This is Sirens, a new series brought to you by the ladies ofchell, where we dissect the institutions of American power.

Join us as we sound the alarm on technology, governance, and national security issues, and maybe lure some men to their debts.

I'm Lauren DeYoungshelman.

I'm Erin Simpson.

And I'm Roda Aingar Plum.

And we are back with a mini episode. We talked in our last

main episode about Schedule G, which is a new form of political appointee introduced by the Trump

administration that we are not entirely sure what the purpose is.

So we actually wanted to take a step back and talk to you about our thoughts on, in general,

what are political appointees?

Why do we have them?

And what do we think in particular makes a good political appointee?

Because we've had, let us just say, a range of experiences.

I'll start just with a really quick backdrop on what does this look like in the context of the U.S. system versus other democracies and how is

there some variation in it? We actually, in the United States, have a pretty large number of

leadership positions filled by political

appointees versus our peers in, say, the United Kingdom or France. Most of the Westminster style

or parliamentary style democracies typically have a small number, like an agency had or a ministry,

some sub-ministery heads, but not nearly

the volume that the United States does. I had a research assistant who did a comparison one time,

and the primary comparison that he could find in terms of numbers was Iran, which I don't know,

not really appear that I'm looking for. In terms of types, we have those who have to go through the

...