Why does Trump want government workers to quit?

Americast

BBC

Politics, Government, News

4.2 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Trump's plans to reshape the federal government have gathered pace after almost all federal employees received an email on Tuesday offering the option to resign and receive pay for eight months. How many workers will take up the offer and what happens to those that don't?

And, Karoline Leavitt has made history as the youngest White House press secretary at the age of 27. Sarah was at her first briefing in which she announced changes to how the briefing room will operate and sparred with reporters on a number of issues.

HOSTS: * Sarah Smith, North America Editor * Marianna Spring, Social Media Investigations Correspondent * Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent

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This episode was made by George Dabby with Catherine Fusillo and Claire Betzer. The technical producer was Hannah Montgomery. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, AmeriCasters. There are more of you now with us than ever before, and we'd like to try to keep it that way.
0:06.6	So, do subscribe and tell people if you're enjoying what you're hearing. Now, on with the episode.
0:13.6	BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.
0:17.2	Anthony, we missed you on the podcast on Monday, but I know you have been very busy
0:21.4	because I got all the pool email updates from your travels with Donald Trump on Air Force One.
0:27.4	And you actually got to speak to him, didn't you?
0:29.8	Speak to him multiple times.
0:31.9	In fact, we were getting tired of speaking to him.
0:34.0	He was showing up so much on the tarmac at airports in roundtable forums. And
0:38.8	twice he came back to visit us in the press cabin of Air Force One. So we got our fill of Donald Trump.
0:45.3	And you got to ask him about some things like his relationship with Keir Starrmer, which he said
0:49.8	very warm things about. But how did you end up talking about the color scheme on Air Force One?
0:55.1	You know, part of our goal was to start with a little bit of chit-chat. I asked him if he was
0:59.8	going to play golf on Sunday. He said no. He ended up playing golf, let's be honest. But one of the other
1:05.1	reporters asked him if he was planning on changing the colors on Air Force One. That was something he did in his first term. He ordered in his first term and Joe Biden reverse.
1:12.9	And he said, yes, he wanted a much more strong blue
1:16.0	than the powder blue that's on the plane right now.
1:18.4	Who?
1:18.9	Do you want to change the colors?
1:20.2	The exterior.
1:20.6	Oh, yeah, sure.
1:21.7	We have much more appropriate plane rather than the baby blue.
	...

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