CNN: “The memo symbolized Vought’s methodical march to accumulate power within the executive branch — and the outsized role he has played in getting to this moment. Vought’s vision for how to deconstruct Washington’s sprawling federal bureaucracy, shaped by his years toiling in Republican circles, is now being enacted.”

“Vought has transformed a role typically focused on the weeds of congressional appropriations into the Trump administration’s primary instrument to dismantle, piece by piece, federal agencies and spending plans.”

“The White House has increasingly made Vice President JD Vance the face of the government-shutdown fight, turning to a messenger who so far has taken a lighter touch — and more discipline — than President Donald Trump,” Bloomberg reports.

“Vance’s expanded role was evident from the start, with the vice president attending negotiations Monday between Trump and congressional leaders before the shutdown and then taking the lead role, ahead of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, in briefing reporters after the meeting.”

“Between 2013 and 2019, three government shutdowns were caused by Sen. Ted Cruz’s stand against the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Chuck Schumer’s push on children of immigrants and President Trump’s demand for border wall money,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The 2025 shutdown is about something deeper: a complete breakdown in trust.”

“Democrats don’t trust that the White House will take any spending agreement and adhere to it. The White House has for months routinely ignored congressional appropriations, keeping government funds from flowing as directed by Congress.”

“President Trump has embarked on a legally dubious campaign to weaponize the federal budget during a contentious government shutdown, halting more than $27 billion in approved funding in a bid to punish Democratic-led cities and states,” the New York Times reports.

“Rather than broker a legislative truce or seek to ameliorate the fallout of a costly fiscal stalemate, the president has leveraged the crisis to exact revenge on rivals, slash federal spending and pressure Democrats into accepting his political demands.”

“President Donald Trump believed the government shutdown would deliver Republicans a swift and decisive political victory. But with the stalemate now likely to spill into a second week, that calculation is looking increasingly shaky,” CNN reports.

Said a White House adviser: “I’m supposed to say this is killing the Democrats. But I don’t think it helps either side, to be honest with you.”

New York Times: The White House can’t decide: Is the shutdown bad or good?

John Oliver: “Look, at some point you’re going to have to draw a line. So I’d argue, why not draw it right here? And when they come to you with stupid, ridiculous demands, picking fights that you know you could win in court, instead of rolling over, why not stand up and use four key words they don’t tend to teach you in business school?”

“Not, ‘OK, you’re the boss.’ Not, ‘Whatever you say goes.’ But instead, the only phrase that can genuinely make a weak bully go away. And that is, ‘Fuck you. Make me.’”

John Gruber: “‘Fuck you, make me’ is, to me, the founding principle of this nation.”

“I have big plans, I want to survive.”

— President Trump, on the One American News Network, talking about the 2026 midterm election campaign.