RadCasts

During the continuing government shutdown, President Trump has posted memes depicting Russel T. Vought, the White House budget director, as the grim reaper.

Coral Davenport, a Washington correspondent for The Times, explains how Mr. Vought, a once obscure official, has become one of the most influential figures in Washington.

Guest: Coral Davenport, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, focusing on the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal rules.

Background reading: 

• Mr. Vought has exerted his influence over nearly every corner of President Trump’s Washington with his command of the levers of the federal budget.
• Both parties are resigned to deadlock as the government shutdown takes hold.

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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The economist Yanis Varoufakis found himself in the eye of the storm as Greece’s Minister of Finance in 2015, at the height of the country’s debt crisis. Now he reflects on his political awakenings and the women who influenced him in Raise Your Soul. It’s a family story that starts in Egypt in the 1920s and traces Greece’s tumultuous century through Nazi occupation, civil war, dictatorship, socialism and economic crisis.

The historian Professor Mary Vincent focuses on the Spanish Civil War and has written about fascism, political violence and its impact on the people. She sees both similarities and stark differences between the Greek and Spanish Civil Wars and ponders the question of how global politics influence what happens in nation states.

As a new translation of Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War (by Robin Waterfield) is published, the classicist Professor Paul Cartledge explains why this ancient text has remained essential reading for military leaders and politicians for centuries. Thucydides’s account of the war between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BCE depicts the devastation of civil war and reflects on the nature of political power.

Producer: Katy Hickman Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez