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midco supports cspan as a public service along with these oertel vision providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. at our table this morning, congressman pete sessions, republican of texas, 17th district, and the co-chair of the delivering outstanding government efficiency caucus. what prompted you to start this caucus? >> the need that became apparent not just to knee but i think the country came as a result of the performance of the last four years. as the chairman of the subcommittee for government reform and oversight on government operations and federal workers, we saw very early on the impacts of the president wlrks we say covid or not, the president having almost every single government

operations figure out a way where you can stay at home, figure out a way where you can not only operate from home but see if you can use that as your mainstay. and what happened is we immediately saw where the passport office became the first public casualty of this. people -- the american people need for government to provide goods and services that they legally are responsible to do but also to make americans' lives better. as people stayed at home, we dug in on our subcommittee of what is the plan? how are you going to make sure you serve the american people? what do we do about these problems? and the more we found out, the more we found out that thousands of operations, thousands of people in operations were inefficient, not meeting their

mark and became a problem. then we tried to get under that and that's where it developed really this idea, we've got to deliver a better product. >> your caucus will help support this department of government efficiency run by elon musk and vivek ramaswamy. as lawmakers came out we heard from folks like timm and tip roy saying the problem is in that room. it's republicans who are going to be the problem with having doge be successful. >> i know both these men and there could be truth behind what they're saying. the bottom line is, we are kicking off an idea that is bipartisan. we now have four house democrats who have said, i want to be a part of this also. government efficiency, whether you're a republican or democrat, needs to work for the american

people. government has services that it provides that a lot of people that are inefficiently being provided so when they want to make these comments, they are right, its a a tough lift. we are going to include any member of congress that wants to be available. we're going to include an email address, doge @mail.house.gov. we are going to take feedback, solicit feedback and specific problems or ideas that people have and we're going to work on them. the difference that i think that tim and chip are really not giving credible viewpoint to is -- and the president of the united states has two titans of not just commerce and industry, they have two titans who have jumped into this with their own personal time say, we have run

large companies and we may be here, but we need to go there. and i think it's going to be at least successful for us to say -- and we need to be held accountable by the american people to sell to the american people also why we're doing what we're doing. >> reporters say in the newspapers this morning, there is no statutory authority for doge. it's not a department. zoey lockrin, democrat of california says it's illegal. you know she's quoted telling cnn they haven't asked me to meet with them but the empowerment of funds appropriated by congress isille. it's made up so good luck to them. >> i called zoey this morning. i know her. she's a very thoughtful, articulate leader for the democratic party, but she is also one that would recognize that she will get an invitation.

we will allow her to provide her feedback, and i think she would help make doge better because if we would assume that it's okay to have the irs to be years behind or office of professional management, opm, to take months after a person were to retire from the government before they started receiving their benefits, and to wait five months for these offices to do these only to find out when you peel back the onion, they're operating from home with no real i don't think direct supervision over what is awaiting them. we have -- we have conversations with government all the time and we ask them, do you recognize the backlog? well, yes, but there's just more people. we said, no. how are you managing your people and holding them accountable? and so if she -- if there's a problem, we'll point plenty of them out, we'll invite her to be

a part of it. >> want to invite our viewers to join us in this conversation. we talked about it earlier this morning on "the washington journal." where is there government waste, fraud and abuse. we have congressman pete sessions. he's the co-chair of the delivery outstanding government efficiency caucus, a complement to that department of government efficiency. robert, democratic caller. you're up first. good morning. >> good morning, everyone. good morning, mr. chairman. i like to say i know you're a southwestern man so go pirates. i'm from waco, go baylor bears. my question is specific to the federal workforce. i know that you are going to be receiving feedback specifically from constituents and americans, but are you all going to be

doing any hearings on doge specifically? i know this from working on the hill and specifically working for federal contractors, subcontractors, would your committee be open -- your subcommittee be open to fellowships? i know there are a lot of fellowships at the agency level and fellowships coming into congress but more fellowships to help alleviate the federal brain drain? i look forward to your answer. thank you for taking my call. >> all right, roger. >> what a thought full young man. i think incite that he is providing, not only where i went to college, southwestern university but that i live in waco, and then he referred to a brain drain and the brain drain is something that we do need to pay attention to. there have been an incredible number of schools, universities, master's programs that have

developed themself here in washington, d.c., because many of the government workers need to be brought up to date with not only the newest processes and procedures but the code and the computing necessary behind all of this. i do believe that what we've got to do is look at making sure that every person that's hired is qualified, and this has been an issue that republicans have made over the kinds of people that were running these departments and making these decisions. you may recall that nine days after president trump -- there was an attempted assassination in butler, pennsylvania, we had the head of the secret service. she essentially, in my opinion, and i think others, did not offer the american people nor congress nor her agency the kind

of leadership that is needed to lead. we really caught her flat footed in front of the committee. we find this across government. we find that people were selected for a reason or two as opposed to learning using their experience and gaining that on behalf of the american people. we will have feedback to people. we do want to make sure that we're taking care of the worker that wants to come to work for the government, but it needs to be done at work. >> will there be hearings led by your caucus or other committees on capitol hill? and will elon musk and vivek ramaswamy testify? >> i have no reason to assume that we would not include them. we have not really broken out in the new congress yet. we will do that and we will plan the schedule. we're in essentially the first three or four days of this.

it will be open and there's a reason why we need the american people to know what we're doing and why, because it's got to pass their smell test and that's why we push what's in the best interests for the american people. >> let's start telling the american people what's happening by telling them what happened behind closed doors yesterday with house republicans. what did you hear from those two, elon musk and vivek ramaswamy? >> well, it's very simple. they came and had an opportunity to meet 30 people they had never met and then to meet about 200 members of congress, probably that they had never met, and it gave them an opportunity to say that we are in this battle, we're in this fight because we are -- we put our companies -- we invested our self, we are doing the things and america is in trouble. and if we allow us to go from 35 trillion to 40 trillion to 50

trillion naturally simply because we are having to pay off the debt, then america is in trouble and we will look up. they are responsible. they looked at us, but they looked us right in the eye and said kind of like chip roy and tim said, we're looking at either the problem or the answer and you are sitting in it those seats. so it was not necessarily a comfortable time for a member of congress, especially not someone that's brand new, but we empowered our self to say we will get there, and we will make sure it's bipartisan, or at least an opportunity to be bipartisan, and the answers that we've got we've got to sell to the american people. >> let's go to huntsville, texas. tor, a republican. >> well, thank you very much. congressman sessions, it's a pleasure to speak with you today from wonderful huntsville,

texas. and my question is this, we have -- we trust our election in wapner county. we know that the people who voted but in some of the larger cities in texas there are problems that we suspect there's been a lot of cheating going on. it happens not only in texas, it happens in certain counties in georgia, in maricopa county, in arizona, and other states where election cheating happens. >> in what way, tor? >> there are several ways it can happen. it can happen with crooked election officials. we had a gentleman in tarrant county who used to work for

smart matting. he happened to develop a code that enabled chavez to cheat in the venezuelan election. governments bring in. it is a voting machine. >> huntsville. >> working in our past, they could still exist today.

the governors are there. they made decisions that were there. the commission made it. they have lots of states that said a governor nor any official can wave the rules that are laws of the election. i think that it's a continuing progress -- process and progress. i was here with gore v. bush where there were hanging chads and we continued to do things that bring the american people to have confidence in what we do. in texas in particular we have paper ballots. and so the paper ballots at least provide a context for a paper trail that would be necessary. so i'd like to say to tor, we're

a going to take a look at this. we're open to hearing back from people. it's also an important state matter and i hope your state officials will look at it. >> potomac, maryland. mary is calling from there, independent caller. >> hello. i am calling to say that donald trump added the most to the national debt. he -- when he -- in his first term. today he is strangling the life out of the republican party. >> mary, let's take the first part of what you had to say there. we were talking to gwen moore. the 2017 taxes and the republicans spending in the first term of the trump administration. how do you reverse course here in the second trump administration?

>> well, i think it's important to note that what happened is that we had an economy that was losing jobs, that faced high taxation rates. asyou know, they were -- corporate tax rate was 36%, almost 37%. american business found themselves at the back end of becoming not just efficient but adding jobs because they were making those payments to government. so republicans are not for higher taxes, republicans are for more people having jobs. once we immediately cut those taxes, which could be a claim -- well, not as -- not as -- you don't have a -- as high a rate. more money came into the treasury. $100 billion.

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