Tennessee senator on federal workers buyout and Darren Beattie
(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about President Donald Trump's federal worker buyout plan.
When Brennan asked Hagerty "how putting federal workers on paid leave through September will save taxpayers money if we're not paying them to work," Hagerty said:
"I think what President Trump is trying to do is be humane in the process of allowing them to make plans to find other employment, but I certainly think the government is far too big, far too bloated, and we're on a path now to start to see it shrink. This is the first step only, but we're moving in the right direction."
Brennan then followed up by asking if the agencies "won't hire replacements for these people who take the so-called buyout" and if they're reducing headcount, and Hagerty responded saying:
"I think what we'll see is each agency...go through a top to bottom review to decide exactly what they need to do to deliver on behalf of the American public. As you know, there's been a lot of consternation and pearl clutching about the activities of Elon Musk and his team, but their charge, led by President Trump, is to go in and find efficiencies, find opportunities, and, frankly, deliver more of taxpayer dollars to the actual programs that are intended less to overhead in administration."
During the interview, Brennan and Hagerty talked about Darren Beattie being named Acting Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy.
Beattie is a conservative author who has spread conspiracy theories about the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Beattie was fired from the Trump's administration during his first term after it emerged that Beattie appeared at a conference with white nationalists in 2016.
When asked if couldn't work for the first Trump administration, how is Beattie qualified to work with the administration now, Hagerty declined to comment.
However, Brennan asked if Hagerty knows "exactly which goods or countries will be impacted in the coming days" after President Trump announced that he plans on "new reciprocal tariffs on everybody," and Hagerty answered saying:
"I talked with President Trump on Friday about this broadly...This is a concern that he has had for some time. As you know, I served in his previous administration and worked my heart out to get two trade agreements executed with Japan. I was U.S. Ambassador to Japan in his administration. Here's what we're trying to deal with, and it goes all the way back to World War II and the aftermath...We made very favorable terms of trade with- with countries whose economies had devastated in Europe and Japan. We should have time-limited that...We should have put some type of GDP per capita limit on it, because what we have now are countries that have very unfavorable and unfair terms...It's already begun to happen."
To watch more of Brennan's interview with Hagerty, click here.
