| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
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| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to your calls and comments in just a few minutes. | ||
| But first, I want to give you more information on those recent polls from YouGov. | ||
| It says that nearly half of Americans, 48%, believe the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the budgets and staff of federal agencies have gone too far. | ||
| 25% think the efforts have been about right, and 17% think they have not gone far enough. | ||
| Also, looking at that same topic was Fox News. | ||
| They did a national survey just a few days ago and found a 51% majority opposes, substantially shrinking the number of government employees. | ||
| Some 56% disapprove of the job the Trump administration is doing, identifying and reducing wasteful spending. | ||
| And another 65% worry that not enough thought and planning has gone into the cuts. | ||
| A sizable minority of Republicans, 39%, share the concern of large number of Democrats, 88%, and Independents, 71%, about how the reductions are being implemented. | ||
| 40% approve of the job Elon Musk is doing working with Doge, while 58% disapprove. | ||
| Fully looking at the number, it's 93% of Democrats disapproving, along with 70% of Independents and 20% of Republicans. | ||
| It was yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press that Utah Senator Republican John Curtis was asked about Elon Musk's involvement in Doge and the efforts there. | ||
| Here is his response. | ||
| I think it's this false narrative that somehow somebody can't get involved that's not an elected official or just because they're a billionaire, they're a bad person. | ||
| Right? | ||
| President Trump can consult anybody he wants to. | ||
| Elon Musk is not making any cuts. | ||
| He's only suggesting the cuts and then President Trump is making the cuts. | ||
| Let me ask you because Elon Musk ruffled some feathers when he referred to Social Security, something that he's also eyeing as a part of his Doge efforts, as a Ponzi scheme. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Senator, do you see Social Security as a Ponzi scheme? | |
| Well, I wouldn't use those words, but we're not being honest either with people. | ||
| And that's why you'll actually see me in a couple of months introduce a change to Social Security. | ||
| We're not being honest when we look people in the eye and say we're not going to touch it. | ||
| If we don't touch it, it touches itself. | ||
| You know that, right? | ||
| That's not being honest with the American people. | ||
| And I think that's one of the things that makes them not trust us when we say something that they just know is not true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you're absolutely right. | |
| I mean, there's broad agreement that entitlements are not solvent in the long run. | ||
| But the question is, what to do about it? | ||
| And about one in eight of your constituents actually receive Social Security benefits. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Roughly the same number are on Medicare. | |
| And I think the question is, and the concern is: are these folks going to lose coverage? | ||
| So, can you sitting here today guarantee your constituents they won't lose coverage? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They won't be subject to deep cuts to the Social Security. | |
| Let me look them all in the eye symbol right now. | ||
| We don't need to impact the people that are in Social Security. | ||
| But if we don't have a conversation about my kids, our 20-year-olds, our 30-year-olds, that's where the problem is. | ||
| And so we can't be afraid of this conversation simply because people think we're going to take it away from them. | ||
| We all need to say, look, those in retirement and those near retirement, we're not going to touch it. | ||
| You're safe. | ||
| But let's have that conversation because my kids don't think they're going to get it. | ||
| So why can't we have a conversation with them about moving some of the variables around? | ||
| And the sooner we do it, the less dramatic it has to be. | ||
| If we don't do it, we have worse decisions thrust upon us. | ||
| For this first hour, we are asking your thoughts on Doge's efforts to reduce budgets and staff of federal agencies. | ||
| From that YouGov poll shows that 50% of Americans strongly or somewhat oppose the recent layoff of federal workers by the Department of Government Efficiency. | ||
| Only 38% support the layoffs. | ||
| The rate of opposition to the federal layoffs is much larger. | ||
| It's 76% compared to 20% who support among the 29% of Americans who say they personally know someone who's recently been affected by cuts to the government agency and program. | ||
| Few Americans are in favor of eliminating or reducing all but one of the eight federal agencies and the departments included in this week's poll. | ||
| That includes the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency. | ||
| The one exception is Doge, which 43% of Americans favor eliminating, 34% or reducing 9%. | ||
| The members, voters, and Americans have been talking about Doge at town halls across the country. | ||
| In the past few weeks, it was on Saturday that Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey, a Democrat, was asked about Doge. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here is that clip: Last week, Doge invaded the U.S. Institute of Peace. | |
| Barely reported in the press here. | ||
| The U.S. Institute of Peace, with the aid of D.C. police, they ransacked the offices, replaced the president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which is not even a federal institution. | ||
| My question is: who is Doge? | ||
| Who? | ||
| Who? | ||
| And what can you do? | ||
| If anything, what can you do on our behalf to find out? | ||
| Where is the transparency? | ||
| Yeah, no, no, it's true. | ||
| I mean, and you know, as I said, I used to work at the State Department directly across the street from USIP. | ||
| And, you know, I have a number of people who work there who've been texting me, telling me about this. | ||
| We're now pushing forward on litigation efforts to be able to stop this, but absolutely illegal actions that were taken. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In the same way that I was there on the day that they shut down the Ronald Reagan building and prevented USAID workers from going in there. | |
| Again, those are the doors I walked through 21 years ago. | ||
| And then now I was stopped by a guard who said that he was instructed to not allow any workers to be able to get to their desk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I asked, instructed by who? | |
| You know, who is giving these orders? | ||
| You know, who is it that's engaged in this? | ||
| And we're tracking down. | ||
| You know, we see that Doge is part of the executive office of the president. | ||
| They are under the White House jurisdiction. | ||
| And that, you know, that is something that, again, Congress did not give powers to the White House to be able to take those actions over entities, departments, agencies, and institutes that Congress set up by law and federal statute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's exactly the lawlessness that is out there. | |
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| And then what do they do? | ||
| They fire the inspector generals right out of the gate, right? | ||
| Why do you do that? | ||
| Because you don't want to have that transparency. | ||
| You don't want to have that accountability. | ||
| So what we're bulling on is we're going, you know, I'm going through, we're trying to interview all these people at these different agencies and departments, including institutes like USIP, be able to document that, that's going through the litigation side, but also trying to see what investigations we have to be able to engage. | ||
| You know, for instance, I'm on a committee that has oversight over D.C. | ||
| And so if D.C. police are engaged in that type of activity, those are things where we need to have that sense of understanding and transparency in terms of what's happening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But you deserve to know who is actually doing this work, you know, on a day-to-day level beyond Elon Musk. | |
| And the fact that we don't know, while they're trying to claim that this is a BN about, you know, against fraud and waste and abuse, while they are simultaneously hiding themselves from the American people, they do that because they know what they're doing is wrong. | ||
| For the first hour of today's program, we are asking your thoughts on Doge efforts to reduce budgets and staff of federal agencies. | ||
| Here are the lines. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you're a federal worker, you can also call in. | ||
| We have a line for you. | ||
| It's 202-748-8003. | ||
| We will start with Henry in North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Henry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| I do think Doge is messing up the country a little too fast. | ||
| And I think it's under Donald Trump's orders. | ||
| So what the Democrats have to do is fight as hard as they can in the courts and get together, pick a new leader for president when the time comes. | ||
| And also, what the Democrats got to embrace, and this sounds a little weird, but all the Republicans embrace it. | ||
| They got to start arming themselves in a correct and righteous and legal manner. | ||
| Of course, when the Republicans see that, they'll sit up and notice that the Democrats are arming themselves. | ||
| Not violently with assault weapons or nothing, but something to protect themselves if the time ever comes where Donald Trump calls for a civil war. | ||
| And that is in the back of his mind. | ||
| That was Henry in North Carolina. | ||
| Let's hear from Beth in Shalamar, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Beth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Called in last month to talk about fraud, waste, and abuse in Doge and what they're doing. | ||
| I am a former government worker who's spending the tax dollar as a contract negotiator for the DOD. | ||
| And what is being done by Doge is not an audit. | ||
| If you're looking to save money for the government, you're going to go in and do a financial audit. | ||
| That's not what they're doing. | ||
| They're basically doing a hack. | ||
| But what I was pointing out last month, I was trying to give you a concrete example of fraud that I had to deal with. | ||
| You cut me off before I finished, but what I wanted to say, when you're dealing with fraud, it's going to end up in the court. | ||
| So if Elon Musk is finding all this fraud, why aren't we hearing about the court cases being filed instead of Pam Bondi doing all this crazy stuff that she's doing, filing injunctions against lawyers and other crazy things? | ||
| Beth, you worked for the DOD, worked with that department. | ||
| Did you see any waste fraud, anything that you would have cut? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse, yeah. | |
| But the majority of the fraud is not caused by the government. | ||
| It is people committing fraud against the government. | ||
| And you had two people on, I don't remember now how many weeks ago it was. | ||
| One of the ladies that you had on had been in front of one of those Doge committees in DC. | ||
| And what she was talking about was not the government committing fraud, but people committing fraud against the government. | ||
| Give me an example then. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the example I gave was a contractor. | |
| I had a small business contractor trying to do business with the government and saying that they could make something that had always been a sole source with a large business contractor. | ||
| I was buying airplane parts. | ||
| So take your pick of the large businesses that I may have been doing business with. | ||
| And they had sole source rights to their drawings and their parts that they had made for that plane. | ||
| And when the small business came in, they said, well, we can make this part too. | ||
| And so I had to get them approved through engineering. | ||
| They had to send in drawings and specs to be approved. | ||
| And when they did, we realized that they were sending in a copy of the large business's drawings because there was a specific part of that drawing that somebody had written in script instead of block lettering, which is normally on a blueprint. | ||
| And it was a note that one of the engineers had made in the large business. | ||
| So that drawing had been stolen from the large business. | ||
| That was taken to court. | ||
| And if they're finding waste, then, or I'm sorry, if they're finding fraud, it's going to end up in court. | ||
| That was Beth in Florida talking about her experience. | ||
| Let's hear from Mike in Appleton, Wisconsin, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you today? | |
| Doing well, Mike. | ||
| The Doge effort is nothing except a diversion. | ||
| And the Republican Party, and it's really not the Republican Party anymore, is really a takeover by the oligarchs and the Democrats. | ||
| And what the Democrats have to do, because they're getting lost right down to their name, Democrats, they need to change their name to the Common Sense Party. | ||
| And Sanders and Cortez have highlighted that in terms of what they're doing. | ||
| People are responding to common sense. | ||
| And Democrats have a lot of baggage. | ||
| They need to leave it behind, change the name to common sense, and challenge every single item that Trump and his minions are presenting that are absolutely ridiculous. | ||
| But in the end, the destruction of the democracy is what we will lose. | ||
| And that is, there's too much at stake here to let the Democratic Party and its baggage keep us from that democracy. | ||
| We must break new ground, move to the higher ground, and challenge everything these people are suggesting because most of it, and at the end of the day, as we're finding out in the Doge efforts, it's like dumb oligarchs get even, is what it really stands for. | ||
| And it's just nonsense. | ||
| And the American people really don't want anything to do with it. | ||
| But the positioning of the Democratic Party is just wrong. | ||
| Anyway, that. | ||
| That was Mike in Wisconsin. | ||
| Roberta in California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Roberta. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to make a little review about the genesis of the civil service. | ||
| That it was the federal employees used to be good old boy friends of whoever was just elected. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so when sub-officers elected, they start giving jobs away to people just for the money, whether they're qualified or not. | |
| The present system has been very deliberate and make sure everyone is expert in the area they're working in, which, by the way, is predominantly to look after our safety. | ||
| Is our water safe? | ||
| Are our banks sound? | ||
| You know, everything, so many things that people do not even realize are for their own good and their safety. | ||
| And I hear a lot of complaints about education, and education is funded by their local school district. | ||
| It's got nothing to do with federal employees. | ||
| But any organization, I don't care if it's a little church or a little business, there's people always taking home paperclips. | ||
| There's always a paperclip, a swiper. | ||
| And this can happen anywhere. | ||
| And that's why you have inspector generals and supervision by the Congress to see that our tax dollars are spent wisely. | ||
| That was Roberta in California. | ||
| And Roberta mentioned the Department of Education. | ||
| That's one of the agencies that has been, that Doge has been looking at the YouGov survey, looking at what Americans think about expanding, reducing, or eliminating it. | ||
| If you look at the poll, it shows that 39% think that the Department of Education should be expanded. | ||
| 27% think it should be kept the same. | ||
| 17% say it should be eliminated. | ||
| And 13% say it should be reduced. | ||
| It was yesterday on CNN's State of the Union that Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, was talking about the proposed cuts to the department. | ||
| Here is that clip. | ||
| Just on the idea of Congress, you mentioned this, that the president wants to move the student loan program to the small business administration, which you were in charge of in the last Trump term, and then move others to HHS. | ||
| Why do you think President Trump has the legal authority to do that when these programs are inside your department through a law of Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, certainly President Trump has said he will move things in accordance with the law and cooperation with Congress. | |
| He certainly knows that if there are statutes or laws that are governing where they need to be, we'll have to abide by the law. | ||
| So that means you're not going to move them because the votes aren't there. | ||
| No, that means we will work with Congress. | ||
| We'll partner with Congress. | ||
| We'll find out where the laws that govern these are. | ||
| How do the laws are? | ||
| We have to change the law. | ||
| Not necessarily. | ||
| We are going to look to see how we are governed. | ||
| And if we have to change the law, if we need to work with Congress, if Congress doesn't agree, then we'll find out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we'll find out. | |
| Well, and I want to work with I think what people should know in listening to is none of what we're talking about is going to happen imminently. | ||
| I've been on the job, I think this is my third week coming up. | ||
| But during my confirmation processes, I talked to senators on both sides who did have concerns. | ||
| And I said, look, I want to work in partnership with you because our goal is to make sure that we are providing the best education for students in our country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We cannot be last in the world in education. | |
| We are hearing your thoughts on Doge's efforts to reduce budgets and staff of federal agencies. | ||
| Some comments coming in on social media. | ||
| These from Facebook. | ||
| Kerry Barron says, I'm glad he's cutting all of them. | ||
| And no, I'm not kidding and have not been affected. | ||
| Good job, Trump. | ||
| David Henry says, cut the EPA. | ||
| That's a wasted program that is not benefiting our country. | ||
| James Dempsey says, we are all affected. | ||
| A smaller government is a better government. | ||
| And this from David Ornauer. | ||
| He says, I have worked in the Federal Service for more than half a century, 10 plus in Air Force uniform over time. | ||
| I have heard, told, and been ridiculed as one who rides the taxpayer gravy train. | ||
| Not true. | ||
| I work for an NAF agency and works some of the time, and I can't be fired. | ||
| Walk a mile in my shoes and tell me that. | ||
| I have strived to be anything but those stereotypes. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| We'll hear from Mark in New York, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| I just wanted to say that we all agree that waste, fraud, and abuse has to be cut from the government. | ||
| But that's not what Trump is doing. | ||
| He's just getting rid of agencies he doesn't like. | ||
| He didn't like U.S.AID. | ||
| He doesn't like the Department of Education. | ||
| It's just an excuse. | ||
| And the other thing is, they say they're going to cut $2 trillion from our federal government, but they're going to give $4.5 trillion tax cuts to the wealthy. | ||
| Come on, people. | ||
| You're being conned. | ||
| This is a whole thing just to get rid of the government that the right-wingers don't like and let the billionaires be in control. | ||
| That's Mark in New Jersey. | ||
| Wilmer in Pennsylvania, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Wilmer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'd like to ask right there that all of this has been made possible whenever the two senior Supreme Court justices weren't cited right there, as they were basically reduced as far as their efforts to be impartial by favoritism. | |
| from billionaire associates. | ||
| And their rulings after that were favorable only to the President Trump. | ||
| And it made possible all the rulings that proceeded from them. | ||
| And why there hasn't been any why they could not be recused from making rulings for which their impartiality was already in question. | ||
| That is the premise of the situation for this entire situation. | ||
| That was Wilmer in Pennsylvania. | ||
| John, Gainesville, Georgia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I've been very pleased with the progress being made by Doge, which was, I think, installed as part of the U.S. Digital Service or right under it. | ||
| I don't understand very well the legalities, but I understand President Obama established the USDS digital service for things like Obamacare. | ||
| I don't know if it was before him, but I guess coming right under it, it makes sense that Elon Musk presents himself as tech support. | ||
| And these are all business practices. | ||
| You know, as a businessman, Trump hired Elon and they're in partnership. | ||
| They call them the tech bros, like Jeff Bezos, I guess, turning the Washington Post into the post-Washington, or, you know, things upside down, so be it for Jeff Bezos to do that. | ||
| And for Elon to sacrifice, and Trump has sacrificed plenty personally and financially, I mean, big losses for themselves. | ||
| And they're businessmen. | ||
| I always hope, I'm from Colombia originally. | ||
| I became a citizen in 06 under Bush. | ||
| And it's been quite a spectacle to watch a war being conducted very civilly, not a civil war. | ||
| It's just a war against waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| But the colors are right. | ||
| It's way more than that. | ||
| It's the institutions. | ||
| It's the administrative state, the bureaucracy, not the democracy, like we've been sold all these years. | ||
| John, of the cuts that Doge and the Trump administration have made so far, which do you see as being the most beneficial? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's like the Constitution. | |
| You know, we talk about the Constitution, what's good for our Constitution as our body. | ||
| The body politic, what is good for the U.S. Constitution. | ||
| These cuts are healing the nation, are going to heal, you know, the government being in a good place for we the people. | ||
| We're supposed to be the people being represented. | ||
| I'm just saying specifically, I approve all the cuts. | ||
| I mean, I'm just saying sometimes they don't go far enough. | ||
| I mean, I understand people are getting feelings hurt because it's business as usual. | ||
| We've been brainwashed into thinking this is normal. | ||
| That was John in Georgia. | ||
| Ray in California, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I am not in favor of the entire Doge operation. | ||
| If there was really a need to or a desire to identify waste fraud and abuse, then they should have kept the inspectors general who understand the purpose of each department, what they're trying to do, they understand the systems, so they would be able to recognize waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| Also, Those folks seem to be just picking on really small things like USAID, less than 1% of the budget. |