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."

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

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.

"[Gov. Spencer Cox] is the definition of a non-MAGA Republican at a time when the party has, broadly speaking, been taken over by Trump and his acolytes. ... Spencer Cox is out there modeling a very different kind of Republican Party — almost a throwback vision of America," said @sbg1.bsky.social.

"Within minutes, certainly within hours of the reports of Charlie Kirk's death — his assassination in a public setting — people were instantaneously going at it on social media, instantaneously raising the temperature rather than trying to calm it down," said @peterbakernyt.bsky.social.

"What Charlie Kirk, I think, kind of patented almost was the ability to do this and seem likeable, friendly, open," said @radiofreetom.bsky.social. "Kirk kind of pioneered this smiling version of MAGA that, you know, you don't really see very often among a lot of MAGA supporters."

"The president, the vice president and a number of people across the White House credit Charlie Kirk for the increase that Donald Trump got in the 2024 election when it came to young voters, and more specifically young men," said @lbarronlopez.bsky.social.

"It's on the CDC and the HHS websites — the government's estimates of how many people died and the effectiveness of vaccines," said Stephen Hayes. "The data is often there. [RFK Jr.] just doesn't want to accept it, and he uses this — he sort of injects confusion into the debate."

What is the reasoning behind Trump's rebranding of the Defense Department? "I have no explanation for it other than the fact that he does like a good show. Also, it's sending a message to adversaries as well, ... [that] we are ready if you push us," said Vivian Salama.

How extreme are RFK Jr.'s views on vaccines? "He has one of the most extreme public views in the country. I would say, among an official," said Elisabeth Bumiller. "It's caused a big mess nationally, as the, you know, COVID season is upon us."

"It's really complicated for Donald Trump. As Stephen said, RFK Jr. is a big reason why Donald Trump was elected. This coalition of the MAHA, MAGA base really propelled him to win this election. But then he has this major success with Operation Warp Speed," said @lacaldwelldc.bsky.social.

On Friday’s episode of Washington Week with The Atlantic, Dan Balz of The Washington Post joined moderator Jeffrey Goldberg for a special conversation about Balz's retirement after 47 years with the paper and how politics has changed over the 12 elections and eight presidencies he's covered."

"I think the danger is a president who is solely focused on, A: the accumulation of power and being at the center of everything — that he wants to be the impresario of all events," said Dan Balz. "But the second aspect of that is a kind of hunger for retribution."

"[Social media] is a different way of targeting a message, aiming at people, doing it in a way that is designed to inflame the debate. ... We go from cameras in the House chamber ... to the internet disrupting everything and democratizing information, to social media," said Dan Balz.

"[Newt] Gingrich changed politics because what Gingrich did was he brought, as I say, a confrontational style, and a flamboyance and a willingness to attack his opponents in ways that other politicians would have been hesitant to do," said Dan Balz.

How has politics shifted? "You played politics by a set of rules, and Congress was supposed to work in a particular way, and presidents worked with Congresses in a particular way," said Dan Balz. "In those days, committee chairs were gigantic figures. We don't think of that today in the same way."

"Over the course of the 50 years that I've been doing this, I think that the most important shift is that, with each kind of iteration of that, politics has gotten tougher, coarser and meaner," said Dan Balz.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that it would be revoking the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials.

"On Thursday this week, Trump had a social media post talking about [Russia's war in Ukraine] almost as a sports fan watching two teams," said Matt Viser. "It was also him kind of seeing things through Ukrainian eyes — that they need to push back on Russia in some way."

"This is Trump's faith in his own dealmaking ability. ... He thinks that Putin really wants to make him happy," said @jonathankarl.bsky.social. "It is remarkable how he has gone from sounding like he is echoing Kremlin talking points to sounding like he is ready to go to war on Ukraine's behalf."

"The question I have is, at what point do European leaders ... consider their options about moving forward without the U.S.?" said @lbarronlopez.bsky.social. "Do they consider NATO operations that don't necessarily rely on the U.S. in order to try to deter and push back Russia?"

"What we're seeing here is the takeover of American foreign policy by New York real estate dealmakers," said @michaelscherer.bsky.social. "They have a view of the world that comes out of the business deals they made when they were younger in their lives."

President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday for a high-profile summit to discuss the war in Ukraine.

"You know who else would like some declarative information? How about the Congress, which will have to appropriate something for Ukraine possibly in short order," said @macfarlanenews.bsky.social. "It's a wedge issue inside Trump's base. ... He didn't give any clarity on that today either."

"I think they knew that there was a low chance that they would actually come out and have something substantial to announce that indicated progress to establishing peace in Ukraine after promising during the campaign to end this war in 24 hours," said Zolan Kanno-Youngs.

"You could say this is the anticlimax in Anchorage. We all had such expectations ... and it seems nothing was agreed," said David Ignatius. "I think there clearly is an impasse in these negotiations, which to me means that Trump is not willing to cave to what Putin wants."

"Trump is someone who we know likes theatrics in general, and staging is part of that, so that was a big part of it," said Vivian Salama. "Trump wanted it to be splashy because he knew that people around the world were watching this moment. Regardless of what came out of it."

On Friday’s episode of Washington Week, moderator Jeffrey Goldberg and his panelists discussed President Donald Trump's move to impose additional tariffs in an effort to dramatically reshape America’s economy.

"It's tariffs — something he's believed in, but it's also something he believes he can execute unilaterally. It is a personal power here, which is deeply attractive to him, that he can settle scores, that he can go after whatever country is up or down," said @jonlemire.bsky.social.

"What he sees in tariffs is an economic weapon. He sees leverage, and Trump is someone who wants to make deals, cut deals and in order to make a deal, he thinks he needs to have leverage over them. So he's trying to reset the global economy with this sort of cudgel," said @tylerpager.bsky.social.

"I think Trump is sensitive to the idea that Putin has played him. When he has a conversation with Putin that he thinks went fine and then, you know, Russia goes forward with a massive drone attack on cities in Ukraine, it angers him," said @jonathankarl.bsky.social.

"The genuine frustration that Trump has toward Putin is largely based on the fact that Trump promised to end this war within 24 hours, and he has been unable to do so," said @tylerpager.bsky.social. "I think Trump is hopeful that he can sort of work Putin over in this in-person meeting."

"The Biden-era mantra of 'nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine' is now ancient history under the Trump administration," said Vivian Salama. "[Meaning] that you cannot negotiate the future of Ukraine without Ukraine at the table."

While meeting with British Prime Minister Starmer in Europe last week, President Trump said there was "real starvation" in Gaza when discussing the worsening humanitarian crisis there, breaking with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who had previously claimed that "there is no starvation in Gaza."

"What you're going to see, at least in the short term, is increased pressure to ramp up the aid going in," said @nancyayoussef.bsky.social. "The images that you're seeing, there's no sign of them stopping. When you have this level of starvation that we know about, there is a tipping point."

"The [Gaza Humanitarian Fund] plan did not work. Israel stopped aid from going in for a long time. The Trump administration did not act when that happened, right? And so, they know what the answer is," said Alexander Ward.

"The occupiers, which in this case is Israel in Gaza, have an obligation — a legal obligation and a moral obligation, but a legal obligation — to feed the people there," said Andrea Mitchell.