1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,560
We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning,

2
00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:15,600
we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.

3
00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:38,400
We want to put them in trauma. Hey there podcast listeners. Welcome back to The Overlap. If you

4
00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:45,040
are new to The Overlap, what we do is we kind of take relevant topics and bring them to a head.

5
00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:50,000
I am your co-host Joshua and with me is my co-host Will. Will, say hello.

6
00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:52,400
Hello Joshua and hello listeners.

7
00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:58,720
It's actually been a little bit of a minute. We actually were able to get a little bit caught

8
00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:04,720
up and a little bit ahead. I took a small vacation and am fully rested and moving on to a new job

9
00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:10,000
roll starting on Monday. But I am super happy to be back with you here and super happy to be back

10
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:16,800
with Will in the passenger seat. It's funny because we're both co-hosts. So we both sit

11
00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:24,880
in the passenger seat. Nobody's driving. It's an AI car. Will, how was your last couple of weeks

12
00:01:24,880 --> 00:01:32,400
without being able to interact with me on a regular basis? Well, you know, there was just a

13
00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:36,800
palpable emptiness in my life that I just couldn't avoid. This deep hole.

14
00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:42,320
I woke up with the absence of you every morning. Whatever. It was your vacation too in a way.

15
00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:47,040
It was not. It was not. I did miss you my friend, but I'm glad you were where you were.

16
00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:50,640
Glad you were resting out before the next big adventure in your life.

17
00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:52,720
Yeah, for sure. And excited to see where that goes.

18
00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:58,480
Yeah, I think it's going to be good. Yeah. And it's exciting to be back in the 21st century

19
00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:03,600
after our little trip through the early 20th century. The dark times.

20
00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:13,680
Exactly. I think this in a way plays directly into the overall topic of fascism. We're going

21
00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:21,040
to talk about the fascist Russ Voigt today. He is what you would call a modern fascist.

22
00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:26,640
Indeed. So that was a quote in the opener from him. Let's go ahead and get started.

23
00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:31,440
All right. Well, our listeners have started without us in a sense. They got to hear a little

24
00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:35,360
quote there at the beginning. Just so you know, listeners, that was not a Bond villain,

25
00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:40,320
a clip from the latest Bond movie. It wasn't a general planning military coup or some sort of

26
00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:46,160
larger than life, evil, fictitious villainous character. The person who said that actually

27
00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:52,320
to your eyes would look less like a revolutionary and more like maybe your CPA who prepares your taxes.

28
00:02:53,120 --> 00:03:00,240
Exactly. If you saw Russ Voigt on the street, you probably wouldn't look twice at him.

29
00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:08,320
He's kind of a, let's say nerdy technocrat. He speaks in a very flat, nasally monotone,

30
00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:18,000
and he wears tortoiseshell glasses, standard issue blue suits, you know, like the little corona of

31
00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:24,720
close cropped hair. Maybe he was in the military. Maybe not. He looks for all the world exactly like

32
00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:30,560
the kind of federal bureaucrat he says he despises. You know, that reminds me just when you're

33
00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:34,880
doing the way you described him reminds me of the character. Do you ever watch the TV show heroes?

34
00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:41,920
Yes, I believe I did at the beginning. Yeah, it was, it started off on a pretty exciting note and

35
00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:48,560
then yeah, it took a dive into nothing. Yeah, but it was just this character throughout the show

36
00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:53,680
called HRG or horn room glasses. I know you said tortoise shell, not horn room, but it just reminded

37
00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:57,200
me like of his character. He didn't look very threatening. Like to look at him, you just like

38
00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:02,560
your eyes would pass right over him on the street, but he was like masterminding this entire plan to

39
00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:07,360
take over the world or whatever. It was crazy. So well, that's a perfect foreshadowing actually,

40
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:12,880
for what we're going to talk about today. He does. Yeah. I think if you, if you picture the HRG

41
00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:21,040
character, you're not far off, right? But yeah, this is a story. Yeah, right. Although there's

42
00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:25,200
some mixed motivations there, but anyway, this isn't your story about a typical politician. This

43
00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:33,840
isn't the bombastic characters you see yelling and smacking the podium. This is a story of somebody

44
00:04:33,840 --> 00:04:40,000
who's effective behind the scenes. Who doesn't say much, doesn't get much attention, but he is

45
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:45,680
potentially one of the most powerful political operatives in modern America. Yeah. So he's

46
00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:51,040
actually been called the shadow president and we're not talking about, you know, baby gurgles

47
00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:58,000
there, Stephen Miller, which Hey, maybe next. But we're talking about who they're calling the grim

48
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:05,440
Reaper. The Darth Vader says the president of the federal government. And for the last 20 years,

49
00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:13,440
he's actually been meticulously building this almost intellectual framework. I think he would

50
00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:20,080
probably call it, which ultimately are like the legal justifications and a whole lot of

51
00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:26,960
political weaponry to kind of dismantle the entire American government from the inside out,

52
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:32,720
which kind of follows upon, you know, the whole Curtis Yardman theme of layoff or furlough,

53
00:05:32,720 --> 00:05:35,440
furlough the government forever sort of an idea, right?

54
00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:40,320
So we're going to tell the story of rough spot today, and we're not going to start in a smoke

55
00:05:40,320 --> 00:05:47,440
filled room in Washington with, you know, leather chairs and lots of wood, dark wood furniture.

56
00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:52,960
We're going to start in Connecticut with a father, a garbage can, and a lesson about waste

57
00:05:52,960 --> 00:06:00,320
that would curdle into a national crusade. Yeah. So we're going to start off kind of in the making

58
00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:08,480
of Russ Vought and kind of the gospel, according to Turk. So to understand Russ Vought, the man,

59
00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:13,360
the myth, the legend, you kind of have to understand his father. His father's name was

60
00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:23,520
Thurlow Bunya Vought. And that's, it's quite possibly, I mean, it's definitely a villain name,

61
00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:30,000
but B-U-N-Y-E-A, like I've never heard that name. Maybe it's a family name, but his nickname was

62
00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:39,200
Turk. So Turk was for all intents and purposes, a Marine Corps veteran, so a Marine and was a

63
00:06:39,200 --> 00:06:45,760
Union electrician from Trumbull, Connecticut. Nothing crazy, nothing about that kind of sticks

64
00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:53,280
out. And so because of this very Unioned electrician family and upbringing, Russ actually

65
00:06:53,280 --> 00:06:58,720
describes his upbringing as very like blue collar down to earth, the man of the people,

66
00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:04,000
his father was an electrician, right? I mean, his mother, her name was Margaret,

67
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:09,760
was just a school teacher. She taught elementary school and they were by all accounts devout

68
00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:14,960
Christians. The very kind that you probably expect, very evangelical, very run of the mill,

69
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:20,400
pretty- pretty- And I think as they had one obsession, it seems to be that they could not

70
00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:26,720
stand waste or at least Turk couldn't stand waste, right? We're not talking about just like your,

71
00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:29,280
turn off the lights when you leave a room and make sure you shut the refrigerator.

72
00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:36,720
But he had a deep moral revulsion to waste. Which, you know, to be fair is a common theme,

73
00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:42,080
right? Like I had a lot of upbringing through my grandparents and my grandparents coming out of the

74
00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:47,520
depression. And I think this is actually probably pretty common for a lot of people. There was- You

75
00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:53,600
don't waste anything, anything that you can possibly reuse or build or rebuild or protect,

76
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,840
you go ahead and do it. I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer. I don't think that there's anything-

77
00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:05,680
I don't think there's anything inherently bad about being- wanting to eliminate waste and

78
00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:13,680
eliminate the wastefulness. So there's actually this one story which for us Vaude is kind of a

79
00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:21,200
foundational myth. You know, how there anybody, any evil person always has this like- Right.

80
00:08:21,200 --> 00:08:25,760
-this one thing about them that kind of explains everything. Origin story. Exactly. An origin

81
00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:32,480
story and an electrician who used to work with Turk, a guy named Mark Maluszewski, after a job,

82
00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:38,720
the father would see his coworkers like tossing out leftover but still usable material. I mean,

83
00:08:38,720 --> 00:08:43,360
you're- if you think about it from that perspective, right, you're an electrician. What are going to be

84
00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:48,240
the things that you have left over? You know, it's going to be stuff like pieces of wire and pieces

85
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:52,340
of wire and pieces of insulation and, and, you know, end caps and wire caps

86
00:08:52,340 --> 00:08:53,220
and those sorts of things.

87
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:57,380
Um, uh, and, and he would just absolutely lose it.

88
00:08:57,820 --> 00:09:03,100
So Maliszewski recalled this kind of happening and was quoted as saying he'd

89
00:09:03,100 --> 00:09:09,040
go over and kick the garbage can and he'd say, what is this if those were quarters

90
00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:11,780
or dollars in that garbage can you'd be picking them up?

91
00:09:11,860 --> 00:09:15,640
I mean, that's, that's a pretty, uh, Wow.

92
00:09:15,980 --> 00:09:18,260
Pretty aggressive frugality right there, right?

93
00:09:18,260 --> 00:09:22,740
I mean, like basically if you see the world as anything that could find a use

94
00:09:22,740 --> 00:09:28,540
or could be redeemed for pennies or quarters or whatever, I mean, that's,

95
00:09:28,540 --> 00:09:32,900
that's a harsh lesson and it almost drives us to that level, like instead

96
00:09:32,900 --> 00:09:39,400
of morality, like it's immoral to throw away scrap wire or pieces of extra insulation.

97
00:09:40,060 --> 00:09:40,360
Right.

98
00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:44,420
Even if they were unusable, you know, like, I mean, what use do you have for

99
00:09:44,420 --> 00:09:47,500
a two inch piece of wire that you had to trim off the end of something, you know?

100
00:09:48,860 --> 00:09:49,360
Exactly.

101
00:09:50,540 --> 00:09:51,620
It leads to hoarding.

102
00:09:51,620 --> 00:09:52,940
I wonder if they had a hoarding issue.

103
00:09:53,740 --> 00:09:54,340
Possibly.

104
00:09:54,380 --> 00:10:00,360
So this, um, this gospel of scarcity, I guess is what we're going to call this.

105
00:10:01,700 --> 00:10:02,200
Yeah.

106
00:10:02,420 --> 00:10:06,200
So, I mean, that's, that's kind of his, that's, that's his, his origin story, right?

107
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:08,780
Is to be as frugal as possible.

108
00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:15,160
And so, you know, I guess he sought to purge the sin of, of waste or inefficiency.

109
00:10:15,220 --> 00:10:15,860
Exactly.

110
00:10:16,620 --> 00:10:19,400
And he viewed it as a profound moral sin.

111
00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:21,020
I mean, imagine growing up with that, right?

112
00:10:21,020 --> 00:10:25,760
Like your dad, your dad imprints this, this view on you, this sort of personal

113
00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:31,220
dogma, this, this, like you said, the gospel of scarcity, right?

114
00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:38,000
It becomes sort of this, this underlying operating system for Russ's entire life.

115
00:10:38,460 --> 00:10:45,580
And like, you know, any good preacher, um, he kind of seeks out institutions to validate

116
00:10:45,620 --> 00:10:50,620
and amplify his, his beliefs and sort of that supports his ideas.

117
00:10:50,620 --> 00:10:56,060
So first he goes to, to Wheaton College in Illinois, which has been described

118
00:10:56,060 --> 00:10:57,940
as the evangelical Harvard.

119
00:10:58,380 --> 00:11:01,940
I'm pretty sure Harvard has a, you know, both a theology school and a divinity school.

120
00:11:01,940 --> 00:11:07,560
So they're already kind of the evangelical Harvard, but even more so that

121
00:11:07,560 --> 00:11:09,300
they feel the need to talk about this.

122
00:11:09,300 --> 00:11:13,680
Now he graduated from, um, from Wheaton in 1998.

123
00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:17,740
So I was entering high school, I think that was my freshman year of high school.

124
00:11:18,180 --> 00:11:19,240
He was graduating college.

125
00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:23,440
So Russ Vaught is really only like, I don't know, eight years older than me.

126
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:28,540
Um, and a little less than you for you, Will, right?

127
00:11:28,540 --> 00:11:29,500
Like you're probably four.

128
00:11:29,500 --> 00:11:29,500
Right.

129
00:11:29,500 --> 00:11:33,060
I'm in my sophomore year of high school, so probably four.

130
00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:34,460
Yeah.

131
00:11:34,460 --> 00:11:34,760
Okay.

132
00:11:34,780 --> 00:11:35,100
Got it.

133
00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:35,300
Yeah.

134
00:11:35,300 --> 00:11:41,480
So this is kind of where his, his dad, that vis, visceral sort of hatred of the

135
00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:46,020
waste kind of gets this, this theological framework, right?

136
00:11:46,020 --> 00:11:52,300
So in a world divided into sort of righteous and then on the opposite end of that

137
00:11:52,300 --> 00:11:57,700
spectrum being sort of wasteful and then like the saved and the condemned kind of

138
00:11:57,700 --> 00:12:02,480
a viewpoint at this, this Wheaton College in, in Illinois.

139
00:12:02,540 --> 00:12:06,300
And then he makes his way to Washington, which I can only imagine is like the

140
00:12:06,300 --> 00:12:08,420
wretched hive of scum and villainy.

141
00:12:09,060 --> 00:12:11,700
If you're a, an anti waste person, right?

142
00:12:12,420 --> 00:12:16,900
Um, he gets a job in the mail room for Republican Senator Phil Graham of Texas.

143
00:12:17,620 --> 00:12:21,180
And Phil Graham, whether you, if you know him is not just any senator,

144
00:12:21,700 --> 00:12:23,540
he is a fierce budget hawk.

145
00:12:23,660 --> 00:12:27,300
He's notably famous for criticizing his own party for not being conservative enough.

146
00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:30,780
So, I mean, this is like the finishing school for Russ Vaught.

147
00:12:30,860 --> 00:12:35,660
And what's funny is, you know, it, it feels like it feels like a lot of this is in the

148
00:12:35,660 --> 00:12:36,460
past, right?

149
00:12:36,460 --> 00:12:39,720
You know, but like, I know who that guy was, like, I remember that guy.

150
00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:41,440
I was alive when all this was happening.

151
00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:45,100
And so it's kind of interesting to see him kind of coming up this way.

152
00:12:45,100 --> 00:12:45,340
Right.

153
00:12:45,340 --> 00:12:50,060
Like, so for, for Russ, it's kind of a direct pipeline, right?

154
00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:58,180
The, the moral absolutism kind of learned at his father's behest with that, that, that

155
00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:03,260
despising and, and that angry hatred of all things wasteful.

156
00:13:03,300 --> 00:13:06,820
And then he gets the theological structure from Wheaton.

157
00:13:06,940 --> 00:13:14,220
And then under Senator Graham, he gets this sort of this mentor, this, this

158
00:13:14,540 --> 00:13:21,660
political vocabulary, as well as a very distinct set of legislative tools.

159
00:13:21,660 --> 00:13:23,020
He learns how the government works.

160
00:13:23,020 --> 00:13:28,320
He learns how Congress actually makes the sausage and he likes the sausage.

161
00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:34,480
You know, and so he learns the mechanics of the budgets and appropriations and also.

162
00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:40,600
Who, you know, Graham was kind of famous for as well is for spending cuts from one of the

163
00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:44,260
people who created spending cuts within the government.

164
00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:49,200
So then when you see him later in his career, and he's out there trying to slash funding

165
00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:53,680
for everything from foreign aid to cancer research, you got to understand the backstory.

166
00:13:53,680 --> 00:13:56,100
And once you have the backstory, it starts to make a little bit more sense, right?

167
00:13:56,100 --> 00:13:57,560
This isn't fiscal policy.

168
00:13:58,140 --> 00:14:02,300
This isn't, you know, dry numbers from a bean counter.

169
00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:05,900
This is somebody who's on a holy war against the sin of waste.

170
00:14:06,620 --> 00:14:11,820
And it's like a purification ritual for him to cleanse the budget of waste.

171
00:14:12,580 --> 00:14:16,420
And when you, when you see, or sort of see yourself on a mission from God, or at least

172
00:14:16,540 --> 00:14:21,220
your father figure who occupies that God role in your childhood, the human cost of your

173
00:14:21,220 --> 00:14:23,380
crusade doesn't really affect the equation, right?

174
00:14:23,940 --> 00:14:26,900
I mean, yeah, if you just justify a genocide.

175
00:14:26,900 --> 00:14:29,820
So I mean, why not hold back or why hold back?

176
00:14:29,820 --> 00:14:30,000
Right.

177
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:30,500
I should say.

178
00:14:31,060 --> 00:14:31,540
Exactly.

179
00:14:31,540 --> 00:14:36,020
So, you know, he started, he started just as a normal guy in a mailroom, right?

180
00:14:36,020 --> 00:14:39,060
Like he climbs very, very quickly.

181
00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:44,840
Now he's, he's clearly not just, you know, another, another kid who's on, in the GOP

182
00:14:44,860 --> 00:14:49,900
payroll, just trying to make it as a DC Washington insider, you know, grabbing cups

183
00:14:49,900 --> 00:14:54,940
of coffee and stuff, he actually ended up getting his law degree from George Washington

184
00:14:54,940 --> 00:14:58,460
University in 2004, two years after I graduated high school.

185
00:14:58,500 --> 00:15:00,120
Man, I'm starting to feel old.

186
00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:01,740
Are you, are you starting to feel old yet?

187
00:15:02,620 --> 00:15:03,620
I'm not starting, man.

188
00:15:03,620 --> 00:15:04,300
I'm way ahead of you.

189
00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:05,140
I got you.

190
00:15:05,140 --> 00:15:07,100
Well, a couple rounds in, you got to catch up.

191
00:15:07,820 --> 00:15:10,140
Well, that's, that's cause that's cause of children.

192
00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:14,980
I think that, you know, I I've staved it off a little while from not having children

193
00:15:14,980 --> 00:15:17,100
sucking both my wallet and my energy dry.

194
00:15:17,940 --> 00:15:21,900
So anyway, he, he kind of, uh, takes these, these legal credentials now, right?

195
00:15:21,900 --> 00:15:26,720
Like, uh, he's, he's now got his law degree from George Washington University and he

196
00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:31,940
sort of uses it like, uh, like a sword and shield in the overall fight against waste

197
00:15:31,940 --> 00:15:32,820
in Washington.

198
00:15:34,020 --> 00:15:34,520
Right.

199
00:15:34,620 --> 00:15:39,900
And so he basically takes them, those credentials, and he starts imagining,

200
00:15:39,900 --> 00:15:45,300
envisioning these holy war style mordor battles.

201
00:15:45,380 --> 00:15:45,880
Right.

202
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:51,640
They're good against evil, then they'd be champions of frugality and efficiency.

203
00:15:52,160 --> 00:15:55,860
Versus the evil monsters of waste and one spending.

204
00:15:56,720 --> 00:15:59,760
And so his next job, next time he works for a congressman, now he's working for

205
00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:04,240
another congressman from Texas, Jacob Hensarling, and quickly becomes the budget

206
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:10,080
director, then the executive director of the Republican Study Committee, which is,

207
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:12,340
if you know of it, it's the heart of the Republican party in the house of

208
00:16:12,340 --> 00:16:13,120
representatives.

209
00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:17,920
It's where the real hardliners cook up their policies and Vaught is essentially

210
00:16:17,920 --> 00:16:18,720
running the kitchen.

211
00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:23,620
He's, he's, he's got the secret sauce or the RSC.

212
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:24,780
Yeah.

213
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:26,400
You know, I, I have to be honest.

214
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:29,320
I mean, I, I kind of think, I don't really remember Hensarling.

215
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:31,640
I, I think that the name sounds vaguely familiar.

216
00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:33,620
He's no longer in the Senate or Congress.

217
00:16:33,620 --> 00:16:34,400
Hell, he might be dead.

218
00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:36,280
Do you, do you have any memories of this guy?

219
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:40,520
Because I think in general, when a congressman is kind of milk toast, I don't

220
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:43,200
think he generally holds up, you know, to pressure.

221
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:47,740
So the fact that I even remember his previous boss within Congress there, Phil

222
00:16:47,740 --> 00:16:52,540
Graham, to me kind of speaks to the milk toast, but maybe, maybe you remember him.

223
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:53,800
I don't honestly.

224
00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:55,540
I'm, I'm, I'm hard to say.

225
00:16:56,260 --> 00:16:58,620
I do think, so I think it kind of holds up, right?

226
00:16:58,660 --> 00:17:02,100
The idea that if, if you didn't really make a difference, you also really don't

227
00:17:02,100 --> 00:17:06,800
make waves, nobody really remembers you either, which sometimes can be helpful.

228
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:12,600
So yeah, his, his old boss Hensarling, the, the, the then Congressman kind of

229
00:17:12,600 --> 00:17:13,980
gushed about Russ Vaught.

230
00:17:13,980 --> 00:17:16,280
He was like, uh, infatuated with him a little.

231
00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:20,280
He said, uh, I've worked in a lot of, with a lot of different staff people, as far as

232
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:24,380
work ethic, tenacity, intellect, knowledge, and commitment to principle.

233
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:29,520
Russell was one of the more impressive people that I've worked with, you know, I

234
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:33,240
mean, for whatever reason, and maybe it was the, the passion about waste.

235
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:37,400
He seemed to be really well liked by this, by the people that he, he

236
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:38,560
was directly working for.

237
00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:39,760
Right.

238
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,240
Maybe these people are a little more frugal with their praise to say he's one of the

239
00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:46,520
more impressive people I worked with, but who knows, that may be high praise coming

240
00:17:46,520 --> 00:17:47,720
from, from Hensarling.

241
00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:48,540
Exactly.

242
00:17:48,540 --> 00:17:52,720
But that is really key is that from the very beginning, Vaught was not seen as a

243
00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:54,440
cynical operator, just playing the game.

244
00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:56,600
He wasn't a career politician.

245
00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:00,440
In that sense, he was a genuine, true believer, which is what probably makes

246
00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:01,160
him so effective.

247
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:03,200
He's not trying to win on a news cycle.

248
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:07,660
This is not a, some stunt or campaign preaching point or bullet point.

249
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:13,240
He's actually trying to win a generational war as he sees it for the soul of the country.

250
00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:13,800
Yeah.

251
00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:15,040
Oh man.

252
00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:16,260
I did look it up, by the way.

253
00:18:16,260 --> 00:18:20,040
Hensarling is still alive and apparently he served from 2003 to 2019.

254
00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:27,180
So I mean, he's not there anymore, but, but he, at least he was there.

255
00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:28,040
Right.

256
00:18:28,060 --> 00:18:31,200
He, I mean, he was definitely career and he's still, you know, he's still eating

257
00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:35,160
that, that lifetime medical care in, in Washington, I'm sure.

258
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:41,740
So we start to sort of move into what becomes Russ Vaught's actual career.

259
00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:42,360
Right.

260
00:18:42,360 --> 00:18:47,720
Like we've gotten, you know, we've skipped over a lot because, you know, the major thing

261
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:51,720
here is that he was a hawk, excuse me, a hawk on waste.

262
00:18:52,420 --> 00:18:54,300
So he's on the fast track, right?

263
00:18:54,300 --> 00:18:57,480
Like he's, he's now working for his second Congressperson.

264
00:18:57,860 --> 00:18:58,800
He's smart.

265
00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:02,560
They see him as like a hardworking conservative ideologue.

266
00:19:03,140 --> 00:19:04,420
And then something happens.

267
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:08,000
He looks at the Republican Party.

268
00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:13,280
And all of a sudden, much like the rest of us are feeling now, he becomes immediately

269
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:15,400
disgusted, but for very different reasons.

270
00:19:15,500 --> 00:19:16,940
They say never meet your heroes.

271
00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:22,600
Well, it sounds like Russ Vaught met his heroes and Kim Way, in his own words, quote,

272
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:27,420
"disillusioned with members of his parties, his party who claimed to care about balanced

273
00:19:27,420 --> 00:19:31,880
budgets and spending cuts, yet voted to approve bills loaded with pork barrel spending in

274
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:32,760
corporate giveaways."

275
00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:34,120
Well, there you go.

276
00:19:34,120 --> 00:19:34,540
There it is.

277
00:19:34,540 --> 00:19:34,760
Right.

278
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:38,760
I mean, it's waste, we don't want any waste unless that's waste coming to us.

279
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:40,480
We see waste fraud and abuse again.

280
00:19:40,980 --> 00:19:41,320
Right.

281
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:44,520
But if it's coming down my pipe, it's not waste, right?

282
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:48,160
If it's feeding my hogs, we're good.

283
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:52,920
To Vaught, those Republicans were, for lack of a better term, heretics.

284
00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:57,280
They preached the gospel of fiscal conservatism on Sunday morning out of the pulpit, but sin

285
00:19:57,280 --> 00:19:58,640
with the appropriators on Monday.

286
00:19:58,640 --> 00:19:58,960
Right?

287
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:05,300
Yeah, I actually think, so I think a former Capitol Hill colleague of Vaught's kind of

288
00:20:05,300 --> 00:20:06,320
put it perfectly right.

289
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:08,120
And so I found this quote.

290
00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:13,960
"I think he thought," and this is in quotes, "so I think he thought the Republican leadership

291
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:19,600
was a bigger impediment to the conservative causes than Democrats were."

292
00:20:20,860 --> 00:20:26,060
Like, he literally, like, he said what all of us have been thinking all along, which

293
00:20:26,060 --> 00:20:31,560
is ultimately they're really the tax and spend, but they want to tax the poor and spend it

294
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:35,360
on the rich as opposed to tax the rich and spend it on the poor.

295
00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:37,280
It's reverse Robin Hood over here.

296
00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:42,360
But that's why he was so disillusioned with the Republican Party.

297
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:43,200
Right?

298
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:50,600
He, the real enemy was not across the aisle sitting in the House or sitting in the Senate.

299
00:20:50,900 --> 00:20:55,640
It was really sitting right next to him, smiling, cutting deals, putting earmarks,

300
00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:58,960
loading those bills up with pork, and he hated it.

301
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:01,800
So what is a true believer to do in this situation?

302
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:07,320
Well, in 2010, excuse me, he quits his prestigious job in Congress, whereas most

303
00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:11,920
people might go off with a disillusionment and turn it into a lobbying job or a sad

304
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:15,000
blog or some sort of voice in the wilderness.

305
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,160
Vaught decides to build a machine to break his own party.

306
00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:24,840
So he decides to come back with the real power and begins assembling his war machine.

307
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:25,920
Yes.

308
00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:32,880
He actually launches this new organization called Heritage Action for America.

309
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:39,240
Now, this isn't like the sleepy academic heritage foundation that writes policy

310
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:42,500
papers, because at the time that's, that's what the hell the heritage

311
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:43,840
foundation really was, right?

312
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:46,200
It was this think tank.

313
00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:47,220
I want to say think tank.

314
00:21:47,220 --> 00:21:50,760
I mean, that's probably the best way to describe it, but they talked theoretically

315
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:55,980
about how to fix things within the government to more conservative

316
00:21:55,980 --> 00:21:57,820
ideals and conservative causes.

317
00:21:57,820 --> 00:22:01,720
Now we've talked, you know, previously about the 1971 document that sort of

318
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:03,040
started the heritage foundation.

319
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:08,800
He basically said, I'm going to start an actual Heritage Action for America

320
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:13,780
organization, because he thought the heritage foundation was too much to

321
00:22:13,780 --> 00:22:14,480
milk toast.

322
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:18,300
So he created it with this explicit mission, and I'm reading from their

323
00:22:18,300 --> 00:22:23,680
mission statement here, "to strong arm congressional Republicans to act more

324
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:24,600
conservatively."

325
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:29,620
Literally, to make them be more conservative by force.

326
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:30,440
That's no joke.

327
00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:32,620
I mean, that's a fundamental shift in his career, right?

328
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:34,640
He's no longer the brains.

329
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:38,000
He's no longer an advisor in the back room cooking his policies up.

330
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:38,980
He's not a bean counter.

331
00:22:39,540 --> 00:22:40,520
No bean counting, no.

332
00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:42,480
Now he is an enforcer full on.

333
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:50,360
His job as he sees it as to threaten, cajole and punish Republicans who stray from the path of righteousness on waste, right?

334
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:53,220
It's so gross to even like, like it's gross.

335
00:22:53,780 --> 00:22:57,180
But I mean, you know, in his way, I mean, he would see it as just being consistent, right?

336
00:22:57,180 --> 00:23:01,460
I mean, you're, he just wanted them to practice what they preach and if they didn't do it, then...

337
00:23:01,460 --> 00:23:02,080
Exactly.

338
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:06,760
And I think that this is exactly what happens when you follow something to its

339
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:10,820
logical conclusion, which in this case might be the end of America.

340
00:23:10,820 --> 00:23:11,360
Who knows.

341
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:13,980
If some people have their way.

342
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:15,020
We'll see.

343
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:16,560
But yeah.

344
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:24,400
So, I mean, here's where he learns the like, you know, he goes from learning warfare in the, the halls of West point or Annapolis to

345
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:34,280
learning, you know, dirty fighting, right on the ground, you know, scrapping in the yard with the, the sort of visceral machinery of political warfare.

346
00:23:34,940 --> 00:23:39,140
And he decides that compromises betrayal, purity is the only virtue.

347
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:43,440
So he's, he's now on a cleansing, now he's becoming an inquisitor, right?

348
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:44,720
Or like a the inquisition.

349
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:45,700
Yeah.

350
00:23:45,700 --> 00:23:46,700
This is the new Gilead.

351
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:47,600
Yeah.

352
00:23:48,360 --> 00:23:50,600
Like sorting out heretics and dealing with...

353
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:55,040
It has to be defined by the letter and the framework has to be followed to a T.

354
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:56,420
Exactly.

355
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:05,000
I think that this experience is kind of what forges him really into the perfect weapon for the Trump era.

356
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:13,520
And not the first one, because he did, he had a stint in the OMB during the first one, but it was, it was very mild compared to what we're seeing now.

357
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:13,760
Right.

358
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:21,960
It sort of hardens Russ's belief that the real enemy is the person on your own side that doesn't have any conviction.

359
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:23,060
Right.

360
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:33,640
So unlike, unlike leftists and more and more liberal leaning sources, which we, we have a tendency to gatekeep and tear each other apart.

361
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:42,760
One of the things that the Republicans have been consistently good at is standing behind the banner and keeping everything that happens behind the banner from being seen in the front.

362
00:24:43,220 --> 00:24:43,560
Right.

363
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:52,800
They appear to be very, I don't want to say monolithic, but they appear to be very strong in their conviction toward the GOP.

364
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:58,960
Not necessarily, I mean, to conservatism by way of, of their, their statements of belief.

365
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:10,960
But this is the first time we start to see really kind of MAGA become its own worldview where it kind of splits and breaks apart from mainstream Republicans.

366
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:11,300
Yeah.

367
00:25:11,300 --> 00:25:14,800
It teaches him that kind of loyalty to the movement.

368
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:27,460
And eventually, as we've seen in, in the news, just about every day, to the leader, all of those things are more important than the loyalty to a party or an institution.

369
00:25:28,580 --> 00:25:36,520
So it doesn't matter if the institution changes, if you, if your beliefs are the purity, then you can still follow your beliefs definitively.

370
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:44,040
Now, he was a man in a crane waiting for the wrecking ball to be attached.

371
00:25:44,060 --> 00:25:49,220
And in 2016, a wrecking ball rode down an escalator.

372
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:51,040
We all remember that moment.

373
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,120
That escalator unfortunately worked.

374
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:59,040
Yeah, so when Trump wins in the first term, Vought is a natural fit for the administration, right?

375
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:01,700
He's there to drain the swamp.

376
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:03,840
He's there to clean up Washington.

377
00:26:04,500 --> 00:26:12,240
And in April, 2017, Trump nominates Vought to be the deputy director of the office of management and budget, or the OMB.

378
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:19,540
And his confirmation hearing becomes the first time many Americans actually get a clear look at the core of his ideology, right?

379
00:26:19,580 --> 00:26:28,640
This is the time where, you know, the committees gets asked questions and he's now going to, you know, fully unleash his ideology out there for the world to see.

380
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:28,960
Yeah.

381
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,960
So it actually comes up his ideology, right.

382
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:40,880
Because of an article he wrote kind of defending Wheaton College, which he was an alumni of for its treatment of a specific professor.

383
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:48,360
So in the article, Vought kind of laid out his theological views with really creepy clarity.

384
00:26:48,460 --> 00:26:50,280
That's about the best way I could describe it.

385
00:26:50,600 --> 00:27:06,020
You know, anytime we do the research for these podcasts, I'm like, sometimes I'm just like, oh, it's like when you're, you know, you're an EMS and you're only dealing with the worst cases on a regular basis of people who need emergency intervention on the way to the hospital.

386
00:27:06,020 --> 00:27:08,080
Like it's creepy pasta.

387
00:27:08,420 --> 00:27:10,180
That's just, that's just what it is.

388
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:10,640
Actually.

389
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:17,520
So Bernie Sanders in that, in that interview actually read his own words back to him in the hearing.

390
00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:18,540
Yeah.

391
00:27:18,540 --> 00:27:22,520
Which I believe said Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology.

392
00:27:23,140 --> 00:27:27,560
They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, his son, and they stand condemned.

393
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:29,860
It's hard to walk back.

394
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:31,960
Yeah, absolutely.

395
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:47,920
And I will say that, I think what we're getting into in our, in our worldview, not even here in this point in 2016 when he, or when he came up for, I'm sorry, 2017 when he came up for review to be deemed appropriate for office and his

396
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:52,340
confirmation hearing, but what you said or what you believe really doesn't matter anymore.

397
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:54,160
They just kind of push everything through.

398
00:27:54,600 --> 00:28:09,700
He asked him, Sanders asked him if he thought that his statement was Islamophobic and vaught without blinking, without questioning even his any internal, you know, look into himself.

399
00:28:10,120 --> 00:28:14,640
He defended his words as a standard statement of Christian belief.

400
00:28:15,580 --> 00:28:20,720
The exchange was pretty heated. It got, Bernie Sanders was, was right there on him.

401
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,200
Like he, he did not let up.

402
00:28:23,260 --> 00:28:41,080
He got sarcastic and it was, it was kind of raw, a raw public display of a very aggressive brand of Christian nationalism that usually gets kept behind closed doors and secret meetings that none of us ever have to see.

403
00:28:41,180 --> 00:28:41,440
Right.

404
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:48,400
I mean, it got so intense that his nomination basically deadlocked in the Senate 50 to 49 and it looked like Vaught might actually be defeated.

405
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:53,320
They might not get the office, but he unfortunately had an ace up his sleeve.

406
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,920
The tie breaking vote in that case was then cast by vice president of the United States.

407
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:00,240
Mike Pence.

408
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:00,920
Thanks Mike.

409
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:03,280
Who was Mike Pence?

410
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:11,040
Well, Mike Pence was Vaught's actually old boss back when Pence was the chairman of the house Republican conference.

411
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:16,760
So nice little, you know, nepotism or union to warm your inner soul.

412
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:17,960
Yeah.

413
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:18,920
Happy reunion.

414
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,080
So the symbolism here is, is perfect, right?

415
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:23,240
If the old guard of the religious, right.

416
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:37,080
In the person of Mike Pence, preaching down and personally pulling its most radical, most effective new operator into one of the most powerful positions in the U S government, the weapon that is Russ Vaught and his, his agenda has been forged.

417
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,800
And now it's in the hands of the executive branch.

418
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:50,640
Yeah, Vaught quickly becomes more, more important, but also more than just the deputy director at OMB.

419
00:29:51,560 --> 00:30:00,160
In 2019, right before COVID hit his boss, Mick Mulvaney, uh, it's kind of moved over to be Trump's acting chief of staff.

420
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:04,040
And Russ Vaught immediately becomes the acting director of the OMB.

421
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,200
And almost immediately he handed the assignment.

422
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:17,120
Well, I, I guess maybe a better word would be the trigger to a constitutional crisis and the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

423
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:28,720
So in a now infamous story, as you may recall, the Trump White House was pressuring the government of Ukraine to announce an investigation into Trump's political rival, Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

424
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,880
So there, this is a takedown of Joe Biden, attempt to take down and to apply that pressure.

425
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:42,120
They decided that the Trump administration decided to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid that Congress had already approved for Ukraine.

426
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:47,040
Yeah, but you can't, so you can't actually just like not spend money Congress tells you to spend.

427
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:57,560
I know they're literally saying right now that you can, you know, like it's going, and it's going to the Supreme court and we're going to find out whether or not it's true.

428
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:05,800
But ultimately it was a long-held belief that ultimately when Congress says we have appropriated this money, it's to be spent in this fashion.

429
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:07,800
You can't just stop that it's illegal.

430
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,920
I mean, and I still hold to the fact that it is illegal.

431
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:16,960
So in order to actually stop the money flowing, right?

432
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:33,800
Like that went to the man in charge of the government's checkbook, the OMB, then acting director Vought ordered to freeze $214 million in security assistance.

433
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:35,040
And he said, sure.

434
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:37,080
He said, absolutely.

435
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,480
Mr. Leader, dear Commandant, Herr Hitler.

436
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:54,160
And now this is where his unique skill set comes into play, right, because he's been building his whole life around understanding how money flows in the government and how to stop it from flowing in one place and get it flowing somewhere else.

437
00:31:54,640 --> 00:32:08,480
So it's not like he just issues a crude memo telling the budget office, you know, the people responsible for dispersing the funds, he's not just sending them a memo that says they don't send the money until they, you know, until they agree to investigate Biden.

438
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:10,240
That's too easy, right?

439
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:20,280
Instead, Vought uses his encyclopedic knowledge of the system and his law degree to use the arcane technical tools of his own office as a weapon, a political weapon.

440
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:21,760
Yeah.

441
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:26,840
Now the House Budget Committee did, they launched an enormous investigation.

442
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,320
This was all part of Trump's first impeachment, right?

443
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:40,720
So they later found that Russ's actions constituted a pattern of systemic abuse under Vought's management.

444
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:51,600
He actually used really, really obscure, very old, very archaic mechanisms, like the apportionment footnotes to quietly withhold the funds.

445
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,640
Not just, hey, you know, don't do this.

446
00:32:53,680 --> 00:33:10,360
He found a very not used, not understood, extremely old footnote, just a little footnote to actually have a legal backing to do what he was doing in a way that could not be easily undone.

447
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:17,600
And anybody who knows or has ever been in a car accident, a court case will tie you up forever.

448
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:30,160
But if you do it and you say you got a legal reason to do it, it takes much longer to untangle the court case than it actually takes to turn the tap back on.

449
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:32,680
It was a pretty sophisticated attack.

450
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:41,240
I mean, it was kind of a case management or case study in separation of powers, right?

451
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:45,240
And, and it wasn't, it wasn't this like giant battle on the floor of the Senate.

452
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:54,680
It was literally just the, the, the eula of the, the budget documents of the Senate that not only does nobody read, they just click accept.

453
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:56,520
They also don't understand.

454
00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:12,720
And only when it needs to be very fine toothpicked out, like a, like a knit being picked off of somebody's headlice, that he, he went that granular to find a justifiable reason to do this.

455
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:23,400
Right. This is the ultimate bureaucrat using the bureaucracy to destroy itself, turning it against itself and using the system's own complexity to paralyze the subverted.

456
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:27,000
This is 3D chess for you.

457
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:27,440
Yes.

458
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:40,000
And we talked about this, you know, in the Hitler, in the Hitler episodes, where ultimately he found very old, very distinct arguments to do what he was doing in a very legal way.

459
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:47,080
And look, the truth is he was doing something that is legal, or at least he believes so.

460
00:34:47,160 --> 00:35:02,200
And it's still in court and this is six years later, you know, so eventually the government accountability office, or as we call it the GAO, which is basically like Congress's referee without any partisanship.

461
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:06,680
It's supposed to be a completely independent, nonpartisan referee.

462
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:08,520
Blows the whistle, right?

463
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:13,840
They issued a legal decision stating that the OMB under Vought had actually violated federal law.

464
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:30,520
The, the GOA stated flatly, and I quote, "faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law."

465
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:37,280
It's not a, not a veiled statement. There's no, no, you know, subterfuge there.

466
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:38,760
Pretty straightforward, right?

467
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,920
Yeah, the law requires you to do what, what Congress has enacted into law.

468
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,680
You're the executive branch, Congress makes the laws, you execute them.

469
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:47,920
Exactly.

470
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:49,080
Exactly.

471
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:57,880
And so a normal public servant might have, if not been afraid, might have at least had some contrition or some concern about this, this situation.

472
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:02,800
But Russ Vought was not, if you can't tell already, he was not a normal public servant.

473
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:04,240
Yeah, and he's still not.

474
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:10,080
So he actually treated the GAO's finding not as a legal ruling, right?

475
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:16,400
Like coming from the judiciary, but as, you know, an annoying suggestion from a rival gang.

476
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:21,080
And he actually refused to cooperate with the subsequent impeachment inquiry.

477
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:34,920
He literally defied a congressional subpoena and he called the entire investigation, a "Sham process" that is designed to re-litigate the last election.

478
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:40,280
Sorry, I wanted that to say retaliate, but was designed to re-litigate the last election.

479
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:51,880
So he said this is this completely nonpartisan department and bureau of the government is being entirely partisan so that they can undo the last election.

480
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:56,480
And it's always about making the other side look like they're fighting to invalidate a legitimate election.

481
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,080
Meanwhile, when you lose, it's because, you know, their election was stolen.

482
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:01,200
It wasn't fair.

483
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:02,480
Yeah.

484
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:14,520
And his official response to GAO, Vought's OMB argued that the GAO's legal opinions were illogical, that the GAO itself cannot constitutionally interpret laws.

485
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:16,080
Well, that's handy, right?

486
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:19,600
I mean, you have an office that's there to call the shots, right?

487
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:20,560
They're to referee.

488
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:23,560
And then you say, well, hey, they're not, they're not the ones allowed to do that.

489
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:24,120
Who is?

490
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,600
Well, I guess maybe the Supreme Court that we can stack.

491
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:26,920
Yeah.

492
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:39,480
He was basically, yeah, he was in effect declaring his office and the president to be above the law and beyond the reach of congressional oversight, which again has now been validated in certain Supreme Court decisions.

493
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:41,720
But his test case was a success.

494
00:37:41,720 --> 00:37:48,240
He'd proven he was willing to break the law for the president and had developed a bureaucratic and legal tactics to do just that.

495
00:37:48,320 --> 00:38:00,720
Yeah. So after Donald Trump loses, cause he's a loser, the 2020 election, many Republicans, obviously they run for the exits, right?

496
00:38:00,720 --> 00:38:13,120
Like they disavow the president, especially after the extremely violent, terroristic January 6th Capitol riot, but not Russ Vought.

497
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:13,960
No.

498
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:25,000
He remains incredibly loyal to president Trump, then ex-president Trump, publicly echoing Trump's baseless claims about the election fraud.

499
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:26,480
Fraud.

500
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,760
And he doesn't take the break there, the four-year break.

501
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,120
He doesn't take that as a vacation.

502
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,160
He uses that period as a rearmament period.

503
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:47,000
So this is where he sort of, you know, goes back and goes back to the drawing board and founds a new think tank, which he calls the Center for Renewing America or the CRA. Add to our alphabet soup here.

504
00:38:48,400 --> 00:39:09,000
The CRA's mission, actually their statement is it's a piece of work, but it aims to "renew a consensus of America as a nation under God, and to provide the ideological ammunition to sustain Trump's political movement."

505
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:20,480
So it's basically a government in exile, workshopping the next phase of their revolutionary coup.

506
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,360
And what's their main project while in exile?

507
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:30,960
Well, they spend the Biden years meticulously crafting legal arguments to justify the actions that got them in trouble the first time.

508
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:38,440
So they came up with a way to excuse everything they had done in the first term to bring it back in the second term with a vengeance.

509
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:53,560
Right. So Vaude and his allies, like his former lawyer, Mark Paoletta, develop an entirely new legal theory that impounding funds, of course, the very thing that got him in trouble with the Ukraine scandal, is actually a longstanding presidential power.

510
00:39:54,200 --> 00:40:00,440
That the president has the power to wield the funds that he's been ordered by Congress to disperse.

511
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:05,000
He can actually wield those as a hammer against political opponents.

512
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:08,880
Yeah. And he is so pedantically annoying.

513
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:19,440
But the CRA immediately starts publishing papers with titles like "On the President's Lawful Authority to Deploy the National Guard to American Cities."

514
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:20,840
Where does that sound familiar from?

515
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:34,720
Right. They are systematically building the framework, the legal scaffolding, for a far more aggressive, far more lawless, in the grand sense,

516
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:36,640
second Trump's term.

517
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:50,000
So they're taking all of the failures of the first term and they're crafting these brilliant legal engineering solutions to make sure that they don't fail and maybe will never fail again.

518
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:52,280
Hints Project 2025.

519
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:55,680
Which we are now well into.

520
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,360
I guess we're wrapping up 2025, sort of.

521
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:01,520
Which there's still plenty of time to go.

522
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:17,640
But all of this work, all the legal theories, all the policy papers, all the CRA's project, culminates in this one place with a 900-page document that has become the single most terrifying and important text in American politics that most people will never read.

523
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:25,200
It's basically the mandate for leadership for the new administration, for the returning administration, better known as Project 2025.

524
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:33,360
This brings us to the end of Part 1 of the two-part series called "How Russ Vought Became the Grim Reaper of American Government."

525
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:40,000
Check back with us next week on the overlap as we continue to explore another villain in our descent into fascism.

526
00:41:40,000 --> 00:42:09,960
[Music]