Call Your Senator: Sen. Andy Kim

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. The remaking of the United States government, maybe of the United States and some of the rest of the world in the image of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, continues, but so does the push back to it. Some here, maybe some in the German elections. Existential questions, however, remain at the forefront. Is this what democracy looks like? Is creeping authoritarianism taking hold day by day? On the remaking side, if you haven't paid attention to all the things, and it's so hard to pay attention to all the things coming down the news pike, one of the major developments of the last few days is Trump removing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown, whose five year term is not supposed to be determined by presidential whim. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also removed the chief naval officer, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who the New York Times notes spent roughly half of her 40 year career at sea commanding a destroyer, two carrier strike groups and the US Sixth Fleet.

With the replacements that Trump and Hegseth have in mind, removing Franchetti, who's a woman, and Brown, who's Black, leaves all top military posts in the hands of white men. Trump also removed all the so called JAGs, Judge Advocate Generals, lawyers whose job is to advise the actual generals what is legal and constitutional for them to do. Very alarming to many if Trump is just casting aside that specific set of guardrails and the people who guard them. Remember that Trump in his first term was famously quoted in reporting by two sources as saying, "I need the kind of generals that Hitler had," meaning loyal to him. Scary. If we're transitioning to a military that's loyal to the person above the Constitution.

On the pushback side, the range of responses and strategies in recent days is striking. A CNN poll of Democrats and Democrat leaning independents find 73% disapproval of how elected officials from the party are responding to Trump, too. So far, activists are calling for people to look beyond elected officials who they see as ineffectual and get involved in citizen action more.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, have you heard this, warns that the US may be just months away from an irreversible destruction of democracy, but longtime Democratic strategist James Carville says Democrats should play possum because Trump and Musk are starting to harm so many Americans, their revolution will largely collapse on itself in the next 30 days. That's what James Carville thinks. You know the Boston College historian, Heather Cox Richardson? In her latest Substack post, she reports on this analysis by Timothy Snyder, the very important scholar of tyranny and authoritarianism.

He was on the show recently and is so widely quoted and cited and who has warned sharply about what he sees as Trump's authoritarian playbook. The quote from Snyder from his Bluesky is this, "Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things, and they will keep trying to break and to steal, but the propaganda magic around the oligarchal coup is fading. Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power."

Interesting, coming from Timothy Snyder, who is no Pollyanna on the issue of tyranny. Pushback even came this weekend. Did you hear this one from the new FBI director, Kash Patel, of all people, a central MAGA figure? When Musk sent his directive to federal employees to submit in writing what you accomplished last week or will consider it a resignation, Kash Patel told FBI employers, "No, maybe don't do that." So did some other Trump agency heads. Still, what happened with the JAGs happened. USAID, with its life and death mission for millions around the world, was further dismantled by Trump last night after a judge said he could.

The Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend saw more of those salutes by Steve Bannon and others that they deny are intended to look like the Heil Hitler salute, but look just enough like it to maybe actually be it with a wink and a veneer of deniability. Oh, and the House may vote tomorrow to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid Health Insurance. The stock market went down a lot on Friday. The price of eggs didn't. Our first guest for this week is New Jersey's new US senator, Andy Kim. Some news about Andy Kim. He'll be joining us monthly for an Ask Your Senator call-in like we do with Senator Gillibrand from New York.

When he was in the House, to give you a little background for those of you who don't know Senator Kim yet, Kim was on both the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees after spending decades with USAID, including for the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council, and in Afghanistan advising our commanders there, General Allen and General Petraeus. Senator Kim, great to have you back with us and great that you'll be a Call Your Senator regular here. Thank you so much, and welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Kim: Yes, I'm excited to be on the program. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, especially from New Jersey, call your senator with any question or comment. 212-433-WNYC. Listeners, if you flood the lines from everywhere else, this is not only for people from New Jersey, but we may bump you for the moment to make sure we have lines clear for New Jersey callers for Senator Kim in the main. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or you can text us. Where do we even start, Senator? How about with the budget? You were there for that all-nighter last week in the Senate that resulted in many Democratic amendments being rejected, including one to not cut taxes for billionaires. The Republican majority rejected that. How would you report to constituents about the so called all-night vote-a-rama?

Senator Kim: I hope they see why it is that we are pressing so hard. We went until about five o'clock in the morning pressing on amendments that are focused on lowering costs for American families and showing that what Trump is trying to do is to slash healthcare, slash Medicaid, have real damage to Medicare, other programs, and for what purpose? It's to be able to fund tax cuts to the richest, wealthiest, well connected Americans in our nation. I think that that's something that really needs to come front and center. What the House is proposing is upwards of $880 billion in cuts to healthcare, including Medicaid.

I received a phone call from a constituent of mine who's disabled and he's saying how terrified the disabled community is feeling in New Jersey worried about what kind of cuts they're going to face when it comes to their caregivers and whether or not they're going to be able to get the kind of support that they need to be able to live their lives. It's thrown things in absolute turmoil. What people thought about in terms of what our government needs to focus on, which is lowering costs, is absolutely not what Trump is doing.

Brian Lehrer: Trump says he doesn't want to cut Medicaid, but this House budget would cut Medicaid. How do you understand what's in play there? I don't know if you want to be in the role of doing political analysis of Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, but they seem to be on two different roads with respect to Medicaid, at least in terms of the House draft that's being written and Trump's rhetoric.

Senator Kim: I think we've seen Trump enough in politics to know that we can't trust what he says. I hate to say that. I'm somebody who worked under both a Republican president and a Democratic president when I worked in national security. You would hope that the words of a president can be taken as their opinion, as policy for our country, but that is just not the case. We hear that from Trump when he says he wants to have tariffs on countries around the world, but that the American people are not going to have to pay for that. It's just not true. We know that tariffs and other policies would increase prices.

In fact, I believe it was what 62% of Americans surveyed last month said that they believe that the tariffs will increase their cost of living, which is why they're very concerned about this. When it comes to healthcare, when we see the Republicans in the House put forward a proposal of $880 billion cuts to the portfolio of the Energy and Commerce Committee, we know that that is geared towards our healthcare, geared towards Medicaid, which again, so many kids in my state of New Jersey rely upon for their healthcare, for the resources that they need when it comes to the opioid crisis and substance use disorder, for so many other aspects of people's lives. That's on the chopping block.

When Trump says otherwise, he's just lying and he knows it. He knows that he's lying. I hate to say that. I hate that I'm raising a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old in an America where they cannot trust their president in terms of what he says. That's why it's so important that we express what is the truth and really be able to lift that up, whether through the votes that we tried to do in the Senate the other day or other actions. We need the American people to understand what is at stake. It's exactly like what happened in 2017 when they tried to gut healthcare there, and we were able to get the message out that Trump was trying to gut pre-existing condition protections. That mobilized Americans all over the nation to stand up for their care. We need that to happen again.

Brian Lehrer: Before we leave the topic of Medicaid for now, I did read that one amendment that was approved in the Senate's all-night vote-a-rama, meaning it got the Republican votes to pass, was what Politico calls a largely symbolic measure to protect Medicare and Medicaid. How much do you think your Republican colleagues in the Senate will stand against what the House is drafting there, which does cut Medicaid a lot more than the Senate version that they passed last week?

Senator Kim: The Senate version was only taking on part of what this was. Their bill was to have two sections, and the second section was going to focus a lot more on these other elements. I think that what we know is that the Senate Republicans have expressed support for what the House is trying to do as well. It's all part of the same effort. I just want the American people to focus in on the equation is that when they're talking about trillions of dollars of tax cuts to billionaires and the wealthiest Americans, the biggest corporations, that will come at the expense of healthcare, of support for middle class families. That's really the takeaway that the American people need to know.

Brian Lehrer: I want to take phone calls from two of your New Jersey constituents, who I think are going to be different on where things are, and we'll get your take to both. We'll start with Ethan in Jersey City. Ethan, you're on WNYC with Senator Andy Kim. Hello.

Ethan: Hello, Senator. Big fan of yours. Thank you for running in the Senate. My question to you is really how you're fighting against what I perceive and what many of my friends who are voters perceive as Senator Schumer's ineffective leadership for the Democratic Party in the Senate. The wait and see approach isn't working. I think that Democrats don't have enough teeth fighting against this right now, maybe pushing against this as much as humanly possible because this is really just an existential threat to the Republic. I just don't think Schumer is right for the role in the moment.

Brian Lehrer: Ethan, before the Senator responds, what would look like right action to you? Do you have specific ideas? Ethan, I'm asking you.

Ethan: Yes, I remember a town hall with Congressman Paul Tonko, and one of his constituents was saying he should fight Warren and get himself arrested by doing the civil acts and stuff like that. I think it's important that Democrats as elected officials really take the lead in the public eye on things, whether it's at protests, whether it's going into government departments without any of these departments knowing to perform oversight, or any of these things that Senators have access to because it's important for constituents to see our elected officials fighting back against this in any way, shape, or form. I think those speeches in front of government departments really help. As I said previously, I think Senator Schumer is not the right person for this. He's too old. He is not.

Brian Lehrer: Ethan, thank you very much. I'm going to get this other caller on here first and then let you respond to both of them. I think we're going to hear something different from another one of your constituents. Jael in Princeton. Jael, you're on WNYC with Senator Andy Kim. Hello.

Jael: Brian, good morning. Thank you for a great job that you've been doing for 25 years. This is my second phone call. Senator Kim, I congratulate you for winning. I know you were going to be sabotaged by current governor. I just want to say to Democratic Party we're making a big deal out of the hype. I don't like the last caller. We do not need to protest. We need to go to the base how we can win more seats. We should concentrate in two years. It's less than a one year from now. We can win a lot of seats in Nebraska, Tennessee, Florida, New Jersey, New York by educating the people that these people lie to them. They are not doing any good for us.

We got to go back to the way that was Democratic Party running in '80s against Ronald Reagan. Why have we lost our base? I've been around for almost 50 years seeing the politics in this country. Democratic Party is still living in the old way. Whether Schumer or Nancy Pelosi are okay for our team, fine and dandy, but we got to go back to the base. This is how you want the senatorial sheep of the New Jersey, Senator Kim, and we have to use your procedures.

Brian Lehrer: Jael, let me ask you a follow up question. Why given what you just said, do you disagree with the previous caller that Schumer and other elected officials who are Democrats need to be engaging in more aggressive actions?

Jael: Because it's not going to help us. You guys don't understand. The right has noise. Fox News, Newsmax, OAN. We don't have that noise. We're allowing them to use Senator Schumer's video in TikTok. That is not the right way. We need to go on the base of Democratic Party. We used to go and knock the doors. I remember when I was raising money for two governors knocking the door, educating the people what the Republicans Party are doing to this country. What Ronald Reagan did. The people say Ronald Reagan did not increase the taxes, but that's nonsense because for eight years he raised taxes. We have to educate our team.

Brian Lehrer: Jael, thank you for your call. Senator, very interesting, those two constituents. What are you thinking?

Senator Kim: What I hear coming through both, and frankly, it's not just them, a lot of others that I talk to, and I feel it myself, is we're watching this brazen attack upon our democracy. A president that referred to him as a king. We see these actions that are supposed to be done for the American people. As I said, he said he was going to focus on lowering costs. That's absolutely not what he's doing. In fact, 66% of Americans surveyed say that he's not focusing on the issues of higher costs.

Instead, he's going on this power grab getting rid of watchdogs and inspectors generals, and the checks and balances in that way, and trying to assert power in a single branch of government at the expense of our Constitution. I understand where people's frustrations and concerns are. I feel it very much, too. I often ask myself, "What kind of America are my kids growing up in? What is the trajectory of this?" What I would say is that we need every tool at our disposal, and I don't think it has to be one or the other.

For instance, I used to work at USAID, and the day that we saw the massive cuts and stopping of the employees from showing up, I showed up there at the building, at the Ronald Reagan Building, where I used to work 20 years ago, and I was demanding to see the leadership, demanding to get answers. I know a lot of my colleagues showed up at USAID. Schumer showed up at Treasury and elsewhere. We need to do that. We need to show that kind of fight because it does send signals to the rest of the people about what it is that we can and should be doing. The level of concern. I think people were asking me, they're like, "How worried should we be at this moment?" I think that that is important.

The second caller really hit at another aspect of it, which is, "We need to have more tools at our disposal right now." Right now, we do not control gavel in Congress. I think back on this, in the first Trump administration, I was just regular citizen for the first two years, and I decided to step up and run for Congress in a congressional district that Trump won. I felt like the most important thing for our country then was to flip the House of Representatives, get back at gavel, be able to have and restore a sense of checks and balances. That is still something we need to do as well. We have so many Republicans in the House of Representatives that represent districts that are Democratic or Democratic leaning or at least toss-up.

The Republicans only have a two-- I think it was a two person majority right now. That is well narrower than what we faced in 2018. Yes, we should be moving in that direction, but that doesn't mean that's all we do because there is a fight right now, here and now. While Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are pushing forward with a strategy to be able to take back the House and the Senate, while we're moving forward on this effort to really shine a light on these Medicaid and healthcare cuts that I believe are really going to wake up the American public when it comes to the dangers, we also have to make sure we're fighting each and every day and showing the corruption that's out there, shining a light on it. I very much draw from both of those callers.

Brian Lehrer: To the caller who highlighted the conservative media ecosystem, one listener writes in the text, "I would like to see the DNC and all of the plush political action committees bombard the airwaves with commercials that inform Americans of what is going on. In order to work, it would have to saturate places that are Fox News bastions and Sinclair News bastions. In other words, places that are not likely to get the truth about what is going on, educate the right with our money." Says that one listener in a text, but we are getting others.

I'm not going to take call after call saying the same thing, but I will tell you that we're getting a good number of texts and other calls backing up the first caller, Ethan from Jersey City, who say explicitly commit acts of nonviolent disobedience if you don't have the votes to show people how serious you think the situation is and to give people who are concerned a model for resistance. It doesn't mostly have to come in spite of party leaders. What would you say to that group of listeners?

Senator Kim: I'd say definitely on my standpoint, as I said, showing up at USAID, speaking on the Senate floor, we are trying to control the Senate floor, not letting any of these nominees go through unless we're able to use the maximum amount of time showcasing that I think what we're seeing in town halls around the country is critical, showing that we need to have that citizen voice rise up like we saw in 2017 and 2018, that was really able to mobilize a movement that was able to get the attention of the American people, really shine a light on that. I very much come from that approach. I got my start in politics being a ComEd community organizer working for a nonprofit on homelessness issues.

There's a lot there that we learn from that. I say that coming from a state where frankly, the Democrats have not kept up with the voter registration in New Jersey at the level that we need to. We're seeing Republicans making gains when it comes to that. There's so much more that we can and need to be doing because people are frustrated with the status quo in America. Not just what's happened over the last 30 days, but just over the last number of years. We have to show that we're moving in a different direction. I was really proud last year we were able to lead a reform movement in New Jersey to try to fix a broken politics, show that we're standing up against corruption.

I believe that a reform agenda, an anti corruption message, it's powerful not just in New Jersey, but across this country at a time when you see the richest man in the world who gets billions of dollars in contracts from the US government, that has a security clearance that is also running the largest super PAC in American politics history and has access to data, has access to decision making about the very Defense Department that pays him billions of dollars to his company. These conflicts of interest have to be exposed. We're going to continue to push that from-- I'm going to use every tool I have at my disposal to mobilize in that way.

I hope the broader public I hope they are making the calls, showing up at town halls, and also really putting pressure on these Republicans in these tough districts that are going to have to take these votes of whether or not they vote to be complicit with this and allow for these massive cuts to Medicaid that will hurt so many people. I think that really needs to be the defining line of this fight as we gear up for it.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with New Jersey Senator Andy Kim. We're going to ask him about the Munich Security Conference where he was last week with all that drama and his take on the German elections and USAID and the news coming out of there, including the way that it's affecting not just employees of USAID from this country, but the millions of people around the world who depend on it in literally a life and death way after Senator Kim's many years of service in USAID. More of your calls and texts, too. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Happy again to say that New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, who just started this year, moved up after a few terms in the House. Democratic senator from New Jersey is going to be joining us once a month for a Call Your Senator segment, like Senator Gillibrand does from New York. We have New York and New Jersey Public Radio with New York and New Jersey Call Your Senator segments monthly now that Senator Kim has started to do this. You attended the Munich Security Conference where Vice President Vance made news by backing more power for the far right in Germany, part of the shift of the US alliance to Putin rather than the European democracies as they are. What happened in Munich, as you see it?

Senator Kim: I would say I was embarrassed to be in the room when Vice President Vance gave his speech. I am somebody that truly believes that America is stronger with our allies and partners. To see that level of disrespect and that level of attack, it's not only something that's hurting our coalition, it makes the United States weaker and it just fundamentally is going to make us less secure. I hate to see this growing isolationism bubbling up in our nation. I still think we can stop it. I hope the American people understand that when Trump says America first and he brings that into our foreign policy, it basically says America alone. That is not a place of strength for our nation. I could see it.

I talked to European leaders. Some of them said their takeaway from Vance's speech was, "Europe, you're on your own." When I think about the fact that the NATO alliance, the only time they ever came for collective defense was in the defense of the United States after 9/11, which I know a lot of these listeners in the New York, New Jersey area, we've remembered that and our allies came to our defense. I worked as a civilian embedded with the military out in Afghanistan. I worked on a NATO military base. I saw the alliance in action, trying to help protect Americans back home. For that to just be dismissed and to allow for this rising extremism, not just in America, but for Vance to try to encourage that in Germany and elsewhere around the world, it really does show the dire situation that we're in.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you brought that up about 9/11 because a lot of people don't realize that for all the debate about this Article 5 in the NATO Charter that requires all the NATO nations to literally come to the military defense of other NATO nations that are attacked, the only time it's actually been invoked is for other countries to help the United States go to war after 9/11. The German elections were yesterday and the far right AfD party had its best showing ever at 20%. In another way, the center held and they won't be part of the likely governing coalition. How do you see yesterday's German election results?

Senator Kim: I think it unfortunately reinforces the concerns that we were just talking about. Even with the center government coming into place, the likely next chancellor has said before that he expects America to be on its own and cannot rely upon the United States. Again, that's going to hurt America. That's going to hurt our ability to drive innovation, to build technologies, to be able to get our businesses, products out into different markets. That's ultimately going to be something that just continues to raise prices on the American people while making us less secure.

It was tough, but I felt it was important for me and others to show up and talk to these allies and let them know that there's still many of us in America fighting for a different direction. Frankly, a lot of my Republican colleagues that I talked to were very concerned about some of these actions in foreign policy that the Trump administration has taken. I'm pressing them to be more public and vocal and to stand up against it.

I was in the room with President Zelenskyy during a meeting with him where he outlined just the level of action that the Trump administration has been taking to really stand in the way of Ukraine being able to have negotiations, to be able to have leverage and just doing everything that the Trump administration can do. It seems like to just put all the advantage on the Russian side.

That's just something that, again, I hope Americans across the political spectrum can stand up against. We should be firm against our adversaries. Russia has in the past and continues to try to thwart American leadership, go after our own interests. They funded so many actions that have hurt and killed Americans abroad in different wars and conflicts. We need to stand against them.

Brian Lehrer: Real quick, before we go to the next caller, what's your own take, with all your experience in foreign policy and abroad, on why Trump wants to ally so much with Putin rather than the Western European democracies? Why?

Senator Kim: We've seen Trump admires these strong men figures. He's in some ways jealous of the level of authoritarian power that they are able to exert, whether that's Putin or Xi or Kim Jong Un in North Korea. He doesn't believe that democracy should be this type of check and balance, and to have the kind of deliberative process that we have. He admires that kind of strength and wants to shape himself in that image. I just find that to be really disgusting, I'll be honest.

Brian Lehrer: Jack in Kearny , you're on WNYC with Senator Andy Kim. Hi, Jack.

Jack: Thank you, Brian, and congratulations Senator. My question is the JPAS system and our security clearances, does the DOGE kids and Elon Musk have access to that? Are they going to download this stuff? He has servers in Shanghai, China. Also, he has citizenship in four other countries, along with JD Vance's Dutch uncle, Peter Thiel, he's got citizenship in three other countries. What are we going to do with this information? I'm a little concerned. I had a TS clearance over there and TS/SCI permission only on missions. Also, do they have access to BFT system?

Brian Lehrer: I don't know what the BFT system is. Maybe Senator, you can say, but you hear the overarching question there.

Senator Kim: I think that this is certainly a concern for me, but for many others. Again, I hope what I'm trying to say, I hope people see I'm not trying to talk about this just from a partisan political angle. Many, many Republicans, conservatives have for a long time railed about privacy issues, about the government accessing data and information about them, their families, their businesses. Here we have a situation where, again, we have somebody who we don't know, don't have transparency over who all is working within here, whether or not they have the proper security clearances. We've seen people fired and dismissed because they stood up to this type of intrusion upon their work.

I think we see just a tremendous amount of access to data, very sensitive data that involves our own, whether it's tax data, personal data, and we don't know what it's being used for. We're worried about it being used for large language model data consumption by Musk or others. The courts are trying to put a pause on this and saying that they need to delete the data that they've downloaded so far. How do we know that that's been done? I hope again that people are putting that pressure upon the Republican majority, the leaders in Congress that have the gavel that are supposed to do the oversight in that capacity.

Yes, I'll certainly press as hard as I can through the tools that I have at our disposable. There needs to be that kind of pressure to actually wake up the legislative branch and say, "You have a job to do here. There needs to be a check and balance. We cannot have just Republican majorities in Congress completely subservient to this administration's blatantly lawless actions."

Brian Lehrer: USAID, where you spent much of your career, a judge Friday, a lot of people missed this, it happened late, allowed Trump to go about dismantling it. Yesterday they announced that they will lay off thousands and put most everyone else on administrative leave except for what they call mission critical functions or specially designated programs. What do you think that means? Continues to exist or is being lost?

Senator Kim: As you mentioned, I got my start at USAID. I spent the bulk of my career at State Department, but just writ large, what we see there is, first of all, you see an executive branch, you see a president overstepping by far and intentionally doing so, overstepping the law in terms of what he's allowed to do. USAID is codified by the US Congress. It's codified by law, and the president cannot unilaterally dismantle it as we've seen.

Two is that we know that these actions are going to make America weaker. We've already seen China make announcements saying that they're going to start to pick up some of the programs that we're cutting off in these countries around the world. At a time when I hear so many people across the political spectrum raising concerns about competition with China, we're just handing it over to them. We're doing their job for them and just making it easier.

Brian Lehrer: I want to read a stretch and we have about two and a half minutes left in the segment. I want to read a stretch from a George Packer article in The Atlantic about USAID and get your reactions as a last thing. He wrote, "A grant for hundreds of ethnic minority students from Myanmar to attend universities throughout Southeast Asia became a propaganda tool in the hands of the wrecking crew-" meaning Trump and Musk, "-because it went under the name Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship Program, as if the money were going to a woke bureaucracy, not to Rohingya refugees from the military regime's genocide. The orthodoxy of a previous administration required the terminology. The orthodoxy of the new one has ended the student's education and forced them to return to the country that oppressed them."

One more line here. One more example. "One of Trump's executive orders is called Defending Women Against Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. Meanwhile, the administration suspended the online education of nearly 1,000 women in Afghanistan who had been studying undetected by the Taliban, with funding from the State Department." Your reaction?

Senator Kim: What I'll say is that I understand people's concerns about level of government spending. I think if you go to your average person, you say, "Hey, should we be cutting government spending?" I think most people say yes. When you actually explain what is happening, what I'll say is we need precision in our discussion and in our efforts about how to make government more effective, more efficient. What you're seeing here is absolutely damaging. It is the wrong way to go about this. Basically, just saying control F will find any reference to the word diversity and we'll cut these programs.

When we see attacks upon probationary employees, that's not just for new employees. That's for our top talented employees who've been promoted and they are probationary in their new job. We're just cutting wide brush. Again, I hope that people see this. This is not about effectiveness or efficiency. It's about loyalty. It's about a fundamental demonization of public servants at a time when I believe that public service in a nonpartisan way is actually what we need to anchor ourselves going forward. We are seeing way too much creep of partisanship in every aspect of our lives, and we need to have a civil service.

We need to have people who are dedicated to the Constitution that understand that is their primary job and to try to keep our services going to the American people instead of just turning it into another political tool of a president in a growing partisan time. That, again, are the types of actions of a monarch, of an authoritarian leader. We cannot have America drift in that direction towards tyranny and authoritarianism. We need to reassert. I hope that's what they take away from, is just why it's so important that we stand up for public service right now.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Andy Kim. Thanks again for signing up for a monthly Call Your Senator segment here. Talk to you in March.

Senator Kim: Thanks so much.

 

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