| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Working without pay, that's unacceptable. | ||
| The Democrats need to reopen the United States government, and we hope that they will do the right thing on the Senate floor in just a few moments. | ||
| Thank you, everyone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt there laying out the Trump administration's position during this federal government shutdown. | |
| The press secretary urging Democrats to support the Republican funding package. | ||
| Meanwhile, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Senate's in session is voting, will be voting on whether to limit debate on competing funding packages from both Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| If neither of the funding packages get 60 votes, senators will come back next week to continue consideration. | ||
| For more information and updates, head over to C-SPAN 2 for our gavel-to-gavel live coverage of the U.S. Senate. | ||
| And bringing you a live look with our C-SPAN cameras across the street from the U.S. Capitol at the Library of Congress, now pausing operations. | ||
| After Congress failed to reach a funding agreement to keep it open since Wednesday, around the country, essential services related to defense, national security, transportation have remained open, but others have closed. | ||
| Here in the nation's capital, tourist attractions, including the Washington Monument, the National Museums of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, the Capitol Visitor Center, as well as the Botanic Garden, are all closed. | ||
| As for the Smithsonian Museums, according to the latest tweet from the National Air and Space Museum, they will remain open another week through Saturday, October 11th. | ||
| The Post goes on to say that if the shutdown continues, the museums will close on October 12th. | ||
| For more C-SPAN coverage, watch our free C-SPAN Now video app or visit our website, c-span.org. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, host of Ceasefire, bridging the divide in American politics. | ||
| Ceasefire premieres October 10. | ||
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are still at our core a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
| Congressman Cohen, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's good C-SPAN still funded by the government. | ||
| It is not funded by the government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you mean? | |
| Well, I thought you didn't get any money from the government at all. | ||
| No, not at all, and we never have. | ||
| What a disappointment to Elon Musk. | ||
| I'm sure he liked to doge to you. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Love C-SPAN. | ||
| Appreciate the opportunity to come out. | ||
| You know, I wish we could have a thousand C-SPANs across the media spectrum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Unfortunately, we don't. | |
| I think C-SPAN is a huge, huge asset to America. | ||
| Not just the coverage that we get of both chambers on one and two, but programs like Washington Journal that allow policymakers, lawmakers, personalities to come on and have this question time during Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's a huge benefit. | |
| I hope that all these streaming services carry C-SPAN as well because it's an important service to the American people. | ||
| I'm actually thrilled that this time in Washington Journal, I'm getting a lot of really substantive questions from across the political aisle. | ||
| Our country would be a better place if every American just watched one hour a week. | ||
| They could pick one, two, or three. | ||
| Just one hour a week and we'd all be a much better country. | ||
| So thank you for your service. | ||
| We're joined now by Max Steyer, President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. | ||
| Max, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me. | |
| Just real quick, remind us about the partnership and what your mission is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to better government and a stronger democracy. | ||
| We've been at this for over 24 years and largely focused on making the federal government work better. | ||
| Now our work has expanded to state and local government as well. | ||
| I want to read to you a Truth Social post by President Trump who said this. | ||
| I have a meeting today with Russ Vogt, he of Project 2025 fame, to determine which of the many Democrat agencies, most of which are a political scam, he recommends to be cut and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. | ||
| I can't believe the radical left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. | ||
| They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to quietly and quickly make America great again. | ||
| Your reaction to that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So many different things to be said here. | |
| I think the most important is that unfortunately we have a president who no longer subscribes to the bipartisan concept that our government is there for the public good and instead has been in an ongoing war on the notion of a government for the people and is changing it to a government for himself. | ||
| And the effort to make partisan every activity of our government is an example of that. | ||
| We don't have Democrat or Republican agencies. | ||
| We have a Constitution that has a process for creating agencies. | ||
| It requires congressional action and ultimately president signature. | ||
| It's worked very, very well for us and is being blown up in a way that's going to hurt all Americans. | ||
| So my reaction is this is really damaging, scary, and people should be concerned. | ||
| And honestly, our Congress should be putting a stop to it. | ||
| How typical or not is it to lay off federal workers during a shutdown and is it even legal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's certainly not typical. | |
| A government shutdown, and we can come back to what a government shutdown actually means, it does not offer any additional authority for a president to lay off federal workers. | ||
| Indeed, the president is supposed to be looking out for the public's interest here. | ||
| The president is supposed to determine whether or not an activity is essential to the preservation of life or property, and those activities are considered accepted, and those employees that need to do it continue to work without pay, and everybody else gets furloughed and goes home. | ||
| But there is nothing in that process that empowers the president to fire additional people. | ||
| The riff threat that he's making is not fundamentally connected to the shutdown. | ||
| And it's pouring gasoline on a fire when what we really need are adults looking for compromise and looking for a way to fulfill their core function of keeping the doors open of our government. | ||
| About a week before the shutdown, you wrote an article with the headline, a shutdown might make Trump More Powerful. | ||
| The subheadline is, given the extraordinary power grab by the president, the stakes surrounding Congress's spending power are much higher. | ||
| This is a critical turning point for democracy. | ||
| Explain how you felt that a shutdown would make President Trump more powerful. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think we're watching this right now. | |
| And wherever the president has discretion or perceived discretion, he has shown no restraint to use that to try to change our government structure to further his own personal aims again. | ||
| And typically those are not actually well aligned to the public's interest. | ||
| So the concern that I was outlining there is the one I just described, which is there is discretion for a president to decide what functions keep going when appropriated dollars are no longer there. | ||
| It's a small slice, but an important slice of governmental function. | ||
| And I was concerned, as I outlined in that article, that this president would misuse that authority. | ||
| And we're watching that happen right now. | ||
| So it is particularly problematic because this is on top of eight months of deadly and damaging hammer blows to the capacity of our government to serve public needs. | ||
| So you're adding chaos on top of chaos. | ||
| You're watching the core governmental processes unravel. | ||
| Keeping the doors open, as I mentioned, are fundamental. | ||
| The spending power belongs to Congress. | ||
| They're Article 1 in our Constitution. | ||
| It's very clear. | ||
| And this president, even without a shutdown, has seized that power without real pushback from Congress and now is doing even more to grab a hold of something that does not belong to him. | ||
| So then would it be your recommendation, Max, to have the Democrats sign on to a clean CR and reopen the government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My recommendation is that the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties figure out a way to do their job and keep our government open. | |
| I am not in the business of making the political calculus of what deal they should make, but I think it's incumbent upon all of us to hold them to their burden of responsibility here. | ||
| It really is the most basic burden. | ||
| We've seen prior proposals for legislation that would say Congress doesn't get paid. | ||
| Congress can't have publicly funded trips back to their districts. | ||
| The administration should not be paid. | ||
| I mean, the reality is it's the leadership failing that is what is happening here. | ||
| And you have federal employees that are now both first responders and victim. | ||
| And the American public is getting hurt too. | ||
| So I'm not going to tell the Democrats or Republicans what exactly they should do in terms of a deal, but I am saying that it is their responsibility to get one done. | ||
| Well, let's talk about that impact. | ||
| On the partnership's website, you have something called the Federal Harms Tracker, the Cost to Your Government. | ||
| You have workforce reductions by month. | ||
| It's an animation that can go through each month and talk about the reductions. | ||
| What are you seeing as the biggest harm to the American public? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the most important harm is that we're watching our core asset, the people of our government, being thrown away in a non-strategic and thoughtless and often dehumanizing way. | |
| You know, this is fire, fire, fire, not ready, aim, fire. | ||
| There are lots of things we could do to actually improve our government. | ||
| It's important to know that that workforce is the same size or used to be the same size as it was in the 1960s. | ||
| So our government has grown. | ||
| There are a lot of choices that we are making as a society that have long-term impact. | ||
| Your prior speaker was tremendous in describing some of the challenges that we face and what we really need to do about them. | ||
| But indiscriminately firing federal workers is not the way to get there. | ||
| You asked what harms are there, and the reason why we did a tracker is they're countless in every respect, whether you're a veteran, whether you're someone who is older, who relies on Social Security, whether you're a farmer. | ||
| I mean, on and on and on, all of these communities are getting hurt unnecessarily because of wasteful and frankly damaging management of the public infrastructure of our country. | ||
| A president is temporary help. | ||
| They don't own the government. | ||
| They're there for a period of time, and their duty is to be a steward of the public good. | ||
| We're watching that model get blown up. | ||
| So those harms are both near-term and they're going to be devastating long-term as well. | ||
| And our guest is Max Steyer of the Partnership for Public Service. | ||
| He is the president and CEO there. | ||
| If you'd like to talk to him, you can start calling us now. | ||
| The lines are by party. | ||
| Republicans are on 202748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| We also have a line for federal employees. | ||
| So federal workers, please call us on 202-748-8003. | ||
| And this number, Max, on your website of total reductions of just over 200,000 employees. | ||
| Does that number include layoffs, voluntary retirements, early retirements? | ||
| What does that number encompass? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, so the attempt here, and I think this is very important, we have an administration that I think is doing a lot of damage to our government and then frankly hiding the information. | |
| So our intent is to try to provide as much transparency about what is happening as possible. | ||
| Later this month, we'll actually be putting phase two out, which will look at the harms by community, by congressional district, that I think will be quite useful. | ||
| That 200,000, 200,201 encompasses all the information we can gather about who has been either effectively fired or constructively fired. | ||
| And the largest group then is those that took the deferred resignation program. | ||
| They, frankly, in our view, were pushed out of our government. | ||
| And we've tried to do that by agency and, as you note, by time as well. | ||
| And then not just offer the data, but provide some information about the impact that is occurring. | ||
| And as I said, we'll be able to do that by community later on. | ||
| It is unprecedented. | ||
| And as I said earlier, there's lots of good reasons or good approaches to making our government work better. | ||
| This is not it. | ||
| And instead, we're watching colossal waste that's unnecessary and that is ultimately going to hurt our safety and the appropriate and proper use of taxpayer dollars. | ||
| And it is here on your website the numbers by agency with Department of Defense, of course, being the largest agency having the largest reductions. | ||
| That's at ourpublicservice.org. | ||
| If you'd like to look at all those agencies. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Amy, can I make one quick point on that one, too, which you highlighted nicely, and that is you heard from the president this notion of Democrat agencies. | |
| You just highlighted the fact that the agency that has actually seen the most people pushed out is the Defense Department. | ||
| You're seeing harm done to the intelligence community, to the FBI, to the Department of Justice. | ||
| There is really no agency that has not experienced substantial harm. | ||
| I don't really know what the President is referring to as far as Democrat or Republican agencies, but I will tell you that the entire government is being mismanaged and huge amounts of waste created and huge amount of risk being put on the shoulders of the American people. | ||
| Now, the civilian workforce is about 2 million. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| So a cut of 200,000 is about 10% of the federal government workforce being cut so far. | ||
| How much more has the president indicated that he wants to cut from that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So again, there really has been, as I said earlier, no planning. | |
| It's not ready, aim, fire. | ||
| It's just been fire, fire, fire. | ||
| And we don't have real good guidance. | ||
| Part of the challenge here is the chaos that is fundamentally being demonstrated in this whole process. | ||
| The OPM director, Scott Cooper, has indicated earlier that he expected there would be another 100,000 federal employees gone by the end of the year. | ||
| I don't know where that number comes from that was pre-shutdown and pre-threat from Russ Vote and the president for additional risks. | ||
| So, you know, I don't think there is any long-term thoughtful master plan that is being executed here. | ||
| It is lashing out in a way that is damaging and damaging to the American public. | ||
| This is, again, the public's government. | ||
| It's not the president. | ||
| So we don't know. | ||
| But what we know is that a lot of damage has happened already, and the signals are that more is to come. | ||
| Let's talk to callers now. | ||
| We'll start with Linda Democrat, Guysville, Ohio. | ||
| Good morning, Linda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I have basically two questions. | ||
| One is when the continuing resolution was passed in March and why negotiations weren't taking place then, my feeling is probably there were very few calls to negotiate with the Democrats. | ||
| I kind of heard back then that they really were refusing to meet with them, the Republicans. | ||
| I also had a question about, I live in Ohio's breadbasket area, but I wonder why Trump gave $18 billion to help the economy of a dictatorship in Argentina who turned on us and ends up selling all the soybeans to China they could, and now our soybean sales are down 0%. | ||
| I just don't quite understand that. | ||
| And of course, I am for people having health care. | ||
| And I do believe that right now the times are going to be and are as poor as during the pandemic, really economy-wise. | ||
| And I know people are going to need this help continued. | ||
| So if you could give me some answers on those two questions. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Linda, I could. | |
| Go ahead, Max. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So it's so important that you keep a sense of history here. | ||
| Unfortunately, you know, shutdowns and the threats are not new. | ||
| The last time we had this was in March. | ||
| They did ultimately agree on a continuing resolution. | ||
| Continuing resolutions, I should say, are not actually good management either. | ||
| They're only good in reference to shutdowns. | ||
| It's sort of a lesser of two evils rather than really effective management. | ||
| The reason why they're not good is that they just kick the can and they limit effective management of government. | ||
| You're not permitted to close down things that actually should be closed down or to have new starts. | ||
| So, you know, it was better than a shutdown, but it was not actually their job, which is to thoughtfully pass appropriations bills. | ||
| Your point is important because they've had lots of opportunity to figure this out and they haven't. | ||
| And we have to go back all the way to 1996, frankly, to find a year in which Congress has done its job and actually put all of the appropriations bills through on time. | ||
| That's just not acceptable. | ||
| And frankly, Congress should be held to account for that. | ||
| And we should have processes that make them bear at least some part of the burden rather than the public and the federal workforce. | ||
| As to your point about the support of Argentina, look, I don't want to stray outside of my lane of good management. | ||
| I think it's important to see that we do have a president that, you know, frankly is not listening to or hearing from the expertise of his own government. | ||
| You know, part of the reason why we have a nonpartisan expert civil service is to get good information to the political leaders so that they can make better choices. | ||
| And one of the things that I worry about the most is that we're in the midst of an administration that thinks it can do it on its own and is always right and doesn't need that expertise. |