The Daily Signal - 'You've Got to Fight': Reagan Veteran Praises Trump's War on the Deep State

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Don Devine is proud that The Washington Post once attacked him as President Ronald Reagan's "terrible swift sword of the civil service," but even he is blown away by the muscular reforms of the Trump administration.   That doesn't stop him from giving advice on how to slay the deep state leviathan, however. Devine, who served as the second director of the Office of Personnel Management under Reagan from 1981 to 1985, warned that public-sector unions will always oppose efforts to bring the administrative state to heel, so any conservative will have to take on these issues with steely resolve.   "They're going to be fighting you no matter what you do," Devine told The Daily Signal.   "The unions in the government, which shouldn't even be there ... The unions, that's their job, all right? If you do anything, they're going to go to the courts after you."   "So, what's the answer? You got to do it anyway, you got to fight them," he explained. Public-sector unions, who represent federal government employees, have filed multiple lawsuits to block Trump's reforms on everything from DOGE getting access to federal data to the firing of probationary employees to the removal of collective bargaining privileges.   Trump has just the stomach to face this threat, however, Devine said.   Tune in to find out what happens next! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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He held up the Washington Post, the front page, which attacked him as President Reagan's terrible swift sword of the civil service. And, you know, this is a fantastic piece of evidence, not only of the left's bias, but also of Don Devine, the reason why I wanted to sit down with him, he helped Reagan go through and hold the bureaucracy accountable. And now he says he has advice for President Trump, and he says he's never seen a transition as good as this Trump 2025 transition. My interview with Don Devine is next. At Desjardin, we speak business.

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I'm honored to be joined by none other than Don Devine, who was President Reagan's personnel policy manager in the transition in 1980 and then also his first manager of the Office of Personnel Management. Don, it's an honor to have you with us. Well, thank you. Pleasure to be here. So we've seen, you know, President Trump and Elon Musk and then, of course, Doge overall as the office, go from, agency to agency to agency, shaking things up, exposing waste and abuse, and, you know, leading this effort that really is reminiscent of the early efforts from President Reagan's tenure, a little bit of cost-cutting things we saw even under Clinton and Obama. How do you see

Doja's efforts right now? And what advice would you give to this? incredible effort. Well, they've been way ahead of us all away from the beginning. I mean, this is by far the best transition I've ever seen, and I follow them pretty closely over the years. They started early, of course, it was earlier president, so he had some experience with this, too. I mean, it's just so much better with different groups on the outside, helping them also beforehand. It's just awesome on what we could do. You know, the first one we did was the Heritage Foundation's first outside attempt to do. transition, I mean, it started from zero.

And I mean, these people have been so lucky. They had a first term. They learned a lot there. I had several groups doing research for them beforehand. They're just so far ahead of everybody. There's no real equivalent to it. it. So I want to zero in a little bit on OPM because that's what you headed for those who aren't familiar with how important this agency is. How would you briefly describe OPM and the window

that it gave you when you let it on the bureaucracy in this threat? Well, first to have to remember that the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978 was put in by Carter, right? And they really redid the whole civil service. And the one who was the first head of the OPM and put it together was actually my professor.

We can believe that. Wow. At Syracuse University, a Democrat, big Democrat. on the State Committee. And he actually taught me about how you really run government. It's interesting. I had a Democratic friend who said, you know, the difference is that the Republicans come in,

they think that you can run the government like in a private sector, which, of course, you can't. All right? Ludwig von Mises wrote the book 60, 80 years ago about how, what is the difference is between a private and the public sector of bureaucracy. And unfortunately, so many in the private sector when they come in try to run it like it's a private sector and you can't. It's a totally different operation. And, you know, so much of the people complaining now of. about using the Civil Service Reform Act as fixing, messing it up.

What it's actually doing is doing it the way it's supposed to be done. We were lucky. We were the first ones. In fact, I walked in during the transition to the first time to meet my former professor there, I walk in, he says, you, ask, oh, we. You can say that. I've spent the last four years putting this new Civil Service Reform Act into effect that gives you more control over the bureaucracy,

and you're going to get the benefit of it and not us. I mean, a crazy thing, all right? And we did. I mean, it gives you so much more ability to move people around. All this rigmarole about Schedule F, all Schedule F does is the same thing that the original Civil Service Reform Act did for the mid-level executives. All the top executives, the senior executive service, you can always move them around now. And that was because of Jimmy Carter. Of course, since the time we were in and Reagan,

till now, what's been happening? The bureaucracy keeps adding in new thing, getting rid of the good things that happened. One time, even George H.W. Bush took out a lot of the paper for performance, or at least signed a bill he didn't really want. but the, and so, I mean, it's just, this, the Civil Service Reform Act is there. It's somewhat attenuated over the years. But these people, the Trump people, learned the right way about how you can use it

and how you're actually expected to use it under the Civil Service Reform. Of course, the unions hated it and everybody hated it when it went through, and they needed Republicans to get it. through in the Garder administration. So, I mean, we got a wonderful, better way to run the bureaucracy. We were fortunate for four years to be able to run it. And they've been eating away out of it ever since to try to change it. But most of it's still there in law.

most of it's been changed by regulation rather than law. And these, the Trump people are going in and taking it, right? It's saying this is just regulation. This isn't the law. And very brave. They're just doing so much better. It's great. Now, maybe they've overstepped some steps.

I don't know all about it. But this bureaucracy doesn't work. You know, the Gallup polls for the last 40 years is it doesn't work. We know it doesn't work. And the only way you're going to get it to work is to shake it up a little, maybe shake it up a lot. And that's what they're doing. And they're going to make some mistakes. So people make mistakes, you know.

Well, so zooming out, we talk about the bureaucracy. I think these last few weeks have really shine a light on everything that is probably wrong with it. You know, we've seen a lot of our tax dollars funding DEI in Serbia's workplaces. We've seen them funding, you know, transgender operas in far-flung parts of the world. But this bureaucracy came from Congress effectively giving its authority to the administrative state. So they make a lot more of the rules we have to live by. They're called regulations, not laws, but like Congress passes a few laws and the administrative state passes all the regulations that actively implement rules we have to live by. How do you see the overall threat of making this bureaucracy, you know, the overall goal of making this bureaucracy accountable to the people's elected representatives again?

Is that how you see it? And is there something there that I'm missing? I'm not sure what your question is. I mean, the rest of all, the government's too big. Nobody can run it. I don't care how effective you are. The only way to make this work better is to do less, right? And the idea of like sending back education is critical.

I mean, we're just doing too much. rules all over the place. It doesn't work. I mentioned Von Mises book many years ago. It doesn't work. It has no mechanism of the private sector. They can go down 20 levels of bureaucracy, 50 levels, maybe more. And all they've got to do is go into that little office there and say, is it making a profit or not, all right? So making a profit? All right. Good. If it's not, you know, You get rid of it or change it to do something like that. You don't have that mechanism in the government, all right? In fact, the mechanism works exactly the opposite way.

If you go down and find out that they're not doing well, oh, we're not solving poverty, you put more money in it. So you throw bad money, a good money after bad. And you make a, I mean, the big problem is, You're never going to get it fixed if you don't get most of these functions out of here. Go back to the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 says what they're supposed to be doing there, and that isn't what they're doing to the most extent.

So the basic problem is bureaucracy by its nature is impossible to really work. There's no way to measure what you're doing. The only alternative government sector has is the performance appraisal system, where each level of the bureaucracy rates each level of the bureaucracy going down. Well, everybody knows that doesn't work in the government, all right? Everybody gets high grades. and if you force them to change the grades, what they do is, well, they give you a perfect rating this year

and you give Sam the perfect rating next year, all right? And so it works, all right? That's why Jimmy Carter changed the whole system. He ran directly on that for president. He said, listen, I'm still a good old liberal. The problem is the government doesn't work. you're going to have to give the political people control over the government or it didn't going to work.

I mean, it was a Democrat. I love all Democrats going around like this came from the moon or from Republic. This was a Democratic bill to do this. They're the ones that need to have this work. We want the private sector to do it. So the basic thing. is that it can't work that way. But you can have a better performance appraisal system than a bad one.

I mean, you can require that nobody gets that plays that game, all right? And if you do play that game, you get fired. And we did some of that in the beginning. And of course it was Fresnan and you could get away with a lot. And I was kind of hard-headed not realize how much trouble you get in by trying to run government the right way. Well, because that actually brings up an important point. We've seen a lot of these lawsuits attempting to stop the efforts of Doge attempting to stop this, you know, reining in of the bureaucracy. And I wanted to hear from you what your experience was under Reagan

when you're trying to apply the Civil Service Reform Act. You're trying to rein in the bureaucracy. What were the pitfalls you experienced back then? And what are the pitfalls that the Trump administration should be looking for today? They're going to be fighting you no matter what you do, all right? That's the, the, The unions in the government, which shouldn't even be there. Even FDR thought they shouldn't be there. The unions, that's their job, all right? If you do anything, you're going to fire.

I'll go to the courts after you, all right? So what's the answer? You got to do it anyway. You got to fight them. Maybe you don't quite understand what the court is saying there. I mean, and, you know, it's a dangerous business, actually. I mean, they can send you to jail if you happen to go one step over the line the wrong way. I mean, politics ain't beanbag, is one of the old guys used to say.

It's a hard business, and you make mistakes, you can go to jail. I mean, look what they've been doing to Trump over the last four years. I mean, it's a very dangerous business. The president has powers nobody else does. And I would say the experience in the Reagan administration, which I have in my book, that the ones who did the best job didn't make it very long, all right? You're getting trouble. The media goes crazy all over you, threatened this.

and that, the people in the White House back down, although this drunk guy or something else. I mean, he's so brave. It's incredible. But you have to take chances to get anything done in this system. And I say get a lot of functions back. You know, some functions like defense. I mean, you can't get it back, right? Only the government can do it.

unless you have some brave people trying to lead it, and that's so much the interesting thing about what Trump has made his appointees. They're clearly people with more courage than sophistication, all right? And that's what you need, all right? You need people that are willing to take risks. And people worrying about, oh, it could turn out a dictatorship, believe me, there are 80 billion ways stop all this in the courts and all that. That's the last problem we got.

It's interesting they say he wants to make it a dictatorship when what he's trying to do is pull back the federal government to make them less, you know, impactful in the economy. And they're saying that's a dictatorship. You know, it's like it's fascism to decrease the size and scope of government. Well, I mean, it's, It's really two totally different ways of looking at government. Progressives, I mean, in theory, this isn't picking on a progressive,

believe that the experts should make all the decision. So if a politician comes in and tells me to do it, they start right off that they're wrong, all right? I mean, they don't know as much as I do, all right? That's the way they think. And if you're going to have progressives in control, that's what's going to happen. All right. If you have conservatives who think that they don't really know what they're doing, you've got to make sure they know what you're doing and putting this thing on top of it and that time on top of it.

It's a different way of looking at government. So it's not surprising they're all going off like this. That's the way they think. Anything of political appointees. says is by definition, not as good as what the professional person who's there would tell them to do. I mean, it's that simple. Well, in that progressive mentality, you know, that Woodrow Wilson, you know, we must trust the bureaucrats above all else. It seems there was a time when not all Democrats thought that way. I mean, we had, as you were talking about Carter and with the civil service reform, then, you know, there's Bill Clinton who, you know, he had his own problems, but I don't think he was

quite as top down in the same way that Joe Biden has been in the same way that, you know, their party is right now. Yeah, no, there's no question. They did quite a good job of trying to get a hold of it. But there weren't many others, but they, I will agree, were pretty good, especially for a Democrat. And of course, he really wasn't a progressive Democrat anyway. It's kind of a make things work guy. I would say he was better. I'd say Reagan was first, Carter, second, and the point in third probably something like that. Yeah, what do you see? And now Trump won,

I should say. Yes. Oh, well, I mean, he has been. I think back a little bit of Calvin Coolidge and, oh, gosh, the president right before Calvin Coolidge, who, like, their goal was to rein back the bureaucracy after Woodrow Wilson had war socialism and all of this stuff. And then, of course, Herbert Hoover essentially threw that project out and resurrected progressivism and FDR. You're off to the races. But there was that moment there where we had a little bit of sanity coming in. And now with Trump, I feel like that is Trump is even stronger than they were. Harding. That's the man I'm thinking of.

Warren Harding and then Calvin Coolidge. But do you see similarities between this moment and then? Or how do you see, you know, because I think this battle against the bureaucracy, we haven't seen a presidency as muscular against it as Trump has been this time? Yeah, I think there's some comparisons to after Wilson. There was a reaction to it. And I would say Reagan did some stuff in Carter. But so far, I mean, Trump has tried to do it more than anybody else.

And it's very hard. I mean, when we were in, of course, we had a Democratic House the whole time we were in. He's lucky to have a house, but it's a very slim majority in Congress. And no matter how good you are in the executive branch, if Congress is not helping you, it isn't going to work. So it's encouraging, but it's on a. a very small margin, too. Well, so what prevented Reagan from being as successful as Trump has been in this particular area? I mean, naturally, we can't say that Trump is better than Reagan overall because Reagan achieved so much in fighting the Soviets in redefining the terms of our engagement.

And, you know, he also, there's a reason why we're still talking about him 40 years later. And, you know, I grew up listening to all the great Reagan war stories. Like, he was phenomenal. But I really want to, I kind of want to zoom in to hear from you because you've been saying this new administration is more muscular, more effective at fighting the bureaucracy. And I think that means a ton coming from you with your experience. in the Reagan years. So I'd like to hear, you know, what the key difference is in your view.

Well, biggest difference is just a half century later, right? Yes. We've learned from the past, yeah. Well, not so much that we learned that it's so much worse. I mean, I mean, just think, the fact that you had a Democratic president, just before you who wanted to fix the civil service up and did. You don't have that here, right? Obviously. And even though the Democrats were fighting us all the time in the Reagan period, they had passed the bill. So, you know, they needed Republican support, but they passed the bill.

So it was a different kind of world, really. You had a lot of Southern Democrats that could vote for you and stuff like that. It's much more divided now, all right? And there's so much more government, so much more to take part of. So many things were hanging on the edge. I mean, the deficit debt is unbelievable. And as much as Trump is doing and he's doing a lot of good stuff, I mean, he's not looking at that.

And that's the number one problem facing America, in my opinion. And so I still think it's possible we might get some. real serious economic shop. And Trump may be forced to do, I mean, nobody really wants to try to fix the whole system up. I mean, everybody will tell you going after children and poor people and anything you try to do. We're really in deep shape.

And we're not really anything he's doing and all of it. good or most of it's good. But the fact is that we're not touching the biggest problem we have, which is the deficit. I mean, it's just a tougher, tougher time, really, in all ways. Unions are stronger in the government. How did the unions fight back? And what was the, you know, we talk about the deep state. opposition to Trump. And I think there has been this, you know, because the idea of

progressivism, as you have been discussing it, is this idea that the bureaucrats know better than the elected leaders. And I think that mentality is the central reason why we had a deep state effort against Trump, why I'd argue we even had one to a very limited extent against Biden. And I think, I suspect there was a deep state, you know, bureaucratic pushback against Reagan. I'd like to hear, you know, if that was your experience when you were at OPM, how you dealt with that sort of opposition from the bureaucracy. You just have to take courageous actions. I mean, that's what you got to do. I'm not going to share to an open mic. Any real secrets. But, I mean, you just got to be tough.

And listen, every instinct in government goes against what you're supposed to do. I used to do when I was at OPM, the Heritage Foundation would have people coming into the government or thinking about coming into the government in a big auditorium. And they had me there on personnel working for government. And I would start off with my talk. I'd say, who wants to be a success in Washington? Race your hand. Everybody raises their hand.

I said, well, you want to be success. I'll give you the secret to it. And they all go, poor. I say, don't do anything. Yeah, roll over. Don't do anything. I guarantee you you'll get out of here from four years, and people will say, no, I never heard anything.

think bad about him. I bet you he was great. And that is the underlying dynamics of what goes on in Washington, all right? And that's why it's so wonderful that Trump has picked these people that would never have been picked in any other administration, including all, as I will say. People who are tough, that's what you need. Because every incentive in Washington you want to move up the post there and become a secretary of state or something. I mean, don't do anything. And I just saw a friend of mine I knew way before I went in, had in previous administrations. And I gave him a job in ours. He literally did nothing. The bureaucrat would hand this thing to him. he'd signed it and done it.

He didn't do anything, all right? And he kept getting a appointing after I'm gone. I mean, long after I'm gone. I mean, it's a bad system and has bad incentives in it. And that's why the only real solution is you've got to cut it out and get it of a private sector or states or local, uh, uh,

uh, this bureaucracy and the whole way of the town of Washington. Uh, uh, and, you know, one of the things,

uh, I was always getting hit in the media all the time. I kept finding out that the, the, the media person giving me, uh, trouble. Uh,

Her husband was a lobbyist for one of the... I mean, the whole thing here is insidious. Everybody works on top of everybody else. I mean, that's why, you know, the conservative philosophers, you've got to get the power out of the center, all right? And save it for where you need it in the foreign policy. I mean, the medical system. is so bureaucratized now.

It's almost impossible. My memory of how the system used to work is so superior now. It's all bureaucracy. You've got to sign this, do that. You've got to go to five places before anybody can do anything. I mean, it's bureaucratized. And we got to get back to a free market, local, federal. system. That's what made the country great. And until we change that, nothing but's going to change.

That's why it's so exciting that maybe it'll do something on education. That's a very important thing and should never have come up here. Jimmy Carter did that to pay the union's office, supporting him when he ran. When he created the Department of Education? Yeah. That's in my lifetime. That's not like it was there forever, you know? Well, and even, yeah, Reagan was talking about getting rid of it.

Yeah. And unfortunately never, I think the reason he never did so was because the Democrats had the House. Is that, or why do you think he never actually successfully got rid of the Department of Education? Well, it is. The Democrats had the House the whole time. And a lot of Republicans, I mean, the teachers' unions are so smart. I mean, you know, one of the things, it's not a big thing on my part, but one of the things Trump wants to move more of the government out in the state, that's exactly the wrong thing to do. All you're doing is putting more lobbyists out where the good congressmen are. You're turning, you're paying to have your congressman lobbied by any of the people you send out there. And, of course, most of the government is already out there.

I would have Republicans come to me and say, oh, I'm getting so much pressure against your pay for performance for the federal employees. I said, where are you? You're from the middle of Iowa. Where the hell? there's nobody out there. Well, of course, what they did, there can only be four people out there. That's their number one job is to get you to do what their government,

their government agency does. I ran for Congress. And I went around, and of course it's in Maryland. It's a hopeless state. But I ran there, and I would go out to the speaking engagements thing there. And after a while, I started to realize the same people were out there all the time, and they were all people, government employees, or contractors, mostly contractors. And, you know, we talk about cutting the federal employees, 2 million people.

Two million employees, there are 20 million contractors out there. Right? Yep. I mean, the government is all over the place, and it's very hard to change it. And the Republican are, as I say, most of the employees are out there already. Most of the federal employees are out there, and contractors are out there, and they lobby Republicans. It's both parties they try to speak it's both parties they try to yeah um get you from yeah if you're in a republican district then you work for the government you're a republican all right

on paper well thank you so much uh don divine for for joining us uh is there anything else you'd like to add on these things yeah i want to show you something funny can you can you see this online. Yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's you on the Washington Post. Yeah, that's great. I love the framing. You see what it says at the bottom? The boss, Donald Devine, Reagan's terrible swift board of the civil service. Terrible. That's almost like you had a chainsaw or something. So that's what the Trump people should be aiming at. The front page. the post saying how bad you are. Well, I can't think of a better way to end.

Thank you so much, Don Devine, for joining us. And can you tell the people where they can follow you? Well, I'm not big on how people follow you these days. I write for the American Spectator and other kind of organizations. It's fun for American Studies. where I teach. Thank you again so much for joining us. Okay, thank you.

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