learn more about the case, we'll learn what they're going to argue in the coming days and weeks, but I think it's the stuff that preceded the indictment that is the most troubling," said Stephen Hayes.

"The sort of the sequence of events that led up to this moment."

"The clearest thing we can say is that this conflict is proving much, much more difficult for [President Trump] to conclude than he ever thought during the campaign cycle, and that he ever promised," Asma Khalid says of the war in Ukraine.

On the war in Ukraine, "you're seeing the president now meet something that, it seems, he's realizing is quite complicated," Zolan Kanno-Youngs says.

"He thought that he could use his relationship with Vladimir Putin ... to bring peace, despite the warnings of members of his own party."

"I was told by sources that [Brendan Carr] made his way into Mar-a-Lago, and he made sure that he was very clear with Trump that he was willing to do what needed to be done if he was chairman of the FCC," says @lacaldwelldc.bsky.social of @puck.news.

TONIGHT: @lacaldwelldc.bsky.social, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Asma Khalid join guest moderator and @theatlantic.com staff writer Vivian Salama to discuss the growing fear that President Trump is using the federal government to silence his critics.

Join us at 8/7c on @pbs.org.

"By the way, isn't this guy great on Friday nights?"

Thank you, David Letterman

“He modeled himself early on after Rush Limbaugh, but without Limbaugh's hard edges.”

... who came, even now, come across as sort of angry and sour and combative," said Tom Nichols, a staff writer at The Atlantic.

"What Charlie Kirk, I think, kind of patented almost was the ability to do this and seem likeable, friendly, open,” added Nichols.

"When he was alive, he was unusual in that he said … some really awful things, but he did it with a certain amount of charm. He was kind of a happy warrior, which was different, I think, from a lot of the other MAGA leaders ...

The assassination of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk this week has raised questions about escalating political violence in America. On Washington Week, moderator Jeffrey Goldberg and his panelists discussed Kirk’s role and influence within President Donald Trump's MAGA movement.