lay waste

The trebuchet was the most fearsome weapon of medieval times, a giant catapult that could lay waste to any fortress by battering its walls with boulders.

Nick Cage wrote: “Hopefulness is not a neutral position.... It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.”

As he ransacks the federal government, trying to push out federal employees and lay waste to the ability of regulatory agencies to do their work, the last thing most people will assume motivates him is Christian fervor.

Trump throwing a wrench into the ability of the NIH to fund infectious disease research looks very much like the first step in Kennedy's scheme to lay waste to medical infrastructure to protect people from such illnesses.

Those programs are incredibly popular, creating a political firewall that may tank the plans to lay waste to the health care of millions.