'If You Can Keep It': Weakening Whistleblower Protections
1A
NPR
4.3 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 28 July 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
That's where whistleblowers come in. But in 2025, the Trump administration is cracking down on these brave folks and the journalists telling their stories.
In this installment of our politics series, "If You Can Keep It," we discuss weakening whistleblower protections under President Trump and what this means for those who rely on the information they share.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for NPR and the following message come from the estate of Joan B. Kroc, whose bequest serves as an enduring investment in the future of public radio and seeks to help NPR produce programming that meets the highest standards of public service in journalism and cultural expression. You're listening to the 1A podcast. I'm Jen White. And I'm Todd Zwillick. |
| 0:29.0 | How does the public know what's happening in the federal government, especially when it's |
| 0:33.4 | information the government doesn't want to get out? That's where whistleblowers come in. They play a vital |
| 0:39.2 | role in our democracy. Last week, Erez Ravani, a former Justice Department official who was |
| 0:44.3 | fired in April after filing a whistleblower complaint with the agency spoke out. The Trump administration |
| 0:52.5 | has put civil servants in this impossible position of fealty to the president and the agenda or fealty to uphold the Constitution and to uphold the rule of law. |
| 1:02.3 | And time and time again during those three weeks, I was put to the question, which side am I going to be on? |
| 1:08.2 | And ultimately, I mean, I didn't sign up until Idaho court. |
| 1:11.5 | And that's the position I was put in. And that's the position others are being put in. |
| 1:14.4 | And that's why I've come forward. |
| 1:17.3 | That was from the New York Times podcast, The Daily. Ruvani has said that Emil Bove, a Justice Department |
| 1:23.4 | official and Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, essentially order Justice Department officials |
| 1:30.6 | or suggested that they should violate court orders. |
| 1:33.0 | Now, you heard about Ravani here on the show last week when we covered Bovay's nomination to the |
| 1:37.9 | Third Circuit Court of Appeals that is currently in front of the Senate. |
| 1:41.3 | But the Trump administration is cracking down on whistleblowers |
| 1:44.9 | like Ruvaney and the journalists who are telling their stories. So for today's installment of our |
| 1:49.9 | politics series, if you can keep it, we discuss weakening whistleblower protections under President |
| 1:54.8 | Trump and what this means for the public who relies on the information they share. That and more, |
| 2:00.1 | right after this. Stay with us. |
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