Jay Weber Show transcript 2-24-25
This is a topic that I’d like to take some calls on-because the whining and moaning from the federal employee unions-and some federal employees-is getting ridiculous.
They’re popping up on 60 minutes, talking about how unfairly they are being treated, and so far-nothing that I have seen even comes close to unfair treatment.
But this latest thing-
This order from Elon Musk to ‘respond to this email and tell me what you accomplished last week’....is being viewed as real ‘bad boss’ stuff. One dem senator called this a ‘hateful boss’ move.
Does this go too far: Saturday- doge and the Trump admin sent out emails to all federal employees and said- failure to respond by Monday night will be viewed as you resigning your job. Quote:
The employees and union leaders who ran to the press called this insulting, and disgusting, and disdainful: this was Musk and Trump showing disdain for the employees they now lord over, etc.
Is it?
And, of course all of this was simply parroted out-and echoed out-but the news media. I didn’t see a single story ‘frame this’ in terms of what it was intended to be-according to Elon Musk.
Again-I’ll rap Musk’s knuckles -and Trump’s a little-for not being clearer on ‘why’ you are doing what you are doing-as you do it.
It’s such a rookie mistake that it seems intentional by both men: they want to get a big, angry splash in the media- but in doing so-they are allowing all sorts of misinformation to be spread.
Folks-hours later-Elon Musk described this for what it is: a ‘proof of life’ email, as much as anything.
Musk said on X the intent here is to see if anyone is even behind some of these email addresses-and if they are- are some of them frauds, illegally collecting a govt paycheck and benefits...because...according to musk...the doge auditors think some of that is occurring, here.
And none of us would be surprised, given the massive bureaucracy that our 3-million employee federal govt has become.
Should federal workers feel insulted by getting this email? Having their bosses actually ask for proof of productivity?
This is another instance in which nearly everyone in the private sector is going to view federal workers as whining about nothing: every single one of us working in the private sector need to provide ‘proof of productivity’ to our bosses-and nearly every day- or we are fired.
It's not normally in the form of an email saying: describe what you did for the company last week- but it’s in all sorts of forms: did you meet your sales quotas? Was a show on the air during your time slot? Did you get good ratings? Did you complete that special project i have you working on? Did you get that stretch of road laid? Etc.
Every single person in the private sector has to show ‘proof of productivity’ nearly every day.
And it’s pathetic that ‘working for the federal government’ has apparently become such a vague job title – and the bar for productivity has been set so low- that some workers get offended if you dare to ‘ask’ what they do.
I absolutely back musk and doge sending out this email. He should have just made it clear from moment one-
And made it clear right in the email: this is why we are doing this. And if no one responds from this email address by Monday night-we will assume you no longer work for the federal government.
That request is- perfectly reasonable- knowing what this doge effort is all about.
Several agency leaders have objected and instructed their employees not to do it-including Trump’s new FBI director, Kash Patel
There’s always the push back related to ‘on whose authority are we doing this’?
And- ‘Elon Musk can’t just fire people without Trump’s approval...and so...on what authority can he threaten my job’..etc.
That, too, is mostly nonsense: your ultimate boss-in this case, the president of the United States- is asking you to fill out a quickly survey. Just do it, and stop whining.
Really. I’m so tired of this corporate culture in which the employees feel like they need to be ‘empowered’ to help make company decisions or double-check their manager’s or boss’s orders.
Quit and go work somewhere else if you don’t like it.
Honestly.
As Mollie Hemmingway put it yesterday:
Yes. Greg or I could do this in two minutes. And our company is so large that, occasionally, it-will- ask. If iHeart -or any other large company needs to make cuts- mid-level bosses will sometimes get the request: send us a blurb on every employee under you and what they do for the company. What tasks are they handling for you?
Every major company probably does some form of this-before they downsize. Govt workers should be immune?
No.
In fact-the hair-on-fire push back on all of this stuff is only further harming the democrats and their ‘brand’. And we are seeing it in the new polling.
Mark Penn is a Clinton-era pollster. This man is a democrat-slash-liberal. Mark Penn. We’ve talked about him for years as a left-wing pundit.
He was on Laura Ingraham's show on Friday saying: i don’t understand what the democrat strategy is, here.
Penn asks the right question: what has the lawmakers and strategists who are atop the democrat party from reflexively fighting every Trump and Musk move-
And blindly?
Without even considering whether their push back is smart?
Well, i have the answer. The answer to ‘why’ the democrats are reacting so poorly, and aggressively, and nastily to the doge govt efficiency effort is that -all they see- is their 40 year effort to grow western style bureaucracies into more socialistic, totalitarian entities- crumbling.
Julian Epstein is a former chief lawyer for the senate judiciary committee. And he was -a democratic- chief counsel. So, here’s another long-time dc insider from the left side of the aisle.
But he explains this perfectly, in a Fox column over the weekend:
Again-Epstein's a democrat, and so he ends with a suggestion that today’s democrats ‘can’ or ‘will’ change here. They won’t.
But I think his explanation was dead-on: the left sees at least 40 years of ‘building big, bloated government to their liking’...and to their great advantage....
And trump and musk are threatening it all now. Not only looking to tear it down, but looking in every corner.
Doge seems to be finding all sorts of ‘built in’ and ‘never ending’ abuses and frauds that have been doing on-related to the abuse of taxpayer money.
And virtually all of them seem to trace back to leftists and democrats being the ones who set up the scams and set the perpetual abuse of power in motion.
And so, of course they are going to squeal and pitch fits when it’s being dismantled and taken away from them.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here> Callers react to the mandate for federal workers to justify their jobs.