Factually! with Adam Conover - Trump and Elon Don't Know Who They're Firing - with Max Stier

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Elon Musk and Donald Trump are actively trying to burn down the federal government. Federal workers are being fired en masse, with no regard for their roles or the devastating impact their removal will have on everyday Americans. As the country’s largest employer, the federal government’s gutting won’t just affect those losing their jobs—it will ripple outward, impacting millions of families and, ultimately, all Americans. Today, Adam is joined by Max Stier, CEO and president of the Partnership for Public Service, to break down who has been affected, the extent of the damage, and what it would take to rebuild the ruins of our federal government.SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I Did a New Thing, 30 Days to Living Free. In the audiobook, Tab shares her own stories and those of others alongside gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonder ECA. That's audible.com slash wonder ECA. Hey there, welcome to Factually, I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show again. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have decided to lay off nearly every federal employee that

they can. They are doing this without regard to how much damage is being caused. In fact, the goal seems to be to cause as much damage as possible because they are not taking into account what those employees do or even how much money it costs to employ them. No, the only criteria they are using seems to be that they are firing the people who are easiest to fire in as large quantities as possible. They are firing first the probationary employees, which is not just people who just got hired by the federal government, but also anyone who was recently promoted.

All of those employees have been told to leave. And the purpose seems to be to simply destroy the federal government in whatever way they can as quickly as possible. And needless to say, this is enormously destructive to nearly everyone in America. You know, I made an entire television show about the federal government. It was called The G-Word. It came out on Netflix in 2022. I'm very proud of the show. But the show was honestly a learning experience for me because I got to travel

around the country meeting different federal employees from widely different sectors of the federal government and it made me aware of the amazing work that they do from USDA inspectors who keep our meat safe to park rangers to hurricane hunters who literally fly through hurricanes to keep us safe from these deadly weather events to the IRS agents who collect taxes so that we can pay for the rest of it. You know, our government, needless to say, is not perfect. It does a lot of bad things and there are a lot of good things that it could do a lot better.

But the federal employees, the people who work for the government, are just fellow Americans who are doing their jobs, just like you. And their jobs are often important. You know, the federal government is the largest single employer in the country. Over two million people are employed by our government. That means that many of you probably have a federal employee in your family. I have one in mine. That means that Trump and Elon could not have picked a class of people to demonize and harm

that cuts so broadly across demographics that is going to affect so many Americans. You know, there has been an effort in this country for decades to demonize federal workers and the federal government. But the fact is, we are the federal government. We are federal workers. Federal workers are all around us. And that that attempt to demonize them

hurts all of us individually. The problem is we have not told that story enough in our society and we do not realize what is about to happen because of this incredibly destructive effort. So on the show this week we are going to tell that story. We are going to talk about what is happening, what it is like for the works affected and the agencies they run and how it is going to harm all of us. To get into all of that on the show today, we have the perfect guest. His name is Max Steyer. I first met him when we worked on the G-Word. He is the founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service,

a nonprofit that works to make government more effective and to highlight the stories of the people that make it run. But before we get to that conversation, I want to remind you that if you want to support this show and all of the under-told stories we bring you every single week, you can do so on Patreon. Head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of this show ad free. We also have a lot of other wonderful community features we'd love to have you as a part of. Patreon.com slash Adam Conover. And of course, if you want to come see my new hour of stand-up comedy on the road, I'm headed across the world on March 22nd. I'll be in London at the Leicester Square Theater on March 26th.

I'll be in Amsterdam at Boom Chicago. And then on April 3rd through 5th, I'll be in Providence, Rhode Island. After that, Vancouver, Eugene, Oregon, Charleston, South Carolina, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Spokane and Tacoma, Washington. Head to AdamConover.net for tickets and tour dates. And now let's get to this interview with Max Steyer. Max, thank you so much for being on the show. Adam, it's a pleasure seeing you again.

It's been too long. It has been too long. We talked quite a bit in the run-up to us making the show The G-Word. You were very helpful there. Well, tell the audience a little bit about what you do and what you see your role as in the country so I Started and run a nonpartisan nonprofit organization called the partnership for public service

Which is focused on better government and stronger democracy so what we do is try to make our federal government work better because we believe that We only have one tool for collective action to address our biggest problems as a society. And the only one that has the imprimatur of the public through elections and taxpayer resources behind it is that federal government. So we do not take positions around, you know, what policy direction the government should go in, but we believe that all Americans should want a government

that works efficiently and effectively on their behalf. Nonprofits, there are 1.5 million of them. We've been pretty much unique in focusing on the health of our public institutions, and my world just got turned upside down. Yeah, so I spoke with you when we were making the G word, because you are very focused on the federal workforce, on, you know, the civil servants, the political appointees,

getting rid of inefficiencies in those systems, making sure that it works better, making sure that the system doesn't get clogged up when a new president comes in. You're very involved in the presidential transitions and making sure those go in a smooth way. And a lot of it is logistics, a lot of it is practicalities. But I have spent enough time with you to know that you are very, very focused on those issues. I can't imagine what your reaction is to what's happening in Washington right now. Could you give us, what is your take on it?

So thankfully we have more time to talk about it, but if you ask for the short and sweet, we're watching arson on the most important public asset that we have. Our government is responsible for keeping us safe. It is what enables us to compete globally. And we are seeing the nonsensical destruction of something that is going to hurt us in the here and now and for decades to come.

So, my reaction is one of horror and deep, deep, deep concern for our democracy. I think that is what is at stake right now. Could you take us through, I mean, there's a lot of acts of arson happening right now, but what are some of the most alarming to you? So the way, and it is fast moving, it is the proverbial flood zone, so hard to see the forest because the trees are coming at us so fast.

But I think the way to think about this is to imagine what our purpose of our government is. And when I say that for 140 years, and I'll come back to that on the history side, we've had a consensus among Republicans, Democrats, and independents that our government is there for the public good. That we want elections to choose leaders that will follow policies that they ran on during the campaigns, but ultimately that their decisions will be based on the public's interest, not their own personal you know, follow policies that they ran on during the campaigns, but ultimately, and that their decisions will be based on the public's interest, not their own personal

interest. And we have an administration that has come in and turn that one upside down. We are through the looking glass, whatever metaphor you want. We have an administration that has flat out said and is now doing that they're going to use government authority to pursue their private interests, to go after political enemies. We've seen the appointment of senior leaders in our government, the political appointees you mentioned earlier, that are chosen on the basis of loyalty, not on competence and character, which should be the criteria that are used. And as you noted, most relevant to the large part of work that I do, they are in the process of blowing up that career civil service and converting what

has been a nonpartisan, apolitical merit-based group into one that will be full of loyalists. And I said I'd come back to this, but we had this system before in the 19th century, the spoil system, where the assumption was that the winner of the election got to put in place people who were partisans that were going to support them and that they could even get money from them to support their elections. And what we ended up with was corruption and incompetence in our government, ultimately culminating in 1881 with the assassination of President Garfield by a disgruntled job seeker, someone who wanted that job but didn't get it.

And there was an awakening. The public revolted. Congress passed what was called Pendleton Act, and it was the road that we began to professionalize our government and our civil service. And that made a huge difference in our ability to deal with all kinds of big problems. That is now all on the chopping block and we're watching in a much, much more dangerous world. Again, the arson, the destruction, whatever you want to call it, vandalism of that professional government, that expertise that has been there to keep us safe. And now we're in trouble. I've not heard that comparison before to the late 19th century, which is, I mean, that's sort of almost a dark age of American history.

You know, we all know the beginning of the late 18th century, the founding of the country. We're all very familiar with the 20th century presidents. You go look at the late 19th century, sort of like, who are these guys? I don't hear much about this time. And a lot of it is because that was a time where American government wasn't in a good place. There was a lot of corruption, a lot of graft, a lot of self-dealing.

And I had sort of a general awareness of that and that things were cleaned up around the beginning of the last century. I had not thought yet of the moment we're entering as being a return to that form of government That's really fascinating that seems like that would be a very bad outcome a horrible outcome and You know the world is a lot more dangerous Fast moving complex place than it was in the 19th century

So as bad as it was in the 19th century it it presents much, much, much larger risks in the modern era. The other place to look is globally, because you've seen this movie before in Hungary and many other authoritarian countries where a new leader comes in and they strip the career talent out of the civil service, they move to that loyalist system, and they make the government client to their private agenda. And the end result again is loss of democracy and real corruption and fundamental threat to the capability of the country to respond effectively in the modern era. So this is serious stuff and ought to be deeply troubling for everybody.

There is reasonable room to disagree about what specific things our government should be doing. There should be no disagreement over having a government that is capable, focused on the public good, and ultimately relies on expert nonpartisan civil servants. I mean, that is something that we all ought to agree on because that is what actually knits us together as a country and prevents a whole parade of horribles that none of us should want.

You know, you've spent your career, probably most of your life, advocating for good government and for these issues. And now you are watching a, you know, a democratically elected president destroy literally that thing purposefully. I imagine it must be difficult for you emotionally. You must, you must feel a little bit like a park ranger watching a forest burn down. Yeah, I think they're unfortunately going to be more forest burning down and fewer park rangers or service folks to actually address that problem. The answer is yes. I mean, I have a profound worry about our future and it is, you know, I think it should be dispressing for all Americans

because no one is going gonna be held harmless here. But I will admit that I have spent several decades trying to make our government better and not watch it be torn apart. And I think it's an important point to highlight that this is not about the status quo. Like it's not about saying what we have is perfect. It isn't, it does need significant reform.

And we have lots of ideas about how to get there. But this is again, the equivalent of someone saying, we need to save the city and we're gonna burn it down to do so. That's not a recipe for success. Well, and folks such as yourselves had plenty of plans for reform, none of which are being followed.

This is literally seems to be destruction for destruction's sake. Let's talk about the federal workforce of which there's over a million Americans, I believe, work for the federal government, correct? Two, two million. Two million, excuse me. Over two million Americans work for this federal government.

And one of the goals the Trump administration seems to be to fire as many of them as quickly as possible, seemingly only in order of which ones are easiest to fire. Like anyone who can be shoved out the door is being shoved out the door. Why is this destructive? Who are the Americans who work for the government? And when you say civil servants, what do you mean by that? So you stated that exactly right in terms of what we're observing. I would, worth noting that there are two million, slightly more than two million civil servants.

That number is actually the same number as it was in 1969. Wow. So we are not talking about a workforce that has grown topsy-turvy as a relative proportion of our population and the labor force that obviously has gone down quite a bit. Because the population has grown since has gone down quite a bit. Because the population has grown since then, of course. Exactly. And the nature of what the federal workforce does has changed quite a bit. It's now 70% of those workers focus on national security issues, meaning keeping us safe,

the core responsibility of our government. So you think about like TSA at the airport, those are relatively new functions that didn't exist in 1969. So again, headcount hasn't increased, but the functions that government is performing has. So that's, you know, number one. Number two, a third of them are veterans. So again, when you think about who are these people, they're people who serve the public and uniform and understood that the way they could continue to serve the public was as a civil servant. The third number that is worth remembering is over 80% are outside the DC area. So most Americans think about Washington as the place where all these people work. Not true.

They're in pretty much every county across the country and they're doing all kinds of things. So put a face on it. You did a really great job in the G were on doing that. If folks haven't watched it, should. But thank you for the plug. Doing my best. Yeah, I do my best.

It is actually what we're seeing. And we need more of that because what we've seen since we, we, we, we work with you on that. We've got a lot of research to understand why is it that Americans have. Further lost trust in our government. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that they don't know who their civil servants are. And when they say federal government, they think about bickering politicians in Washington. And honestly, there's reason to lose faith in that cadre. They're not actually modernizing our government. They're not focused on the things that they should. They're not minding the store. But the civil servants, two million strong, are the people who are selected again,

because they are best in class in what they do. They're selected through a competitive process. They are the people who we talked earlier, the, you know, for service firefighter that is addressing like the huge fires that have been taking place in our country and increasing content. They're, they're They're the Department of Agriculture food inspectors who are trying to make sure that when you go to the store and you did a piece on this and get your hamburger meat that your kids aren't going to get sick. They're the CIA intelligence analysts that is trying to make sure that the Russians aren't, you know, or Chinese aren't hacking into our digital infrastructure as a country.

You know, the list goes on and on. You know, the air traffic controllers, the whole ecosystem around our transportation system, our lives in a complex modern world require expertise at the public level. People who are doing this not for profit, but because they're looking out for our good, that is fundamental. And so, you know, one call out to anyone who's watching this is find out about a Fed in your neighborhood or in your area because there's seriously someone there who's making your life better. Are there, again, ways to improve what they're doing for sure? Should we be focused on that?

For sure. But again, to your point, firing them arbitrarily makes no sense. There's been, you know, instead of ready aim fire, these folks came in and was fire, fire, fire. There is no planning, no strategy, no prioritization of trying to get rid of poor performers, no focus on data to see do we have too many occupa- you know, people in the single occupation and getting to them. It is exactly what you said. Getting rid of the people that are easiest to get rid of.

And those oftentimes are the younger people, the tech savvy people, the cyber professionals who came in more recently is, you know, it is it is waste. So what we're watching now is not the savings of money. We're watching us go into further debt and big debt because of the way our public resources are being wasted by this new administration and in particular by the Doge effort. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. These days, so much of life happens online, whether you're running a business, building a brand or sharing your passion with the world.

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to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash factually. When you talk about civil service protections, right? There are some civil servants who are, have some level of protection from being fired in such a manner. What are those protections and why are they important in the civil service? Well, so it's a great question because a lot of people ask that why can't, you know, we have an at will employment employment situation where the president of

the United States can walk in and fire whomever they want? And the answer is unlike in a private business, you have to worry about just what we're talking about, politicization of the workforce. We shouldn't want a set of civil servants that are looking over their shoulder to say, am I doing what the president wants or am I following the law and the constitution? Let's just make this very concrete. Right now, we have one of the most significant powers of our federal government is the ability to investigate and prosecute on a criminal basis, you know, people that are alleged to have broken the law and broken the criminal law. And we have a president that has fired federal prosecutors because they followed the law.

They did what they're supposed to do, which is prosecute individuals, including the president, without fear or favor. And to have a president walk in and fire them, not because they had done anything wrong, but because they had gone after either himself or people that he cares about, means that our system is being distorted so that he can now use it to go after his enemies. He is weaponizing the workforce. He is weaponizing the incredible power of the federal government.

And that is a huge, huge problem. We're watching destruction now. The other shoe has not fully fallen yet, which is the use of governmental power for personal means. And I think we're going to see that at scale. And everybody should be frightened by that. Because again, it is the road to perdition. And the we need leaders that don't require the United States courts to tell them what they're doing is illegal. We need leaders who show the restraint not to cross lines they shouldn't cross. And so far this administration has shown, um, no willingness to respect those lines.

And that puts us all again at huge risk. Now I have to ask you, you said up top that you are a nonpartisan organization and I've known you for a while and you're a very straight down the middle kind of guy. You're, you're honestly one of the most, I know you don't yourself work for the federal government, but one of the most sort of Washington, like by the book, you know, just, uh, I don't know, it's very reassuring to talk to you, right? I feel like I'm, uh'm talking to Mr. Government himself. So I believe you when you say you try to operate

in a nonpartisan matter, but right now you are talking about a president who represents one party who the party is bent to his will, and everything he is pursuing is inimical to what you think of as good government. So how do you, you know, balance your commitment to nonpartisanship when one of the parties has turned its entire, every member of the party and many of the Americans

who support the party against the government itself? Right, no, it's a very fair question and one that I am getting and will probably get for a long time to come. And my answer comes back to the history that we just discussed. And as I noted, for 140 years, every Republican president, literally for 140 years, has supported the idea that we need a nonpartisan merit-based civil service and we need a government focused on the public good.

So the fact that we've gotten our first Republican president or president of any party that has challenged that and tried to return us to this world system does not make what I'm saying partisan. It is an anomaly what we're watching right now. And it's an anomaly that goes to the heart of our democracy. And this comes back to my proposition that this is not about Democrat or Republican.

This is about a core common asset that we all need to be able to survive and thrive in a dangerous world. So there's no doubt that there are people out there. And I will add that I just testified in Congress. And Marjorie Taylor Greene came after me in the hearing and made this exact allegation. Just because they say it so doesn't make it so.

And what I would ask people to do is look at history, look at the record. I have on my desk a book about the civil service that I was given to by a Republican head of the Office of Personnel Management. That's a history of the civil service. The letter from her that describes how fundamental it is to have a nonpartisan merit-based civil service to our success. So, you know, they can't wash away that history. They can't wash away the rationale of why it is the nonpartisan system we have is so important. That does not make us partisan.

Just because they say it so does not make it so. You know, I love talking to someone like you who cares so deeply about something that I don't often think a lot about, right? You're almost, you're stirring me emotionally with your passion for a nonpartisan merit-based civil service, which is, you know, it's kind of a wonky topic, right? But as you're talking to me, I'm like,

I understand why this is valuable. Your passion for it comes through as something that we need to protect. Why do you think that so much of our political culture or a good portion of it has forgotten about the importance of that civil service or in fact now thinks that that civil service is a bad thing that we need to get rid of when we have had unanimity as you say for 140 years about I guess like very much a logistical necessity to run the government.

Suddenly you know Marjorie Taylor Greene and a bunch of her colleagues think the opposite, including apparently a lot of senators who have been there a long time before Trump even entered the political scene. Yeah. So look, I think these are really important questions for us to delve into and to think deeply about because it matters. And the starting point, I mean, we have data on this. We've done a bunch of polling to ask Americans what kind of civil service they want. And the truth is that the vast, vast majority, Republican, Democrat, independent of Americans want a merit-based expert civil service. The problem is they don't think they have it right now. And what they're being sold by the current administration is, frankly, snake oil, that by blowing it up in the way that's happening right now, they're going

to get something better. And it's not true. So I think that we started with this in this issue that most Americans, and you asked this, don't have a lot of granular understanding about who are these civil servants why should they matter and. In large measure that's because we generally don't get concerned about the quality of government we have unless something goes really wrong. And then when something goes wrong you're like good gosh why did it go wrong yeah why isn't it happening the right way We benefit so much from a government that largely, not entirely, works pretty darn well. And when it works well, you don't think twice about it. We are gonna see less and less

of a government working well. We're already seeing that. You talk to the farmers who have had their crops stranded because they can't get out through USAID to the aid that was intended to go out. You see it from the patients that are medical patients that have had their trials interrupted. You're going to see interruptions further on the medical side through research that is not being done.

You see it in the mistakes this administration has made. They fired a bunch of people who were involved in trying to address avian flu and then really quickly tried to rehire them. They fired a bunch of people that work at the nuclear national security administration, which manages our nuclear stockpile. And then they quickly tried to rehire those people. You saw it at the VA where they fired a bunch of doctors and nurses and then had to quickly try to rehire those people. I mean, these folks, frankly, do not understand how our government works. They do not understand what the consequences are

of their actions. They are showing no curiosity to understand what has been tried before or who they should be actually consulting to understand how to do this better. I mean, it is a demolition derby. I'm trying to diversify my metaphors here, but it is craziness.

It is no way to run any organization is certainly not the most important one for our safety as a society. I wanna go a little further than that because you say that a big problem is that Americans don't understand what the government does because when it's good, it's invisible. But there's also been a concerted campaign to make Americans distrust the government. And I'll tell you my view of where it came from.

I'm curious if you agree. There's some people in our society who believe that a good government actually isn't good for them, either because they pay more than they want in taxes, they're very rich, they're like, what if I could pay less? I'm so rich I don't need the federal government's help. Or maybe the federal government, maybe good government, is actually against their interests because they're a polluter or they're doing some other dirty business

and the government is trying to stop them from doing it. And some of those people are powerful and they have spread the message throughout the media and then through our political culture that actually the government is bad. All those people need to do is say, I want to pay less in taxes. The government sucks. The government sucks. The government sucks. Right. And they've spent they've been doing it for about 50 years at least or longer. And though that idea has become a malignancy in the culture to the extent that a lot of voters now simply believe it.

If you watch certain media organizations, that's all that they say all day long, is that everybody in the gut, it's all bad. We've got to pull it out by the root. And it's not true. It contravenes reality. And it's specifically for the benefit of those actors. It's a deliberate anti-government propaganda campaign that we've been living under

that benefits a few people for decades. And this is, it's apotheosis. This is it coming to fruition. That's what it looks like to me. Does it look like that to you? So I think there are different strains of explanation for what's going on right now. And I think one of the most important, you know, coming from the president himself is

the notion that I've already described, which is it's not that he wants no government. He wants a government that will be pliant to his personal agenda, irrespective of law or constitution. And I think there are others affiliated with his administration that are the sort that you've described, although I want to come back to that, that just want to see the whole thing blown up because they think government itself is evil. And there are others, and I would put the Doge group in that category, who believe that they can fix anything and the way to do it is to treat the US government like Twitter and not recognize that context matters and government entities require different kinds of management tools than simply firing

everybody and blowing it up. Break it to fix it is not a good model when people get hurt in very profound ways when you break something. It also doesn't really align with the sort of accountability that exists in government or the various stakeholders on and on long list. So I think there are different strains of explanation that are relevant to what we're experiencing there. It's not just a single thing.

And I think these things are in some tension with each other. As we're beginning to see, you've got, you know, misses from Elon Musk on X saying, everybody has to, you know, submit a summary of their work week, irrespective of the fact that he has no understanding that most federal employees can't actually share what they've done because it is either classified or non-public. He doesn't understand that the organization used to get out that message, the office of personnel management doesn't have authority over federal employees to tell them that he shouldn't have authority. He's not actually, most he's a special government employee, he's not actually in a position where he can order federal employees to do anything.

The whole thing is quite messed up. But the point I'm trying to make is, that's Elon Musk. The people who are now responsible for running the federal agencies, the cabinet secretaries that are getting confirmed, they're saying no to their employees. You don't need to do this because they understand that it would be in fact illegal and highly problematic for them to do it. They're going to find they can't get the work done that they want to get done because their workforces have not only been demolished in terms of talent, but their culture and the morale has been crushed. So I think you're going to see more and more internal tension between the different factions

that exist amongst the elements of the Trump coalition here. The bottom line, and this comes back to what I said earlier, even those who might argue less government is good for them from a business perspective or whatever else that may be, less government is a fight that should be had in Congress. It should be a fight that is done through the democratic process about what our government should be doing. Blowing up the institutions, destroying the people who serve the public, that is bad for everybody. It's bad for them too. And this stuff is going to come back and bite them because you will wind up. One of the reasons why we're successful in capitalism is we have

referees that make sure that we don't or we minimize corruption where we actually have an even playing field. Those things are going to go away given the changes that are taking place. So let me just give you a quick example of recent note to me. And that is so there's a law called the foreign corrupt practices act it's a law and how that that was set up that basically says that us companies cannot pay bribes in order to get business abroad and the reason why this is so interesting is the trump administration came out and said we're not going to enforce that law now good question how it is that they have the right to say we're not going to enforce a law. Now, good question how it is that they have the right to say, we're not going to enforce

a law that Congress has passed when their job is executing the law. Yeah. Not changing the law in that way, but we're going to put that aside at least for now. That law came about because private sector American companies wanted it. They didn't want to pay the corruption tax abroad. And so they got that law passed so that they wouldn't have to play that game. And otherwise, if my competitor pays the bribe, then I have to pay the bribe. So if we make

it illegal, then nobody can do it. Playing field. Got it. Yes, exactly right. And and so again, we're you know, everyone's going to get hurt here. And especially, I think business. And and I'm hoping that that light bulb will go off and you'll see, you know, we need a lot of people to stand up, including Congress, but business leaders as well. And their interests, certainly their public sector interests,

their citizens of our country, they have important positions that they should see themselves as contributors to the public good, but even their private interests are going to align against what is happening now. It's going to hurt them. Well, I hope it does because I'll editorialize a little bit and make it clear, this is me speaking not you, but it's business interests in this country that spread the anti-government propaganda poison.

Like that's where it comes from. There's also, you know, the right-wing reactionary strain in our politics, which is a little bit separate, but you know, if you look at that, you know, where that movement comes from, it's people who want to spend less money on taxes, it's capitalists who want free rein to run amok.

And the fact that that has led to this, as you put it, unmitigated arson that is going to hurt them. A silver lining might be some people learn a lesson about the necessity of government and don't spend so much time and money slandering our public institutions and realize, oh, hold on a second, we actually need to have a fucking society here. I can't purely pursue my own profit and lowering my own taxes at the expense of everybody else

because it will bite me in the ass eventually. And your silver lining point, I think, is very, very important because at the end of the day, we shouldn't just admire problems, we should solve for them. And I do think there are two potential silver linings. The one you just highlighted, we just discussed the fact that by and large, the public hasn't and maybe hasn't felt the needed to engage on the nature of our government. Now it does. The last time the public fundamentally cared in a real way like people in the streets and mobilize for a different kind of government was on the heels of the spoil system.

Add that is that is that is what led to the changes that i described in a hundred and forty years of better government not perfect over better government that we had so i think silver lining number one would be a public that understood why they needed to care, that understood that there was a better way, and that mobilized to get there. And the second would be getting there. So the reform of government that we actually need, the modernization of government so we have better services, more customer focus, better technology, leaders that actually know how to run large public sector organizations, best in class talent, uh, that, you know, been back to nonpartisan talent in our government. Uh, and that will be a better world for all of us. So to me, that's where we need to be focused is how do we achieve those two

things and engage public and then a reform government. Well, I hope we can get there, given that our media environment is in a really bad place right now as well, which is very bad for building public consensus. But let's move back to the employees themselves, right? Over 2 million employees, the federal government's the largest single employer in the country, I believe. And that means if you are laying off

hundreds of thousands of people appears to be the goal and the actual number of layoffs right now, we're still trying to calculate. Do you have a sense actually of how many people have lost their jobs already? So it's very, very hard to know. I mean, we we know 75000 people were chased out by the, you know, the the deferred resignation fork in the road craziness. Yeah. But there there there there are the deferred resignation, fork in the road craziness.

But there are thousands of others. What we're seeing are the plans being laid to really strip out a ton more talent. You'd mentioned it earlier, they went after the most vulnerable, the people who are probationary, meaning they've been for the most part in government for under a year, so generally younger technology savvy, et cetera, people. But now they're starting the machine up to lay off very large numbers, much larger numbers of federal employees. So, where it nets out

is unclear. I mean, I think a lot of this stuff has been illegal. It is also worth noting the supreme irony that the Trump administration is, is, is, you know, demeaning and terrifying federal employees. It's actually civil servants who are defending the Trump administration and all these actions in all these different litigations. Right. And the liability, the damages that I think will be there in many cases will be paid for by the American taxpayer,

not by Donald Trump or any of his appointees. So, you know, again, this is a mess being created that the American people will ultimately pay the price for. And so this is the point that I wanna make. Federal employees are also American citizens. Many of them voted Republican. Many of them, they live all across the country, right? And you know, we are not simply customers

of the federal government. We are also, we make up the federal government. I think most people, many, many people have a federal employee in their family. I do, right? And so when you look at the effect of laying off that many people, I mean, we're laying off tens of thousands of Americans, potentially hundreds

of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs. So even separate from what the job does, that hurts the country. It's bad when hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs for the economy of the country, for those people, for our communities. Look, I mean, again, not to be too, too, too argumentative about this. You are, you're 100% right. If there was a, a, a good case to make that it would actually promote, I don't think efficiency is the right word, effectiveness of our government to get rid of some number of federal employees,

then I think it makes sense because it's not a jobs program. It's actually there. People are there to serve the public. But the reality is that there is zero, in fact, negative evidence that that is the case. I already said to you that the headcount of the federal government is the same size as it was in 1969. Yes. There's been no work, no study, no evidence to say that what they're doing, who they are

firing actually is going to make our government more efficient or more effective. In fact, it's clearly the opposite. And there is every reason to believe that the price tag is going to be very large, not only in the liabilities that they create by doing things of like firing people illegally, but in the services that the American public are not going to receive. What is most likely to happen is if there is a significant pushback from the public, which I think there will be, that you're going to wind up paying more money by hiring contractors.

And that is the reason why when I say that the headcount of our federal government is the same size as it was in 1969, I'm not arguing that our government is the same size as it was in 1969. You look at the budgets, the budgets have gone up a lot. The functions of our government have gone up a lot. But it's not by federal employees, it's generally by contractors. And again, there are some reasons to hire contractors,

but that is not the good reasons that are typically the ones that are being used. So we are watching an incredibly expensive vanity project in some ways. We are, we are, we are, we are watching it an incredibly expensive, uh, you know, um, vanity project in some ways. I'm not sure what to call it because there's no, I can't find the rationale. Like we're built to define logic and reason. And, you know, as I, we talked about what the motivations might be, you know, there's nothing good about this.

There's just simply no good reason for what is occurring. Yeah, I I'm trying to find the rationale myself. You remind me of the contractors, if you, because there's many, many, many, millions of contractors as well, right? Which is, they also work for the... We know it has a number, but you can be assured that it's at least several multiples

larger than the head count of the direct federal workforce and maybe four or five. Like it's actually data we should have but we don't. Got it. And I know anecdotally when I do shows in Washington DC and I did the G word, federal employees come up, say I work for the federal government and sometimes they say, what agency?

And they say, ah, well, I'm a contractor, right? So they work for some company that is contracted for the federal government. So if you really just wanted to save money, if that was your main goal, well, you'd probably start with the contractors. You wouldn't start with all of the closer in circle of the brain trust of the federal civil service.

And so it's not that. Is it truly just that the civil service is seen as a power base that Donald Trump does not control. I think that, as I said earlier, I think that is a primary motivation here, and I think some of it, look, it's not just the career civil servants,

the political appointees swear the same oath, to uphold the law and the Constitution. They do not swear an oath to do whatever the President of the United States tells them to do, because that's not actually why they're there and you saw that in his first term you saw. More often than not is his political appointees who said something that he wanted to do was it was was was was actually illegal or bad idea. What you did see was civil service i think the lesson that he learned was i need to blow them up because otherwise they'll get in the way of whatever it is that I want to do. And again, as president, he has a lot of latitude to make a lot of choices.

Breaking the law is not one of them. And that is part of the fundamentals of our system, why the framers, you know, the framers were motivated above and beyond everything else, not wanting to replicate their experience in England. They did not want a king. Why they created the separation of power, so the legislative function and the executive function were different. It's why they made sure that, again, the rule of law and the constitution were what civil servants and political appointees, that's what they swear to, not the president. We have a real problem here because we have a president who is reshaping our government to make himself king.

And that is not what the framers wanted and is not good for any of us. Yeah, and the problem with a lot of these actions being illegal is, well, who's going to enforce that? Because he controls the executive branch enforcement functions. Congress is completely supine because they, the Republicans in Congress are acquiescing fundamentally

to what's happening, to the power grab, and the courts have no enforcement power. And you know, they don't control the federal marshals. And so that potentially also creates a conflict when it really comes down to who is enforcing this. Right, no, I think you raise the most serious constitutional crisis question, what happens if the,

but I'll tell you, civil servants will follow the law. If a court says something, they'll do it, which is again, one of the reasons why he may be attacking them. I do think that it is, back to the Congress point that you're making, we are watching this, our system was designed to try to make sure that power was divided, and that each branch is supposed to guard their prerogatives. The

separation of power system we have is being undermined by the approach that is being taken now about moving us into a parliamentary system where those in Congress, just as you said, of the same party as the president are doing whatever he wants rather than actually thinking about what our system requires of them. And that is a big problem. So that should be one of the key checks on some of the things that are taking place. The courts are another. one of the key checks on some of the things that are taking place.

The courts are another. We haven't crossed the bridge about what happens if he doesn't enforce or follow a court decision. Even before we get there, however, the proposition that he can do what he want and just say, sue me, which is effectively what he's doing, again, misunderstands the role he's supposed to be playing. Because he's got so much power, public power, not private power, public power, he is supposed to act with restraint and understand that he shouldn't be challenging

what is either clear or close to clear because the impact is so large. You fire all these federal employees. Yes, the courts may ultimately decide that it's been done illegally, but you will have created unbelievable havoc for those employees, as well as for the people that they've been serving. You investigate and prosecute someone and a jury decides that they're not guilty. Yes, they are ultimately, you know, determined to be innocent, but that process is ugly and evil and damaging. So that is why we should want prosecutors who are very careful. And that care and again, culture of not doing anything

that might be viewed as being driven by fear or favor, these are assets that our system has held in large measure that are being flushed down the toilet right now. That's a big problem. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. These days, so much of life happens online, whether you're running a business, building a brand, or sharing your passion with the world.

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Just head to publicrec.com, use code FACTUALLY, and you're all set. Oh, and when they ask about how you found them, make sure to mention our show, it really helps us out. Upgrade to Public Rec and feel the difference. In terms of the federal employees themselves, what can they do to push back against this? I mean, many of them are members of unions, right? They, these are not unions that have had to have a lot of,

you know, big fights in the past because they've had a lot of protection under the law. But what can they do collectively to push back against what's happening? Are you seeing any resistance? Yeah. And I don't like to call it the resistance because again, that sort of reinforces the whole deep state.

No. But what I am seeing, first and foremost, and Americans should be extraordinarily grateful, is I'm seeing most civil servants stay in their jobs, despite the fact that they're being hounded out of them. So it's a remarkable testament to their commitment to the American people and to our constitution, the rule of law, that despite the fact that they're operating in ugly, difficult circumstances where their bosses are demeaning them and trying to scare them that they're saying, I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to give up on the purpose

of what I do. That is huge. So, you know, first and foremost, by staying in their job and doing their job, they're doing something that is powerful and important for our country. Secondly, you know, they need to share those stories. I mean, I'll tell you, civil servants are the most modest group of people I've ever, ever, ever run into. You saw that undoubtedly, you know, getting them to say something nice about themselves really hard. It was really fascinating on the G word.

Like these are people who they felt like they walked off of like the set of Sesame Street or some other PBS show, like just the most mild mannered, mission focused, humble people. Like you, you, you feel like you, you have rarely met people who are less selfish than, than these. It honestly seemed almost ridiculous. I was like, where'd you people even come from? If you were to tell me you existed, I'd be like, I I I'm too cynical. Nah, there,

there are probably a lot of assholes in there. No, the majority of them really give a shit and are committed to their jobs. 100%. And it's fascinating. And that's a strength, but it can be a weakness when actually we need them to speak up about what they do and share their stories.

And I think to your point, they have their own networks of friends and family, et cetera. We need everybody sharing their stories and helping them tell their stories in a better way too. Because again, not everyone can produce the G word, but helping them explain why it is that the public really is benefited by their services. So I think the second piece, so number one is stay in their job to the extent they can. And at some point, maybe they can't, you know, one, they can be fired and two, it can be just too difficult to even do what they're supposed to do, tell their stories. Third, you know, there are a lot of lawsuits that are going on right

now for good reason, because a lot of the things that the Trump administration is doing appear to be illegal. And it, you know, again, it takes a level of bravery to put yourself forward in, in, in joining a lawsuit because it is going to put you through the wringer. It is not an easy situation. Number four, hopefully there'll be a moment in which we can actually rebuild and we're going to need all those people to be able to do it. I told you earlier that all these different people in different agencies were fired and

then someone said, oh, we actually need someone to deal with the avian flu. Oh, we need someone to manage our, you know, nuclear stockpile. Oh, we need someone to serve, you know, veterans. I'm not sure about how many people came back, but I'll bet a bunch did, despite the fact that they got fired. And that's pretty remarkable. And we're going to need those talented people to come back and to reset the culture so that it again is focused on expertise and apolitical. We do not want a world in which we're swinging back and forth depending on the partisan affiliation of the president that we're then changing out

all of our workforce. Now come back, it's not only the civilians we need to be thinking about this with respect to, it's also the military. We just saw the president fire for the first time ever, like the top level of the armed services. And again, really frankly for control, and put in place somebody who there's real questions about whether they have the legal qualifications or the qualifications more generally. So this is all of our institutions and you can't really separate out uniform

services, civilian services. This is about all the people who serve the public and how they're being treated. I want to return again to the idea of these employees as members of the public as well, you know, we're talking about again, six figure number of layoffs. A lot of these layoffs are illegal, but it's literally Elon Musk's cronies are going locking the doors and saying, you can't come into the building anymore.

You know, you can take us to court if you want, but you know, as of today, you, you know, you don't even get to come pick up your stuff. The amount of trauma for that number of people and their families is so huge, right? That that is being caused. What effect do you think that's going to have on the country? So, so you're right.

I mean, honestly, like, and this is anecdotal, but it's powerful. I mean, I've heard from a bunch of doctors who say, like all their patients are coming in with high blood pressure. Uh, and I mean, it is having a profound effect on their health. Think about all those USAID employees and contractors. I mean, like contractors do do the work of government in positive ways. It's not like they're bad. It's a question of like, where's the best value for the public?

They were stranded in countries, dangerous countries with no notice and for no reason. So again, this is not just about what's being done as being how it's being done in the most demeaning way. Messages went out to the entire federal government basically saying, all federal workers saying, you should leave the federal government because it is of higher productive value to work in the private sector than it is to work in the public sector. What is that about? So you say like, what what, you know, is happening to those individuals to our society writ large, the message for direct to federal employees to our broader

society is wrong, nasty, and destructive. And again, it's it's just no good reason for it. And we're only one month in. Like this is the other thing that we have to think about is that the amount of destruction in the time that they've been in place is unbelievable and frightening. That's really interesting that you bring up the difference between public and private enterprise, right? That they brought that up. A lot of what you see Elon doing,

and by the way, it's ridiculous that we have to even use the word doge to describe this. The amount of like, I'm a comedian. I don't want this much comedy in my government. Yes. But the fact that, you know, he is cutting as though it were a private business, right? As though it were Twitter.

And the comparison, that is the comparisons that's constantly being made. The government needs to run as a business. What is the difference between the government and a private business that makes, you know, logic that works for one, not work for the other in your view? Yeah.

Look, I think it's a really important point. And that is, we should be using business principles in running our government, but you cannot actually run our government like a business. So think about what's happening right now. We are on what's called a continuing resolution. And what that means is that Congress has not done its job, which frankly, it has not done its job

in putting out all the appropriations bills, basically the budget for all these agencies since 1996. They haven't done it on time since 1996. Wow. So tell me what private sector business could operate without knowing what its budget is for any longer period of time than maybe a few weeks. Or when it is under this continuing resolution, they can't stop things and they can't have new starts. So the list goes on and on from there. There are all sorts of constraints and stakeholder interests that exist for a government

entity that does not exist for a private business. This whole question about worrying about choices being made for political reasons rather than for the best interest of the public, something that you don't need to worry about in the private sector context and you do in government. When you think about even what's at stake here, you're not actually trying to achieve financial returns typically, it's a public good that you're trying to do deal. So don't think about like, again, the passport services. And this is relevant to the question of it. Do we want efficiency or effectiveness in our government? It's really effectiveness. You could get out a whole lot more passports, and then not achieve the security interests that is actually fundamental to passports by simply saying, we're just

giving everyone who applies for a passport a passport right now immediately. No, they're trying to make sure that people get passports, are not getting a fake ID, that they're not a danger to our society, whatever else it might be. So it is not the same thing as a private sector business. It's much more complex. And you see business leaders who fail at running federal agencies because they can't actually contextualize their capabilities in this new environment.

And you see people who succeed who understand that that is what they have to do. So that is really, really important. Let me tell you also one more anecdote that I just heard. Please. Sort of like the craziness here. So, you know, no doubt that one of the most profound, damaging incidents that we've seen in the front end of the Trump administration is the blowing up of the USAID. And again, plenty of legitimate argument about whether we give too much foreign

aid, too little foreign aid. Whatever you think about that, the way this was done hurts everybody. And the story that has come out is that it was two Doge employees that came in that wanted to take control over all the payments and they shut down all the payments in USAID without any notice. So lots and lots and lots of people got hurt, American farmers, et cetera. And then they found out that several payments were made that came out of not USAID, but Health and Human Services, HHS.

And this is when Secretary Rubio said, in subordination, civil servants have gone around us, we took control of the payment system at USAID, and they just talked to their buddies at HHS and got that money out. And therefore, they fired the top leadership of USAID. They did all sorts of retribution against the civil servants in USAID. Well, what actually happened? Nobody USAID went to HHS. HHS is actually responsible for putting out grants. USAID is putting out contracts. So the money that went out from HHS went out because no one in Doge or

the Trump leadership understood that if they actually wanted to stop all this stuff, they needed to tell the people at HHS, not only the people at USAID. So they took retribution against employees who had done nothing of the sort. But they did not understand the system. And that is what you're seeing across the board, whether it's firing people they shouldn't fire, or claiming that they've saved $8 billion when at best it was $8 million.

I mean, the list goes on and on and on. It is really the Department of Government ineptitude, not of efficiency. It's the most bra of Government ineptitude, not of efficiency. It's the most brain dead way to operate, both in that they refuse to even try to understand anything that they're cutting, but also it's the brain dead logic of capitalism.

Look, if you're a CEO, on some level, your job is only number go up. All you need to do is make the numbers go up to make the shareholders happy, right? And so a lot of people like Elon, they play the cutting game. When we go and we cut stuff, that makes the number go up. We don't need to improve anything.

All we need to do is get rid of some shit and we can make a number go up. The government doesn't work that way. The government is not designed to return profit to anybody. It's designed to create discrete public goods that you need to actually understand in order to know what the outcome is. I think this is the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. You want an efficient government, but ultimately the value is the outcome, not the throughput.

And that is fundamentally different in terms of government versus the private sector and. I'm the most important thing is you want people who show curiosity to learn and understand context and i think fundamentally to know that. As any any any season manager knows which is you want to engage your workforce not in region And what you have here is, you know, the just profoundly misguided management, but with our government that has like huge consequence. You take down a private sector company, people might lose their job, it's not a good thing. There'll be some other company that will fill the gap.

When you take down our federal government, our country goes down, Like people get deeply hurt. This is just a whole different proposition. Yeah. It also covers the conflict of interest stuff too. And that is not something to overlook. I mean, the reality is that the power that Elon Musk has to make choices that are using, again, the public's power, the government's power, when he himself has such deep and widespread personal financial interest in the choices that are being made is and should be deeply troubling to everybody. I mean, there isn't a part of the man's business that has not been funded or touched in some way by the federal government, Tesla and you know,

and the choices that are being made have enormous impact on his business. We have a system that is supposed to require people to give up their private sector interests if they're going to accept that public sector power. And that has not happened here. And he hasn't been confirmed by the United States Senate. So on both scores, these are big, I would say constitutional and legal challenges. You know, life moves fast and sometimes you just need a way to relax, recharge or stay focused without making things

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Use promo code factually for 15% off. I mean, these are the kinds of events where if you were to read a history book about this happening, you'd be every page, you'd be telling your friend, can you believe what happened in 1897? Like this is a billionaire who had business. Every part of his business touched the United States government, uh, gained unaccountable power and then started firing the people who regulated his own businesses

for pure self-interest. Wow, America used to be a fucked up place. I'm glad that we don't live in that world anymore. That's what you would think. I'm hoping we get to that world in which that history book is being read by you and me both. And it's because that is what it's at stake. I mean, whether we get there is dependent in some significant measure

on the choices that we all make that the attention that we all pay. This is not a moment to be silent and look away. Yeah. Well, let's just talk about how we might get there because unfortunately we're in a situation where a large part of the populace of this country sees what is happening, they're watching it on the news, and they think, oh good, my ideology, what I've been told is such that I think it's good for Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, to go in and fire tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of federal employees for his

own gain. That to me is a anti-reality view, but it is the way a lot of people feel. I think the hope that both of us are expressing a little bit here, the hope in a dark time, is that the effects of what is happening will be so profound that you will start to see the public turn against it.

So how do you think that might come up, and where do you think we're gonna feel the effects first? Well, I think they're already being felt, and I think this is a very important point. A lot of people I talk to say, oh, when the big one happens, when something really bad happens, then the public will wake up. And I think the reality is that we're watching bad things happen all over the place. And if you focus in the, you know, the foreground looking for that big one to happen,

you miss out on all those other things that are already occurring. We need to keep that, you know, so don't set the bar at this giant one. That giant one, I think, is going to happen, but a whole bunch of other things. Farmers are getting hurt. You know, so the list is long about things that have already gone wrong and that they're accountable for the water that was let go in the Central Valley, you know, for no reason other than there was a show to say we're doing something for the fires in LA that was let go in the Central Valley, you know, for no reason other than there was a show to say, we're doing something for the fires in LA that was unrelated.

I mean, water matters in the West and it matters in the Central Valley. Yeah. And so we were hurt there. This is true all over the place where you're seeing, you know, again, Head Start programs not able to start or food programs in churches. I mean, there's all sorts of negative things

that have occurred already. I think, back to your proposition, when, and I don't, it's 80 to 90% of Americans actually want a nonpartisan merit-based civil service. We have to do a better job of connecting the dots for them so that they can see, one, that there is, in fact, a better path, because you can't just argue for the status quo because status quo isn't actually acceptable.

What we're getting is a lot worse, but you don't want to fall back just on the status quo. And we need to get the stories out about just what you've said already, that the civil servants that are being fired, that are being sidelined, are the people who are in their community who are actually delivering real help to them and, and, and, and they're going to lose it otherwise.

And I think that narrative battle is going to be really fundamental as the current administration tries to use government authority to promote its own narrative and frankly use private sector allies to do the same thing. And it's going to be important that truth comes out. Yeah, we need to start connecting those dots for Americans so they see their connection to the government and how it's actually affecting them, especially because the Trump administration

is still trying to disconnect the dots to say, every time there's something bad is gonna happen, they're gonna say, oh, it was because of DEI. It's because there was a black person somewhere who messed everything up. It wasn't because of what we did, which is what they're saying when they're blaming DEI. I think that narrative battle is gonna be fundamental

to whether we actually can come back as a country. So Max, tell us quickly, how can people participate in that narrative battle, and how can people find out more about your work? So I hope people come to our website, ourpublicservice.org. We actually have a lot of resources, both for federal employees, but also around the storytelling. What I think people can do directly, again, is to find that civil servant in their community or in their field of work, and do

something to show some curiosity to find out who they are, what they do, and share their story. Ultimately, we need the people to do this individually, but also collectively, in the places that they operate. So if they're in the business world, or if they're in the that they operate. So if they're in the business world or if they're in the, you know, medical patient advocacy world, or they're in the, you know, the, you know, the agriculture world, wherever it is to activate those organizations that are there to support them to engage in these issues, because it's all entwined. And if we see that happen, we will see, I think, a different world and one in which hopefully we get to a better place.

Well, Max, thank you so much for coming on to tell us about this and give us your view. And thanks for doing the very thankless work you have done for many decades, trying to uphold this very underlooked at part of American life. But I'm hopeful that at least the lens that is being put on it now might lead to a little bit

of good in the future, the fact that we're seeing it. You were early in on this topic. And now we need it even more, like the 100X war. So thank you for all that you're doing and it's a pleasure reconnecting. And I look forward to, you know, hopefully having further conversations and not waiting for something really bad to be happening to connect. Thank you so much for being here, Max. I can't thank you enough.

Thank you. Well, thank you once again to Max Steyer for coming on the show. Once again, if you want to support the show and all the stories we bring you every single week, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover for five bucks a month. You can get every to support the show and all the stories we bring you every single week, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. For five bucks a month, you can get every episode of the show ad-free. For fifteen bucks a month, I will read your credits in the show right now. I'm gonna do it right this very moment. Most recently, I want to thank Brad Corton, Ryan Coupsel Roth,

Robin Ward, Alex Womack, Grant King, and 90 Miles From Needles. If you would like me to read your name or silly screen name in the credits, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. If you wanna come see me on the road in Eugene, Oregon, Burlington, Vermont, London, Amsterdam, all these places, head to adamconover.net for tickets and tour dates. I wanna thank my producers, Sam Radman and Tony Wilson,

everybody here at Headgun for making the show possible. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time on Factually. I don't know anything. That was a hate gum podcast.