have croat voter a. -- you don't have voter i.d. people want voter identification. you want proof of citizenship. ideally you have one day voting. i want voter i.d. as a start. i want the water to be released. and they are going to get a lot of help from the u.s. thank you very much. we'll see you at the site. we'll seal you at the site -- see you at the site. reporter: where they are going to -- president trump: we are getting the bad, hard criminals out. these are murderers. these are people that have been as bad as you get. as bad as anybody you have seen. we are taking them out first. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy visit ncicap.org] we are back an journal and we are joined by max stier, the president and ceo for the partnership for public services.

we are talking about the overhaul of the federal workforce ida trump administration. welcome to the program. just remind us about the partnership for public service, its mission and funding. guest: we are nonpartisan dedicated to a better government and a stronger democracy. anyone who operates a nonprofit always knows that funding is the hardest part. we get our money from philanthropy, fee for services and we start originally from a gentleman named sam who had an idea 25 years ago that we needed the nonprofit sector helping our government work better because you make your public institutions better and that raises all boats. explain why you think it is important to focus on the civil service. as opposed to political appointees why is that important to your organization? guest: we focus on both we

originally started with civil-service because there was work that another service was doing on political appointees. the reason why the emphasis is on civil services is that at the end of the day political appointees are setting the policy agenda for our government. but they come and go and it is part of the democratic process and they set the agenda and i would say they set more political employee -- political appointees before any other democracy. at the end of the day it is a career civil servants that are getting the work done day in and out. they are about 2 million of them, 85% or so work outside of the d.c. area and one third are veterans because they are mission oriented people and many folks who leave the military want to continue to serve the public and civil services the way to do it. for 140 years it has been a

political and based on the idea that you need the most competent and merit driven people focused on getting the work done for the public. we had a spoils system before. that led to corruption and incompetence and assassinated president called -- garfield and collapsed everything into one quick thing. but for republicans and democrats for 140 years, that notion of a career or professional civil service as been fundamental to the success of our country. host: president trump mandated that all federal workers back in the office in person. elon musk tweeted out -- or posted on his network saying " pretending to work while taking money from taxpayers is no longer acceptable. what is your response? guest: so, the response is start with the facts. about half the federal workforce

was never able to work remotely, even during the worst of the pandemic, they were on the front lines and putting themselves at risk. if you look at the numbers to date, and we have a fact sheet on this, the truth of the matter is that federal employees are pretty similar to the larger private sector workforce in terms of percentages that work remotely or telework. the real question is whether you are working in the office or other location but how good it is. and federal employees by in large do a strong job. there are ways that can be improved. the idea that the right thing to do is to drive everybody back into the office is not actually going to deliver better results for the american people. and i will give you a quick example of the patent and trademark office. we are the envy of the world in terms of the innovation climate.

and it is the heart of the system that protects and grows our intellectual property that supports innovation. and it has been virtually exclusively remote workforce and telework for i think over two decades, with incredible productivity. you follow through on that executive order and saying that they all have to come back into the office, there are no offices because they have been working for two decades not in the office. and you will throw into turmoil that engine of innovation for our country. i cannot imagine that elon musk actually wants that to happen. it would be disruptive to his world in profound ways and to the economic vitality of our country. that is an example. let us manage smartly, not by the edict that is across-the-board the same thing.

there are different parts of the government that needs different parts of man -- different kinds of management and that is what good leaders do. they understand the context and they make choices based on evidence and thoughtfully. this is not thoughtful. host: we will take your calls on the federal workforce. the numbers are democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. and independents, 202-748-8002. if you are a federal worker we have a line for you and that is 202-748-8003. max, the trump administration has directed all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion staff to be put on leave and layoffs are expected. can you tell us what those dei offices were doing, and why they were there in the first place? guest: certainly. and again, not to take too long

because there is a substantive issue and then a process issue, a little bit like the return to the office edict. you ask what they did, and it is a wide range of activities. many of them were involved in trying to create workplace environments that maximized the engagement of the people in the federal workforce. and i say that it is a basic proposition of how do you create a workplace that enables workers to do their best in the work environment that they have. sometimes people focused just on the d, but when you look at equity, inclusion and accessibility, it is trying to make sure that federal environments are serving the public better re-creating environments that enable workers to do the best they can possibly. host: can't that be abused, because the criticism is that hiring is prioritizing less qualified people just because

they are women or minorities and etc.? guest: can it be abused and the answer is absolutely and those abuses should be addressed and addressed seriously. this is an example of trying to resolve this through an across-the-board rule without any understanding of the nuances which is generally not good. honestly the reality is that the trump administration has the right. president trump was elected president and he does get to set the policy of our government within certain legal constraints. and these are choices he can make. i want to focus on the how. and the fact that the how is actually wasteful of public assets and hurtful of real people. what i say that what i mean is the civil servants working in deia spaces were following the prior administration's

priorities. president biden said this was a priority for himself and his administration. in the civil servants did what they are supposed to do, so follow the lawful policy directions of duly elected leaders. they should not be punished for doing their job in the way they are supposed to do it. and you have president trump's administration arguing that civil servants are not following the policy views of the elected leaders. the reality is that they did. they should not be punished for it. it is again president trump's prerogative to choose a different direction. but immediately shutting down the offices and putting these people on administrative leave and saying they will be fired is cruel and a race to -- waste of public resources. many of those people are in those offices not only because they do dei stuff. they might bh are professionals that can apply -- they might be

hr professionals that can apply their skills. the right thing to say is this is no longer a priority and move away and assess the talent to think about is there another place they can really contribute to public outcomes that we do care about and to communicate in an open and embracing way of those people. these are real people and it has been unbelievably traumatic and unnecessarily traumatic to them. this is but one of many examples where the humanness of the federal workforce is being ignored. entirely appropriate to choose a different direction. the way it is being done is hurting people and the american public. they are losing out on great talent and our government is being disrupted in ways that are going to preclude the americans from frankly being safe. a quick example. 160 or so folks from the national security council, the best experts we have on

counterterrorism were sent home in order for there to be a review of whether they are sufficiently loyal. not smart. points us -- puts us at risk. host: let us talk to callers. joe in maryland. democrat. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: good. caller: i have one question with a couple of parts. people who work from their house, is it secure when you talk over the phone? second to that question, how come you have to wait 36 or 24 hours to talk to a person? and then when you talk to them you hear the dogs in the background and they talk about -- and in other words, there has to be some balance. host: just to clarify, when you say are the line secure. you are talking about when you

call the federal government asking for help, let us say if you call the irs or social security, that kind of thing? joe? caller: in their house, that person in their house uses their laptop or whatever they using -- they are using, is that line secure from that house to you? aren't other people listening? host: and then you wanted to know why does it take so long for somebody to answer your call in the government? caller: in other words, if we can get rid of voicemail and a whole bunch of things that are stupid, in other words if i have a problem and you tell me call your back in 24 or 48 hours that is counterproductive. one more thing. people are people, why do you have all of these buildings and it is like countries in north korea where you have buildings with no people in them? host: ok.

guest: number one, 100% agree that the public, including joe should expect high customer servants -- service from government agencies. we really need and they are oftentimes critiques of the civil servants, we actually need leaders to make sure that is a priority and the investments needed to achieve that are being done. a good example of this is the irs, they had low response rates prior to the recent investments in the irs. they went up to the 90 plus percent category. and there was an intent to take them even better. so, we do need a government that is changed. so, i share the view that we should be able to expect good customer service, phone calls that are answered, good technology and responsiveness that you see in the private sector organizations that exist

today and there are all kinds of ways in which better impossible. in order to have that happen, investments need to be made in the government and technology infrastructure. frankly, those do not usually occur. in terms of security of the lines, it depends on the interaction. i do not think i can speak to that specifically. i will say that many federal employees that i mentioned earlier have never been able to work anywhere about the office because of that question. if they are dealing with classified information they have to work in an official government building. the last point was the empty federal buildings and a lot of agencies have been reducing their real estate footprint because they have moved to a situation where fewer employees are coming into the office. one of the real challenges is that if they are forced to have everyone to come back into the office after they reduce those

footprints there is nowhere for those folks to work. the transition time has to be thought through otherwise you will have disruption to services that joe and many other americans expect to have. host: gregory on the independent line in nashville, tennessee. good morning. caller: this is so funny. trump wants to hire people that he says are merit-based and yet, he is hiring people that are not qualified for the job. as a matter of fact, to be honest with you, he is not qualified to be president. the other thing is, why don't the democrats speak up and say something about the people that he is hiring and be really blunt with it. based on what he is saying about people being merit-based. one more thing. when i call a helpdesk, i always get somebody from india.

i have nothing against indian people. the thing is, why don't the people who have these companies hire americans to beyond the call centers -- be on the call centers to help americans. this is one thing that president trump can probably do. if he can just change that system and make the people sitting behind him because they are the ones who are hiring these people, these people who are you know running on these tech companies, they are the ones hiring this people -- these people in india to do the job. why doesn't he tell them to hire americans to do their job? ok. that is all i have to say. thank you. guest: ok. so, on the question of hiring for merit, the caller is -- has

the same views that virtually all americans have in the polling we have done has demonstrated. we have found in our polling that americans actually do want a merit based, apolitical civil service. it is great to see that that is the consensus across the country. the question is how do you best get that. there are real changes that should take place in the way that our civil service is managed and the way that it is hired and the way they are accountable. we have an aggressive plan about what we would like to see done. the reality is that the current plans of the trump administration would take us the opposite direction. i mentioned earlier that there are 4000 political appointees and if the caller noted we should have high standards for those folks as well and the focus should be on their competence and character.

but the president has a lot of latitude in selecting who those folks are in the senate has its voice for some 1300 of them. but the broader 2 million federal dollars -- federal workforce is a career workforce that is currently merit-based and needs to stay that way. the trump administration issued an executive order that would turn that -- overturn that. and then we will wind up with less good government in a very profound way if that is carried through. host: your organization put out a press release quoting u.s. saying that you were encouraged by some of the executive actions taken by the trump administration as it relates to federate in hiring -- federal hiring processes. guest: look, at the end of the day is -- we should be looking at places to come together and there is too much fighting and that is not how we make progress.