Funding fights in Washington usually play out like games of chicken.

Right now, neither party seems ready to blink.

At some point, the government will reopen, but the fight that has shut it down this week is in some ways unique.

For Democrats, this is the chance to show their base they have the capacity to stand up to President Trump.

For Trump, this is an opportunity to punish Democrats, cut funding to blue states, and fire even more federal workers.

Tonight, why our government doesn't work.

Next, this is Washington Week with the Atlantic.

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Thank you once again from the David M. Rubenstein studio at Weta in Washington, editor-inchief of The Atlantic and moderator, Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

Even when the government is open, no one accuses Congress of being particularly productive or a welloiled machine.

So, it's not surprising that this least effective branch of government is even more ineffective this week.

Speaker Mike Johnson has already canceled House votes for next week, which means that the government probably isn't reopening anytime soon.

Although today, I can report that the Senate's top Democrat and top Republican, Chuck Schumer and John Thoon, were seen speaking for at least 34 seconds.

So, there's that.

The question tonight, why do lawmakers keep shutting down the government?

Joining me tonight to discuss this and more, Leanne Caldwell is the chief Washington correspondent for Puck News.

Andrew Desidario is a senior congressional reporter for Punch Bowl News.

Tulu Alonoripa is a staff writer at The Atlantic and Ashley Parker covers the White House for The Atlantic.

Thank you all for joining me.

Um Ashley, let's go right to you.

You're a veteran White House correspondent.

Um what is Trump getting out of this shutdown?

So first, it's not necessarily something he would have chosen, but he likes a fight.

Um he thinks uh publicly gleefully that it benefits him and Republicans politically.

I think that still remains to be seen.

Uh he's also enjoying the trolling aspect.

I know that's a weird thing to say about the president of the United States that it was exciting to put a little sombrero on Hakeem Jeff hat, but he has sort of enjoyed that aspect.

Wait, remind remind our normie viewers what you're referring to because not everybody saw the Hakee Jeff meme.

Yes.

So there was a it looked like AI generated meme of Chuck Schumer and Hakee Jeff.

Um they were coming out and and talking about a meeting and where shutdown negotiations stood and they basically dubbed it over to have Chuck Schumer saying things like nobody likes the Democrats and then they doctorred uh Hakee Jeff to have a little squiggly mustache and a sombrero on his head.

Lincoln used to do this stuff all the time.

Yeah.

Anyway, go on.

I just thought I just thought maybe some people are some people aren't extremely online.

Anyway, go ahead.

But but so he he has bit enjoyed the fighting trolling nature.

I would add one final thing sort of this opportunity for the deconstruction of the administrative state.

But I will say on that he likes threatening Democrats, right?

Saying we're going to do what project 2025 promised.

We're going to fire all these workers.

We're going to figure out what agencies we can just eliminate forever.

It's a fun thing to say that for him.

That's why I say it's trolling.

But it's not quite clear that that's actually what he wants to do.

And there's some understanding within his orbit that there might be some blowback if they were actually to do that.

Um Leanne, you just wrote, quote, "In a way, a government shutdown is among the more normal things to occur in Washington since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

certainly more normal than the US government taking stakes in private companies or the president selling his own cryptocurrency or the military being deployed to American cities etc.

This part is all comfort uh comfortingly familiar.

Um but to in a piece you just wrote with Jonathan Lamir you argued that Trump's handling of the shutdown is very different than the 2019 shutdown.

and I quote in part, "Uh, 34 days into the previous government shutdown in 2019, reporters asked President Trump if he had a message for the thousands of federal employees who were about to miss another paycheck.

Quote, I love them.

I respect them.

I really appreciate the great job they're doing," he said at the time.

The following day, caving after weeks of punishing cable news coverage, he signed legislation to reopen the government, lauding furled employees as incredible patriots and and and so on.

And then you wrote, "Doesn't really sound like the same guy, does it?"

So, Leanne Tollu, fight it out.

Like, is this a normal shutdown or is this a a new kind of shutdown?

Well, I'll go first.

Yeah, you can review me afterwards.

Um, what is normal is the fact that there is a shutdown.

This is a strategy that has been used by the P a party that doesn't feel like they have a lot of power over and over again.

that's becoming more and more common.

They beca, you know, they happened in the '9s, 2013, 2018, 2018 into 19, and now here we are again.

Um, and so this has become a very normal course of doing business in Washington, whether there is actually a shutdown or a threat of a shutdown.

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

And so they're trying to invoke some sort of um, you know, pressure on the president in a way that might sty him or not.

Right.

I I'm going to uh say something that we don't hear enough in this uh city, which is I agree with you.

Uh I'm not going to uh try to def for our leaders on Capitol Hill, but I I I do think that a lot of what Leanne is saying is true.

We have had these shutdowns.

This is the Democrats only chance to sort of fight back in an era where they feel like they've been taking blows from Donald Trump in the White House over and over and over again.

What makes this shutdown somewhat different from what we've seen in the past is that Trump is weaponizing it against Democrats and against Democratic cities.

Russ Vote, who is his office of management and budget director, is specifically targeting Democratic projects, Democratic cities, cutting funding from these various projects in places like New York and California, saying that it's because of the shutdown.

We haven't seen that in the past because those constituents are supposed to be Americans.

They're supposed to be constituents of the president.

It's not they're from red states or blue states.

So, you know, they can be attacked or not attacked.

So, that's one of the things that's different about this.

And Trump seems to be relishing the opportunity to go after quote unquote Democrat agencies and Democratic constituents.

And I agree with to Yeah, Andrew, pick a fight.

Sorry, audience.

Uh, who's which one of these people is wrong?

I actually think they're they're they're both right and I'll and I'll tell you why.

They're just killing me.

T.. me tonight.

Well, if you look back to the 2013 shutdown when Ted Cruz famously shut down the government because Democrats wouldn't repeal their signature legislative achievement, which was Obamacare at the time, um, and you compare it to sort of right now what Democrats are doing.

It really is the same tactic, right?

It's the minority party exerting the only leverage they have over any situation in Washington when you don't control any lever of power.

And what's interesting right now is that Democrats were the ones who have historically railed against this tactic about flirting with a shutdown, forcing a shutdown.

But they are openly saying this time is different because in their view, you've got a lawless president.

Democrats, you know, the the Democratic base wants them to fight harder.

And that's just not a that's not just a trit phrase.

I mean that it's literally true.

Like that is what the base of the Democratic party wants.

And in the Senate, that is what's being reflected right now when you see everyone from Chuck Schumer to retiring Senator Gene Shaheen from New Hampshire, historically a moderate and bipartisan dealmaker at this point right now on the same page.

The question is, does that shift?

Does that eventually as the the sort of negative effects of a shutdown start to compound themselves a little bit here over the next couple weeks, do those moderate or retiring Democratic senators start to break?

You just spoke to John Thoon abou.. What are you getting from him on that question?

Well, he feels very comfortable with the position he's in right now because his whole view is that on this issue of the Obamacare subsidies, which again for the viewers is it's these enhanced tax credits for healthcare premiums that were enacted uh during co and his whole thing is I'm happy to negotiate on that, but once the government is open, right?

He's taking the Democrats position from 2013 and then 2018 2019 which was don't hold the government hostage for a policy priority that you're seeking.

Right?

And Democrats simply don't trust John Thoon, Speaker Johnson or frankly the president of the United States to actually want to negotiate in good faith on extending those subsidies which will lapse at the end of the year.

But Americans will very soon within the next couple of weeks here start getting those letters saying either they're going to lose their coverage or their premiums are going to rise.

And an election 2026 where cost of living is going to be the big issue that could be uh detrimental to Republicans in many races.

If you add on top of it people's premiums going up, that's a problem for Republicans.

And I think they recognize that.

We're going to we're going to come to the possible consequences in a in a minute.

I want to talk about Russ's vote, somebody you mentioned, but it's also a year from midterms.

And if we know anything about the first n months or so of this administration, is that 20 million things are going to happen between now and then, it's very hard to it's very hard to predict how this is going to impact yet.

But the healthcare element, I think, is something that is a deliberate choice by Democrats.

Right.

Well, let's go to this .. come back to this and we'll let's talk about um Russ vote, director of the office uh of management and budget.

Um here just I want you to listen to Senator Mike Lee and then Speaker Johnson discussing Russ vote and what he's aiming for.

Russ Vote the OM director has been dreaming about this moment preparing this moment since puberty.

Russ Vote has a plan and that plan is going to succeed in empowering further empowering Trump.

This is going to be the Democrat's worst nightmare.

Russ takes no pleasure in this.

Russ wants to see a smaller, more efficient, more lean, effective federal government as we do, but he doesn't want people to lose jobs.

He doesn't want to do that.

But he he has that's his responsibility.

I can only speak for myself.

Look, puberty was a long time ago for me, but I remember when I was undergoing puberty, I wanted to slash the workforce at Medicare and Medicaid.

Myself personally, I know that was that was my big thing.

Um, but all right.

So, so, so this is a guy who wrote who was a key architect of project 2025.

Um, something that was disavowed by the president during the campaign and now he's embracing it again.

Um, Andrew, I'll stay with you uh just for a minute.

Um, Russ Vote, what what is motivating him here?

And I guess the pertinent question is how important is he actually in this drama?

He's he's really a central player, probably the central player in the executive branch aside from the president himself.

He has an immense amount of power and Senator Lee is correct that this is something that Mike that that um Russ has wanted to do for a very long time.

He was But can you adjudicate is he getting pleasure from it or is he not getting pleasure from it?

I think he's definitely gettin.. from it because I think we've seen even before the shutdown they were cancelling projects.

They were rescending funding, right?

And that's part of what Democrats are saying in response to this, you know, this 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.

And that is part of actually what's motivating Democrats to fight harder right now because their whole view right now is why would we vote to fund the government?

They say, some of them say it's Trump's government, which is being so lawless and doing so many terrible things.

And then they're going back on these deals that we strike here on Capitol Hill.

I mean, we haven't seen that before where there's a bipartisan deal reached on Capitol Hill and the administration just completely either ignores it or tries to rip it apart.

Right.

Actually, who is Rose Vote?

What does he want?

I I mean, he wants, as I mentioned in at the beginning, sort of the deconstruction of the administrative state of the federal bureaucracy.

What is his what are the ideological roots of this?

He's I mean, he's incredibly conservative.

He worked in Trump's first admin.

So there's there are some people including Steven Miller, but there are not actually a ton of people who worked in the first Trump administration and then came back for a second tour of duty.

But Russ Vote is one of them.

Uh and he came back like the president himself sort of stronger, bolder, more empowered, um more creative with his interpretations of laws and what's acceptable than ever.

And he used his those first vote faste.. Yes.

Yeah.

and he use.. power um to to basically create this document that you mentioned called Project 2025 that it's it's a dense dense policy document that is sort of his wheelhouse his actual policy and it it tells sort of all the ways you can first of all just utterly minimize the government, tear away at it, tear it down um and use it to push through deeply conservative priorities.

And I also based on my reporting agree with Senator Lee that this is squarely in his erogynous zone and that when he said what he wants to do, I mean to use a phrase that was popularized by one of our colleagues at the Atlantic, cruelty is the point.

Now that was in reference to Donald Trump, but Russo also he he said, I want to terrorize the federal bureaucrats.

So some of these choices, these the fork in the road email of should you choose to basically resign or risk losing your job.

Uh I mean the way these things were structured uh were deeply humiliating and devastating and financially devastating to hundreds thousands of people and that was an intentional choice by people like Russ vote.

And there's I ju.. to what you said is where this comes from.

There's this been this philosophy called a unitary executive that conservatives have been pushing very quietly on the fringes for decades.

But Russ vote is a huge believer of that.

And what that is is a massive expansive expansion of the president of the powers of the president and weakening the other branches of government and the administrative state.

Let me ask a dumb question.

Yeah, Tulu.

If you want to expand the power of the presidency, why would you fire everyone who works in the executive branch?

Well, I Well, it's a good question, but I think I reco.. spokesman.

Well, Trump and Russ Vote are aligned on the idea of expanding power within the executive branch.

They are not necessarily aligned about what you do with that power.

Russ Vote wants to get rid of these bureaucrats.

He wants to fire people.

He wants people to to be out of their jobs.

Trump not necessarily in favor of the of all of that all the time.

He knows that there's going to be blowback.

And I think what you've heard from Speaker Mike Johnson was some of the political maneuvering saying, you know, maybe we shouldn't be so gung-ho about firing thousands of people, Americans who work for the government who generally are, you know, pled or seen in a sympathetic light because of the people who, you know, make sure that sec social security checks go out and make sure that the government is working the way that it it's supposed to.

Those people losing their jobs is not necessarily a political benefit for a a president who cers calls himself a populist.

And so there is a little bit of misalignment there.

We did see Russ Vote and Donald Trump meet on Thursday and they talked about, you know, potentially getting rid of certain agencies or cutting certain uh people from the government.

We didn't see a big announcement right after that meeting.

It's a sign that maybe there's a little bit of disagreement there and Trump may not be ready to pull the trigger on what Russ Vote wants to do, which is use this government shutdown to get rid of thousands of bureaucrats.

Andrew, I mean, Russ Vote is a true believer.

Donald Trump believes in polls and in winning 2026.

The question is for both parties, what's the what's the end goal apart from not being blamed for something bad that happens in the next couple of weeks?

Well, I think the the goal for for Republicans right now is to a reopen the government and get the sort of political or in their view maintain the political upper hand over Democrats because they truly they are truly very comfortable.

I think Leanne can speak to this too.

They are extremely comfortable in their position right now.

Like they're like they're saying essentially like you have to reopen the government right now.

We are not going to negotiate on any of these side issues until that happens.

Which again reminds you of the posture that Democratic leaders had during previous shutdowns.

Democrats, on the other hand, you saw Chuck Schumer as recently as a few hours ago here, saying that he believes that public pressure will build on Republicans to eventually allow a deal on these Obamacare premium uh um uh tax credits.

And and and frankly, Schumer is right.

He's he's right in the sense that Republicans know that this is a political vulnerability for them.

At the same time, there's very little support for extending that policy within the House Republican Conference and the Senate Republican Conference.

The only way you actually get a deal and get Republicans to support something like that is for Donald Trump to pick up the phone and call them and which by the way he's shown he's been able to do in the past.

Why has every single Republican in the House of Representative House of Representatives this year voted for a CR for example?

There are Republicans who said in the past those same Republicans over my dead body will I vote for a CR or a stop gap funding bill.

They voted for it because Donald Trump told them to.

Exactly.

Yeah.

uh what the Democrats are structurally incapable of quoteunquote winning in the sense that they don't control Congress and they don't control right uh the White House and obviously the Supreme Court doesn't generally lean in their direction.

Put that aside for a minute.

Um why are they doing this?

Um well they are actually relatively comfortable in their position too.

Their base is happy.

Their base is happy.

They are returning the issue.

They're returning the conversation to an issue that is good for them.

Healthc care is like the one remaining issue that Democrats are still popular with voters on.

This is very reminiscent of 2018, a midterm election which was focused in large part over Obamacare after Republicans tried to repeal it, failed, etc., etc.

Um, and so this is getting them to an issue.

It's interesting.

Obamacare is kind of popular.

It is.

It is popular.

Yeah, I mean we that was not always an assumption and it's popular also because people get help from the government to pay for it too with these tax subsidies which is central to this debate.

Um and so there's multiple so there's that.

Um the party is for the first time in quite a while we've seen United on a message.

They usually have been so bad at message discipline, talking about, you know, cost of living, uh, immigration, the border, climate change, all sorts of things.

And so, the party feels very good right now that they are in a spot.

You look at all of the polling.

There hasn't been a lot, but there's been three or four polls that have come out on who is to be blamed for a government shutdown.

And in every single poll, Republicans are currently being blamed right now.

And so is they, you know, Democratic sources tell me that they are watching the polling extremely closely.

Democratic groups have polling coming out of their own turn of their own twice a week now.

And once those numbers start to crater for Democrats, we might see a shift.

But right now, they feel good.

Uh it's also important to to know that Democrats are also looking at how Trump is weaponizing the shutdown against their constituents.

I talked to Senator Mike Warner or Mark Warner earlier.

uh this week and he talked about how right now his constituents, he's from Virginia, a lot of his constituents are federal work workers.

He said right now they're telling him to keep fighting, but he didn't know if in two weeks, three weeks if this government shutdown goes on and they don't get their paychecks, if they're going to still want him to fight and hold the line on this government shutdown.

So, they are watching to see the various projects that are being taken away, the people who are potentially going to be laid off, and whether or not they they think that that this fight is worthy.

Um, I want to shift the conversation to push-ups and situps for a moment.

I I uh I want to talk about the extraordinary meeting.

It's hard to believe that this was also this week.

Extraordinary meeting that the Secretary of Defense uh which he calls himself Secretary of War, though Congress has not approved that uh change yet.

Uh Pete Hex had with basically the entire uh core of generals and admirals.

Let's watch uh one of uh one moment from his speech uh to the to that group.

If the Secretary of War can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force.

Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops.

Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world.

It's a bad look.

There's nothing wrong with physically fit generals and admirals and high grooming standards.

Correct.

Why was this so controversial?

Well, he in what essentially could have been communicated via an email or perhaps a secure video conference call or maybe a tweet, he used tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fly in top military brillions, millions maybe, who who arguably should have been in their theaters in case something happened to fat shame them, among other things.

Well, okay.

I see you have an opinion on that.

It's red meat for conservatives, too.

What he just said.

I mean, like the the conservative cultural right.

I mean, they they eat this stuff up.

They love this.

I talked to a Republican senator this past week who said, you know, he joked that basically, we've been trying to get explanations out of him for legal justifications for these strikes on on drug cartel boats off off of Venezuela.

Um, but he's going there and giving speeches like this instead.

I mean, it's it's about how are you using your time, right?

Right.

Do .. remember that Pete Hegth is a former Fox News personality?

He does not have a lot of military uh philosophy background.

And so he's focusing on the thing that he can, physics and and the physical look of things and the optics.

And he serves a president who cares about people looking like they come out of central casting.

And so he's playing to the president's strengths.

He's also playing to his own strengths, maybe trying to cover up some of his own weaknesses.

speaking before three and four star generals, he may have a little bit of insecurity there and focusing on something that he can talk about, which is, you know, I can do push-ups and I can do pull-ups as opposed to talking about the intricacies of war.

That may be an area where he feels a little bit more comfortable.

Leanne, last wor.. is does this performance and again, you have to separate some of the aspects of it out.

Of course, physical fitness is important.

Of course, grooming standards are important, but to Ashley's point, it did seem like a strange cause to gather the nation's top military leaders again.

Does this does this undermine his uh position with the generals and the admirals?

You know, my colleague Julia Yafi had a great piece about this where she spoke to current and former members of the military who who said, "Look, this was this is fine a fine message, but this is not the priority of the military right now.

There's a lot of issues to deal with."

Um, we're going to have to leave it there for now.

I I do want to get back to this subject because his his leadership of the secret of the department is fascinating.

Uh, but I want to thank our guests for joining me and I want to thank you at home for watching us.

For more on President Trump and how he's using the funding fight to punish his political foes, visit the atlantic.com.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.

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