Trump's Latest Efforts To Reduce The Federal Workforce
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.5 • 24.9K Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, government restructuring reporter Stephen Fowler, and education correspondent Cory Turner.
The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:19.8 | Chicago and I'm standing in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, with a group of |
| 0:25.0 | birding friends, and I have just seen my 4,000 species of birds, a yellow-naped parrot. |
| 0:31.3 | This was recorded at... |
| 0:33.5 | 1.20 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, March 13th of 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, |
| 0:41.5 | but I'll still be birding. On with the show. That's some great radio ambient sound. Oh my goodness. I just |
| 0:51.4 | want to be there with her. Hey there. It's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. |
| 0:57.1 | And I'm Stephen Fowler. I cover government restructuring. |
| 1:00.0 | And we have got a special guest with us today. Our colleague, Corey Turner, he covers education for NPR. |
| 1:06.0 | Corey, thanks so much for joining us on the show. |
| 1:07.8 | Oh, it's my pleasure. So, Corey, I am very glad you're with us because today on the show, we're going to look at the scale and scope of President Trump's efforts to shrink the federal government. |
| 1:17.2 | It is no secret that the president wants to slash the federal workforce. In fact, he campaigned on draining the swamp and cutting the federal budget. |
| 1:24.6 | But today, government agencies face a new deadline to submit plans for |
| 1:30.5 | mass layoffs. And Stephen, that's where I want to start with you. What are the agencies supposed to |
| 1:36.0 | spell out today? And how is it different than what we have already seen Trump do thus far? |
| 1:41.1 | So 30 days ago, Asma, President Trump ordered federal agencies to do a few things, |
| 1:46.9 | identify essential jobs and essential functions that the law requires them to do, and find ways |
| 1:53.3 | to cut just about everything else. So today's deadline is for agencies to submit to the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget, phase one of something called the agency RIF and Reorganization Plan, RIF standing for reduction in force. |
| 2:11.7 | This is different than what we've seen so far from agencies firing probationary workers and with what we have seen with federal courts and |
| 2:19.1 | other saying no, no, no, reinstate them. In fact, a district judge in California just a short time ago |
... |
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