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Thanks for joining us. We begin tonight with breaking news. The first legal pushback to President Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to seize control of the federal government's checkbook. Late today, three union and advocacy groups sued the Treasury Department and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over the decision giving Musk and his staffers access to the federal payment system.
That's the up until now, nonpartisan arm of the Treasury that writes and sends out trillions of dollars a year that the federal government spends on everything from mine's safety to Medicare. I just want to be clear about what's going on here. The system that makes sure that your granddad gets his social security check, the system that makes sure that your mom's doctor gets Medicare payment to cover her medical appointment, and the system that makes sure that you get the tax refund that your owed has been taken over by Elon Musk. Well, to the extent that it's a takeover, and we'll talk about that with our guests tonight, one thing is clear, it's happening with the new Treasury Secretary's permission on the President's orders.
Mr. President, why is it important for Elon Musk to have access to the payment systems at Treasury? Well, he's got access only to letting people go that he thinks they're no good if we agree with him, and it's only if we agree with him. He's a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs, and we put him in charge of seeing what he can do with certain groups and certain numbers.
Well, the question is which groups and what numbers, and how is it that money authorized and appropriated by Congress, and written into legislation can be shut off item by item by the President, or even one of his unelected employees, and who knows who else is working for Elon Musk. Over the years, federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have rejected attempts by presidents to not spend the money that Congress has provided. And in 1974, Congress passed a law drastically limiting the circumstances under which the President can do so. And what this President seems to be doing is preparing to stop the spending by not actually writing the checks, which is certainly easier than what presidents and both parties have traditionally tried to do, which is proposing budget cutting legislation, selling it to the public, and getting Congress to agree.
Now, doing that is obviously hard. It takes time because people often like the idea of cuts more than they actually like the specifics. This process, though, if that's the aim, cuts the public and their elected representative right out of the loop. It puts the onus on anyone who might be affected, which could number the millions, to try and stop it after the fact, which seems to be what's going on with the US Agency for International Development, and the US Aid over the weekend Elon Musk posted this about it, quoting now, US Aid is a criminal organization.
Time for it to die. Now, to be clear, US Aid is or was the federal organization responsible for delivering billions of dollars in humanitarian aid all over the world. It was set up during the Kennedy administration, authorized and funded by Congress. Musk today also had this to say about it, quoting again, US Aid is was a radical left political scyop.
It has to be aligned with American foreign policy. The US Aid has a history of ignoring that and deciding that there is somehow a global charity separate from the national entities of taxpayer dollars. Well, that's Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was named the Agencies Actee Administrator, and said some of its functions would be absorbed by the State Department. He gave us a reason in subordination.
It's a congressionally created and funded agency making it legally problematic for a president who unilaterally dismantled, according to the Supreme Court analyst Stephen Aveladic. According to President Trump, he doesn't need Congress at all. Not when it comes to fraud. If there's fraud, these people are lunatics.
Well, he's not presented any evidence of fraud or lunacy for that matter. There is ample evidence, though, that this is how the president plans to operate, namely by taking unilateral action and forcing his opponents to try to stop it. Now, since we left you Friday night, the president launched a purge of FBI's top leadership, and given the bureau until tomorrow to provide the Justice Department information about all current and former bureau employees who at any time worked on January 6th investigations, which was their task assignment at the time. They were doing their jobs.
We also learned late today that dozens of employees at the Education Department have been put on paid administrative leave, two sources tell CNN that it's part of the administration's effort to rid the federal workforce of people involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion. The irony that their union president tell CNN that the employees placed on paid leave had attended a two-day diversity training seminar in 2019 during the first Trump administration. So will that or the FBI firings the U.S.A. shutdown or any of the unilateral moves by the president and his team actually passed legal muster?
One thing seems clear, this administration is determined to act first and defend it if they need to later. More on all this now starting with CNN's Caitlin Collins. So what is known about the people working with Musk on all this, and who are these people that now have access to all this proprietary financial information? We don't totally have a full picture of that, Anderson.
We know there's a lot of young Silicon Valley engineers and people from that world of Elon Musk that are here helping him carry out Doge, that are working on this project with him. It seemed to be about 12 people initially two weeks ago when they first took office, and Doge was getting under way and kind of getting a look at all these agencies. It's not totally clear to us if that picture has grown and what that looks like, because we did learn today that Elon Musk has classified as what's known as a special government employee in SGE. Those we've seen in the Biden administration, Trump administration, Round One, obviously he's unique in this role because he's someone who has massive federal contracts.
He already had a security clearance. I'm told it's a top secret security clearance, Biden official, that is kind of leading him in this situation. But the question that we had today for the White House and one we haven't gotten clarity on yet, a ton of clarity, is whether or not those who are working with him and the other people and his allies who were also working to get access to that treasury payment system this weekend, whether or not they have security clearances or what exactly that looks like. We don't have a full list of those names.
And that system for people who don't know, it disperses all the trillions of dollars that the federal government pays out. And typically for that reason, given how sensitive the information is and how critical it is, it's a pretty close hold situation. And so this top treasury employee who had been at the treasury department for years and was there in the Trump administration, Round One, actually was pushed aside as a result of this. He retired early on Friday because he was blocking the access to that.
We saw that also play out at USAID this weekend where officials went in and were demanding access to the systems there. And initially were people resisted giving it to them because it wasn't totally clear who they were. And then in the end they ended up gaining access to that. And so that is something here that's happening where there isn't total oversight of who is doing what.
But certainly what is clear is Elon Musk seems to have a pretty big purview here in terms of which agencies he's getting access to and what kind of systems as well, not just him but also those who are working with him. And it seems like this White House strategy is kind of a continuation of what they would refer to as the shock and awe approach. Yeah, I think so. I think Trump agrees with a lot of what Elon Musk is doing.
You heard him defending the USAID stuff. Oh, no, that is a break from what he did in his first term in office. He was critical of the agency. But in his 2020 budget, he actually asked for more money for them because it was something that Ivanka Trump worked very closely on.
And so to see this kind of 180 here in terms of how it's being essentially dismantled in this purview and Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asking for reviews of the spending gear, it's not even totally clear what else spending they're going to be reviewing because so much of it has been frozen. And so yes, Trump is certainly on board with it. I did think it was notable though in the oval today when we were hearing Trump being asked about what Elon Musk has access to, what his purview is, when it comes to the Treasury payment system. It's Trump was saying that he can do what's appropriate and that they agree on.
But he did say if there was a conflict, we will stop that and essentially arguing that. Because as an SGE, Elon Musk is subject to the statute where there are conflict of interest rules here that if you benefit financially from something you're not supposed to be working on that. The question there is who has oversight of Elon Musk? That is not clear either.
Yeah, Caitlin Collins, thanks very much. We'll see you at the top of the hour for the source. Join us right now is the Illinois Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I'm wondering what your reaction is first of just to the scope, the pace of changes that Trump and Elon Musk are making the federal government.
Well, they're trying to overwhelm us in order to slide through a lot of the really toxic programs that they're trying for. And the fact of the matter is, Elon Musk is in the US Treasury. That's a data amount of data that is staggering to the American people. And the fact of the matter is they're in the system.
Elon Musk is in, which means that even if we get him, I'll be able to put backdoors into all of these programs. And as far as USAID is concerned and State Department, this is about on national security. These programs are funded in order to ensure America's national security. And it's quite terrifying to me that you've got somebody like Elon Musk who's not been elected by the American people, hasn't been vetted by the United States Senate, is in there having access to all of these financial instruments.
You voted to confirm Marco Rubio, Secretary of State. He's now, I guess, acting USA administrator. What do you think that's going to look like under his leadership? And what does he, why do you think USAID matters?
Well, let me show answer that second question first. I'm going to do it by quoting Ronald Reagan. And he said, and I quote, the ultimate importance of the United States of our security and development assistance programs cannot be exaggerated. That's Ronald Reagan who talked about peace through security was about the military, but also about the aid programs are critically important to America's national security.
I am deeply, deeply disappointed in Marco Rubio. We met with him prior to the vote and asked him about the freeze that would come to USAID programs. And he reassured the members of the committee that, you know, that it would be turned back on and that babies would not die. Medicine would not be prevented from being distributed.
But that's exactly what's happening right now. We have a humanitarian crisis on our hands as a result of this funding cut. Why do you think Elon Musk has become so fixated on USA saying it's a left wing SIAF that it's a criminal organization? I think this is just a money grab.
This is all about them trying to find ways to fund their billionaire tax cuts. And this is one way that they can do it. This is really a power play. I can't get in.
I don't understand the head of Elon Musk. I don't want to try to get into his head. I mean, this is a guy who made two how Hitler salutes recently. And it's terrifying to me that the president of the United States has given this guy access to your data, my data, all Americans financial data.
And, you know, this is not someone that I think should be trusted with access to the US Treasury data files or to the State Department. As you know, the president suggested that DEI diversity, I could include in May a later role in last week's tragic air crash in Washington. I guess he was talking about controllers. I'm not sure exactly whom countless government websites have been taking down are scrubbed of information and language and demonstrations to clear taboo.
I mean, the Democrats have any recourse. It doesn't seem like there's obviously lack of leadership in the Democratic Party. Well, I think that we're taking a multi-prong approach. You see our governors and our attorneys generals following the lawsuits.
That's what that's the first step. And I have been in contact with both my attorney general, Mayor Chicago, as well as the governor of Illinois in our efforts to push back from the states. I can file those lawsuits at the United States Senate where I sit. I've already started voting no on all the Trump nominees and we are starting now to make sure that we push back as hard as we can to prevent the Trump agenda from moving forward.
We will be introducing some legislation as well. So this is something we have to come at from all levels. And the other thing that we can do is talk to our constituents, talk to the folks out there and say, Hey, if you're being affected by this, if you start to not get your social security money, if you are, you know, one of these programs that's helping refugees and suddenly the funding is cut off. If your child's Medicaid program gets cut off because the portal is shut down, you need to make sure that you let people know because the only way that we can fight back is through unity in our action.
Yes, the Democratic Party, yes, the Democrats are going to be leading the fight on this, but this is also at all levels of government. We have to push back and we can't just roll over for Donald Trump and his cronies. Senator Duckworth, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Coming up next to the former Trump speechwriter who was fired in 2018 after CNN revealed he spoke at a conference attended by white national S.E.R.E. better known today is better known today as the administration's newest state department spokesman. He got rehired later what thousands of FBI personnel are facing tonight in their uncertain future had simply for taking part in the January 6 investigation. That's it.
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Go to cnnn.com slash watch the subscriber login with your TV provider. I'm going to tell you about one of the Trump administration's new hires. His name is Darren Beatty and his name may be familiar because back in 2018 he was fired from the first Trump administration after CNN revealed he spoke at a conference attended by white nationalists. Beatty has also made a series of very short comments writing in one tweet last year quote, competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.
Darren Beatty. Now he's been appointed to serve as the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, neither Beatty nor the State Department immediately provided comment. State Department did not say whether the administration intends to nominate Beatty for the position beyond the acting role. I think it underscores how different Trump 2.0 in the second term will be than the first.
And what I mean by that is I think that there are many Americans who voted for Trump this time because they wanted what they got the four years he was in office before. But this is already gearing up to be a very different administration and somebody who was considered person and on God and was fired in 2018 when these things came to light is now in an acting undersecretary role, a position that was previously held out by two qualified women in the first Trump term. And of course will be serving under a Cuban American secretary of state despite his comments about white men being in charge. I think it simply shows that a lot of sort of the checks and credentials you would go through the first time around and that there were folks in the administration who would have raised alarm bells about that.
That's just not where we are. It's Trump is going to get who he wants where he wants it. Yeah, I mean, DEI is out but I mean diversity equity, I guess this is inclusion of a white national form or speaker to a white national script. I mean, this is shameless and despicable.
And really, they are saying they only want quality. We've got to go with quality. We've got to go with excellence. We've got to go with excellence.
And then they bring in people out of the trash can. They just go drag out horrible people who you wouldn't hire to run at Bodega and put them in the highest positions. And so it's the gaslighting of Americans attacking black people, attacking brown people saying we're not good enough. Then they go get the worst people ever born and put them in high positions.
And so at some point, I think right now Americans are just shocked. People are saying we're the pro just I think people are literally just shocked and can't believe it. And it's having a hard time processing it. But at some point you piss off enough people, you fire enough people, you pull the rugouts running out of people, you shut down the program.
You start building up a big bank of people who are pissed off and that is going to come. Brad, does it make sense to you that you would rehire this guy if they fired him the first time? Well, I don't know, Mr. Beatty.
I don't really know much about him. Other than a bunch of tweets, none of which I like, the ones that I've seen anyway. I don't think from just reading those that he'll be confirmable for a long-term position. And I think his appointment or at least coming to light is overshadowing what's a pretty big week for Marco Rubio as he makes his first trip to Central America.
And is really having a great deal of success. He had a great success in Panama. Now he's moved on to the triangle countries. And Donald Trump is his tariff threat that everyone freaked out about just 24 hours ago.
Seemingly has brought Mexico and Canada to the table to achieve its foreign policy goals. So I'm fortunate there's this distraction today. What do you think of the big achievement on Canada was here? Well, I think tariffs are useful, especially in the short term to pull people into a longer term.
But now, you're just saying it's a negotiating tactic here? Well, it often is. It often isn't less than negotiations don't succeed. And then it can become a longer term thing.
I think in the case of Canada, it probably is an negotiating tactic. In the case of Mexico, we have to get their attention. We cannot do what we have to do in immigration without full cooperation and effort by the government of Mexico. It is essential that they crack down on the cartels.
And it is essential that Canada crack down the cartels as well as they've tried to move some of their operations there. So I think this is off to a good start. And I think this other news over shadow gets it done. Listen, the shutting down of USA, I mean, whatever, it's not a huge part of the budget.
But in terms of its influence overseas, the good will and engenders among a lot of people, that's been one of the big criticisms of it. There's a lot we still need to learn more about. And I'll say this, conservatives Republicans for a long time have been for cutting waste fraud abuse looking in a federal government. We can streamline and shrink them.
But I'm not sure that that is what this is. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican, put out a statement saying he was unclear on whether PEPFAR was still receiving funds. One of these single most successful humanitarian organizations in America. The less I read your PEPFAR computer programs have been shut down.
And so life saving HIV medication, which was actually even on the shelves in clinics overseas, can't even be destroyed. And so when you have somebody who sits on the help committee in the Senate not knowing basic information, that's very concerning. But more on America's global standing. The reason we have alliances, we have relationships, we have international aid is because we're the global superpower and we want to be countering China.
If we pull out the rug from these allies, we pull back all our international aid, China will step into the void there. So for the successes that Brad points out, which I to some degree agree with, this is playing a very dangerous game that's opening territory for China to come and swoop in. Oh, it's terrible. First of all, I'll hold this advance talking in the video.
We can brag on Marco Rubio. I'll be happy to do it. But I'm going to tell you right now, people are going to die in very large numbers around the world who are expecting United States to live up to our promises to get them medicine, to get them help. And when that happens, people are going to remember that.
There are people right now that have HIV who are alive only because the United States is making sure that. Don Trump says we don't care. You go die. That's the message from the United States government.
It is the wrong message to be sending it. It opens up the door for China. And other people say at least we're a stable government who is not going to leave you on you to die. That's what this is not an abstract conversation for people in the world.
That's not an advance today. Marco Rubio wrote congressional leaders to explain their moves on USAID and why they're moving it to the State Department. No, he's just talking about HIV medication and PEPFAR. Well, hold on just a second.
The goal is to make sure those programs and the people administering them align with US foreign policy goals. We started USAID in 1961 as a way to counter the Soviet Union's influence. Today we need to use it to counter the Belt and Road Initiative as China. But PEPFAR was talking about George W.
Bush and it saved 25 million lives over it since that time. PEPFAR is a great program but there's no reason it shouldn't be run directly out of the State Department. Do you know anything about HIV medication? Because if you stop HIV medication the virus flares back and it mutates.
So if you have millions of people who can't end on HIV medication. I'm not arguing against PEPFAR. You seem to be because you're avoiding asking and answering any questions about it. No, it's not.
Well, if it shut down, do you think that's wise? No, of course it's not wise. I'm not arguing against PEPFAR. I'm arguing that you can administer that out of the State Department.
And we can make sure that all those programs align with our foreign policy goals. That's the objective here. But I think the concern, by the way, is when senior senators can't get basic answers on is PEPFAR still funded. What is getting out to where we've made commitments.
And folding it to say I don't think is a major issue that people have. It's more what is actually where funding we're spending being stopped. Where are we not living at? The whole thing is let's hold everything for 90 days.
Let's reorganize. Who knows how long 90 days it morphs into. With something like PEPFAR, the virus doesn't work that way. It's a smart way and a dumb way to do anything.
I'm all for a wasteful lot of fraud and abuse. But when you just jerk the rug out from under literally millions of people around the world who are sick and dying, that is a dumb way to do it. It's the wrong way to do it. We'll be long enough.
If you want China's Belt and Road Initiative to just conquer Africa, pull the rug out from the tens of millions of people who are relying on us for this help. Hold up. Washington says this stuff all the time. They say don't change anything.
Don't look into anything. The audit of USAID last year faulted the agency for not having any internal controls on the overhead expenses of its partner organizations. The NGOs is giving money to. Used to before 2005, you can only get 80% of your money from the government.
We took that off. We've taken it off every year. It's reasonable to look at this. It's reasonable to look at it.
There are smart ways to do things. I have no problem with making programs better. I have problems with banning sick people. Alright, and Jones, let's far griff and brat Todd.
Thank you. Coming up. More breaking news. Two key deadlines that potentially could lead to thousands of the FBI being forced out over their role in investigating, investigating, doing their jobs, the January 6 riots.
Plus Trump's attempts to push the limits of presidential power and reward allies. That what lessons can history teach us about that. Has that happened before? Pulitzer Prize winning, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin joins me for that.
More now on Breaking News about the FBI purge. We mentioned the top of the broadcast. Thousands of FBI officials are now facing the prospect of mass firing as a Monday deadline. Set by President Trump's administration has now come and gone for officials to complete a questionnaire about their involvement in the investigations surrounding January 6 rioters.
Tomorrow leaders at the FBI are expected to hand over the names of all FBI officials who worked on investigations. This follows the firing Friday of more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the federal investigations into President Trump. Sources also tell CNN that at least six senior FBI leaders promoted by outside FBI director Christopher Ray, who stepped down, have been told to retire, resign, or be fired. Join the FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and seen a chief law enforcement intelligence analyst John Miller.
So John, is this what the FBI workforce expected to happen given what Trump campaigned on or is this exceeding what was... Far exceeding. And far exceeding that anything that has ever happened before. This is completely 100% unprecedented.
So what actually is happening? You've got Ryan Driscoll as the acting director in between director Ray and Cash Patel, if in fact he's confirmed, who is holding the fort basically, who is getting from the deputy attorney general, Emil Bovey, who was Donald Trump's criminal lawyer. We need a list of everybody who worked on the January 6 cases, which I was still in the Joint Terrorism Task Force when those cases were going on. That's like between five and 6,000 agents.
It's basically a third of the FBI agents. And by the way, that's people just doing their jobs. I mean, that could be the case agent who was assigned. They don't get to pick what their cases are.
A supervisor says, you, you and you, you're on this case. It could be the case agent or it could be some agent who served a minor subpoena who is in that file. So when Driscoll said, you know, I'm not going to create a list like that, the answer was, well, here's a questionnaire. Send it out to everybody to fill out.
And the questions are, what's your current title? Who are you? Are you a supervisor? Were you a supervisor at the time?
Where were you assigned at the time? What did you do in the investigation? Was it analytical support? Did you approve electronic communications?
Did you lead an operation or make an arrest? Were you assigned as a case agent on one of these trials? They're related to Trump. That's all.
All related to the events at or near the Capitol on January 6 to quote the questionnaire. And there's drop-down menus where they have to click things. Now, if you're an FBI agent, actually, you don't have to be an FBI agent to figure out, they're not doing this, to figure out who to set up for awards or medals. This is a targeting device.
And if you ask the, you know, Justice Department people, where is this coming from? They say, well, it's coming from the White House. If you ask the FBI people in the front office where it's coming from, they're saying, it's coming from the White House to the Justice Department to the FBI. So they're under tremendous pressure.
And Anderson, I got to tell you, all weekend long, the FBI was reeling. Agents calling other agents, agents calling former agents, agents talking to colleagues and friends saying, what do I do with this? Do I just quit? Do I wait for this firing squad?
Not much FBI work is getting done because across the United States, there are field offices where people worked on these cases. They're in crisis mode. And these questionnaires are due to be finished today, reviewed at FBI headquarters tomorrow, and then turned over to DOJ, and then presumably to the White House. And you have people like Stephen Miller, senior advisor to President Trump, who are saying, yeah, the FBI was weaponized against the Republican Party and the President and his family.
And this is the right thing to do. Yeah, I mean, this looks like weaponization. I mean, if you want to make that argument. Andrew, the head of the FBI's New York field office told his team that he's prepared to dig in to defend them, saying, today we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own as good people are being walked out of the FBI and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law in the FBI.
Policy and that's the end of the quote. Have you ever seen this much uncertainty apprehension inside the bureau? No, no, nothing like this. This is totally unprecedented.
FBI rank and file agents and analysts who make up the vast majority of the field offices who do the work in investigating these cases of executing search warrants, executing arrest warrants, doing surveillance, electronics, whatever it might be. Those people are never touched by the political winds that blow through every four years, nor should they be. They, as you said, they don't pick their work. They're assigned to the work that they do.
The work they do is lawful. It's within FBI policies and not doing the work is not really an option for them, right? They come to the FBI, the most of them come intending to stay for the entire day of their careers, 20 years or more, 20 years on the agent side, a little bit more for the support side. And so to be targeted in this way for termination, potentially, or retribution simply for doing their jobs on a major national security case is incomprehensible to them or anybody that knows the organization.
I've talked to more FBI people in the last four days than I did in the prior four years. As John has described it accurately, it is a place in utter disarray right now. People are worried about, how am I going to pay the bills? How am I going to support my family?
If I lose, you know, if you're anywhere in the middle of that career, not close to retirement, if you get fired, you're done. That's the end of your reputation, your ability to get a new job, you lose your pay, you lose your chance of a pension, you lose your health insurance. This is a moment of terror for these people. It is absolutely disgraceful that they are being put through this in the middle of some political gamesmanship or active retribution.
They don't deserve to be treated this way. It's unlawful. And it's disgusting. And John, just for a quick comment, these are people who have years of field knowledge, years of law enforcement backgrounds who are, you know, you're not only just facing destroying their careers, but also where the new people are going to be coming from, what sort of training can match what they have.
Anderson, as you described it, this is a corporate memory of the executives that they walked out last week. It's the experience of the agents and their human sources and what they know. But it's also the threat environment right now, which is it's very unforgiving to a learning curve. You know, and talking to one agent over the weekend, you know, I said, what's the message?
They said, tell them we are pissed. We took an oath to protect the American people. And now we're being targeted for it. But no better group of people to be around when times get hard because we don't give up.
So some of them are thinking of quitting. Some of them are digging in for the fight and saying, we didn't do anything wrong. Thank you, Andrew McCabe as well. Up next, more on our breaking news of the President's actions today, this weekend through the eyes of history, Doris Kern's Goodwin joins us next.
And the latest on last week's tragic mid-air collision outside Reagan National Airport between American Airlines, playing in that army, Black Hawk helicopter. I'll talk to the parents of 28-year-old crew chief, 167 who died. A breaking news tonight about Elon Musk's efforts to seize control of the federal government's checkbook, plus the effort to purge authorities associated with the January 6 investigations are in one respect, both stories about a president rewarding those who supported his election. Both are also history-making attempts at redefining presidential power, and joined out by Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian Doris Kern's Goodwin.
She's the author of a number of best-sellers, including leadership in turbulent times. So Doris, has there been another time in American history when the fate of the federal workforce was so up in the air with people at risk of being fired or just doing their jobs or for their perceived partisan loyalties? Well, what's so interesting is to look back at when this system under President Jackson was formed, which was considered the soil system, where before that time we'd had people from Washington and all the presidents up to him putting in people who knew what they were doing presumably. Jackson comes in, he's a populist, he's against the elites, he fears that the bureaucracy that's been forged will be against the rules and the decisions he wants to make, so he fires them, and he brings in his own people, his relatives, friends, people who are loyal to the party.
And that was considered the soil system to the victor, belongs the soil, so that certainly has an echo today. So people were given jobs in the government who were loyal to Jackson? Correct, correct. And then what happened, what happened Anderson is that after a period of time, so that's in the 1830s, then you get up to the Civil War, and the war and the Industrial Revolution has made government much more complex, and the fact that you have people in power who are not experts, they're not, they're not based on what they knew, it was rather who they knew, rather than what they knew, and that's when the Civil Service Reform Movement begins, and Mark Twain had a great statement about it, he said, where in the world would you put a Secretary in who doesn't know the alphabet, where in the world would you put a blacksmith in, who doesn't know how to wield a sledgehammer, and that became the Civil Service Reform Movement, based on what had just been established in Britain, a civil service reform where you had to take an exam of merit to come into the civil service because they needed people with expertise, it was a period of time when there was a lot of corruption, it was a period of time when they needed people who knew what they were doing, so finally that system was beginning to get underway, but it took a long, long time because the other system was so entrenched.
It took until President Garfield ran as a reform candidate for civil service, and then he was assassinated six months later by a disappointed job seeker, and that created emotions, the hanging of the assassin was emotion, finally the civil service system, finally gets established in the Pendleton Act in 1883. And Teddy Roosevelt was a civil service commissioner, he's the one who really got, I mean rolled up his sleeves and really kind of brought this into the modern age. Absolutely, because when he got in there, and he was there for six years, this was a huge commitment of his time, people said, why are you doing this? He said because he thought a tenant of democracy was to have people who could be a mechanic son, a farmer's son having the same chance as an exam as the son of a politician or the son of a wealthy businessman, and he got in, the system was so entrenched, he had to really fight, and he was a fighter, there were cartoons about him being a civil service guy, you know riding a bucking bronco, and he's saying stay seated, don't give up, don't let them bounce you out, and he was able to give speeches about the importance of it.
He found the corruption in the system, a lot of people who are already there fighting the civil service reform were taking exams for other people to keep them to get in, they instituted a 3% tax on all the salaries of the civil service workers, so that they had to pay the party coffers with that, he had to invest in the court. So it was so much political cronyism that political parties would get 3% cut of civil service salary for giving them a job? Exactly. Is that incredible?
And what Teddy Roosevelt did and the investigative reporters did, they showed what difference that made, that 3% could make the difference of a winter coat, or a vacation, or putting aside some money for your kids, and that created a human response. To the need for really enforcing the civil rights situation, and by the time Teddy left, that system that we now have was established 130 years ago, where your merit was what would get you the job, and expertise was required, rather than just being the friend of somebody, and loyal to somebody. Wow, and now, I mean, it's so incredible, the cycles of history, you have loyalty, you know, they're asking future possible civil servants or government employees, who won the 2020 election, and if you don't say Donald Trump, it's unlikely you'll get the job. Now, even in 1939, the civil service system was advanced by having the Hatch Act, where you're not allowed to be in politics, you couldn't do anything while you were a civil servant, so that division was really an important one to contain neutrality.
And that's what you need, you need people who are doing the job of government workers, they're for all of us, they're not for one party or the other, they do our veterans affairs, they do our social security, they do our Medicare, they do all sorts of things that matter in our daily lives, national parks, and you want them able to do their job and have commitment. I can't even imagine what the morale is in the government service right now with all this talk of what's going on, and we need them. Yeah, George Scner's good one, so always good to talk to you. Thank you.
A reminder of history and how cycles repeat. Up next, an update on salvage work at the site of last week's deadly plane in Army helicopter collision, and we remember Staff Sergeant Ryan O'Hara, the crew chief aboard the Black Hawk Chopper and his parents share memories of their son. Officials say 55 of 67 people aboard last night's, excuse me, last week's plane and helicopter which collided have been identified. Today, salvage crews started to remove the wreckage of American Airlines Flight 5342 from the Potomac.
Over the weekend, the Army released the name of the third soldier killed aboard the Chopper, 28-year-old Captain Rebecca Lobach, who was co-pilot in the aircraft. In a statement, her family said she had more than 450 hours of flight time, called her a bright star and warrior. Also killed, 39-year-old chief born officer to Andrew Lloyd Eaves, the instructor pilot. He had about 1,000 flight hours.
And 20-year-old Staff Sergeant Ryan O'Hara, who served as crew chief, he was trained to maintain that specific type of helicopter. I spoke with his parents, Gary and Mary O'Hara, on Friday. Gary and Mary, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so sorry that we're talking under these circumstances.
Gary, can you just talk a little bit about Ryan? My understanding is he was such a good crew chief that he was the guy called upon to train other crew chiefs in everything about the Black Hawk. Yeah, that's correct. He had been doing this for 10 years.
He was a natural-born teacher. I loved working with people, loved working in the Black Hawk. So part of his mission is to not only train other crew chiefs, but to work with pilots when they go on to permissions. And when they go on an actual assignment in the field, the crew chief doubles as the door gunner.
So that was his responsibility as well when he was in Afghanistan. Mary, you must have been so concerned about him when he was in Afghanistan as the crew chief as Gary was saying. He was the door gunner on those missions. Yes, absolutely.
I was worried the entire time he was over there, but in the event that something did happen, I was kind of prepared, given where he was. That's something that I would expect to happen over there. But not here in the United States. I never would have thought that this is how it would happen.
You were watching live on CNN this. Did you know that he had been flying that night? Yes. Well, we didn't know.
Not initially. And there were periods where he might not fly for two weeks. We didn't know what his schedule was. But when I saw the accident, they said it was a Black Hawk and they're replaying the incident.
I knew. I was on the phone with Mary immediately. There's multiple aircraft there. It could have been any crew chief could have been on that.
But I just knew. And by 1230 they confirmed that it was his Black Hawk. He felt it. Yeah.
Mary's telling me no, no, no, it's not the case. No. Yeah, he hadn't been flying recently. So I told him there's no way it could be him.
But then his Brian's wife called me and said that yes, he started flying two or three weeks ago. Is there anything else you want people to know about? Gary or Mary? He was just a great guy all the way around.
He was a good son. A very loving father to his little boy. All the things we've done were most proud of what our children have become. They become really wonderful human beings.
And we're very proud of him. We've been proud of him in any vocation. But you know, knowing Ryan, if he had known that this would be the outcome, Anderson, he wouldn't have changed anything. He loved working with these crew.
You know, told us that these guys were state-of-the-art pilots. He loved flying with them. He was trusting them with his life. And he would have done it again.
Well, I have little kids in my own two-year-old and a four-year-old. And I've been reading a lot about child development. And they say that everything is determined in the first three to five years of a child's life. And you talked about what a great adult he was.
That's because you guys did such a good job raising him and providing a safe, loving home for him. And I'm so sorry for your loss in the country's loss. That might explain why he was a mechanic because during those first formative years, he took apart everything in the house. Like switches, posters.
Yeah. When he was two years old. Or was that? As a parent, we didn't discourage it.
Yeah, he didn't even decide. I guess there's so much you can do about it because you needed him to put them back together. Right. He was in school one of the teachers, elementary school, one of the teachers, was throwing out an electric pencil sharpener.
He took it out of the trash and he brought it home and repaired it and brought it to her the next day. It's like he was born to do this. I mean, that's just incredible to me. You know, so many people do stuff that they don't really love.
They don't really like. They're doing it because everybody needs to make a living. But this was a passion. And he was serving his country.
And there's just what an extraordinary life and contribution he made. So thank you. Thank you for talking to us, Gary. I really appreciate it.
Thank you. I know how I was 28 years old. It's it for us. The news continues.
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