At a Senate Budget Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) questioned OMB deputy director nominee Dan Bishop about Elon Musk's ability to fire people.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We had a little shuffle.
00:03Well, thank you, Mr. Bishop, for agreeing to serve your country again.
00:08I think the American people appreciate your willingness to put yourself into the game,
00:13into the battlefield.
00:14I want to ask you, you've been around, how long have you been around government?
00:18I've been here, I've been around government for eight entire weeks.
00:23How about you?
00:24Senator, a little longer than that, but I too think of myself as a private sector career
00:29person.
00:30I spent 30 years practicing law in a small firm, serving people whose lives were on the
00:35line, frankly, in commercial matters that might be their business ownership or something
00:39that was ...
00:40But how long as an elected official?
00:42So as an elected official, I've been about 10 years.
00:4510 years.
00:46So in that time, especially your time here in Congress, have you ever seen an appetite
00:51to actually reduce the size and scale of government, like a really meaningful effort to make that
00:58happen?
00:59You know, Senator, it has been a constant presence.
01:01I've seen a lot of really great people who have pursued the objective, and yet it doesn't
01:05ever seem to come to pass.
01:07So you would have to conclude that there are a lot of people who are not doing that.
01:12And when you were in a private sector, did you ever run into any organization that didn't
01:16fire anybody?
01:17Like, did you ever run into a company that said, you know, we haven't fired a human being
01:22in 50 years?
01:24Or is it more natural that you have to constantly evaluate your workforce and say, this group
01:32of people just isn't getting the job done?
01:34Maybe they didn't have the right training.
01:36Maybe they were the bad hire.
01:38Whatever reason.
01:39But I've found in my private sector experience that when you do that, when you reduce and
01:46get rid of and eliminate poor performers, the whole enterprise rises.
01:49Did you find that?
01:50I think that's exactly right, Senator.
01:52And it's never a pleasant task, perhaps, one we'd like to avoid.
01:56But it's one of the tasks that's necessary in order to perform.
01:59And just to clarify some misinformation that's out there online, does Elon Musk personally
02:06have the authority to fire anybody in the United States government?
02:10That is not my understanding.
02:11I will say I'm not involved with the Doge effort directly yet in any way.
02:19But everything that I've understood about it and followed is that he does not exercise
02:23that power directly.
02:24That's in the job of the people who actually do that.
02:26But he can certainly recommend.
02:27So for example, I get a lot of calls from constituents.
02:31So if somebody is a person who works for the VA and her job is to greet veterans at the
02:36door, make sure that they got the resource they need, we look at it and say, that's a
02:39good job, right?
02:40We should have somebody there greeting the veterans, making certain they know what their
02:44needs are.
02:45And if that person lives five hours away and never shows up to the actual VA, would you
02:52think that that's a job that should be eliminated?
02:54That ought to be looked at pretty seriously.
02:56But what if they're a really nice person?
02:57What if they're a really nice guy?
03:01What if they're a veteran themselves and still live five hours away and never show up for
03:06work?
03:07Should we just keep that person on?
03:08That's the kind of thing that doesn't make any sense, Senator.
03:10And the American people are ready for something to be done about it.
03:13And if you have a company, for example, and we're going to get to the bottom of it, HSGAC,
03:17but if you have companies that have sales reps that call on the government and yet allow
03:24something like what's happening at SBA with 37,000 software licenses for 13,000 employees,
03:31does that seem normal to you?
03:34That would never happen in a private business where you're trying to make ends meet, Senator.
03:37I mean, I would just urge my Democrat colleagues, I plead with them.
03:43Argue with us on things that actually are common sense and reasonable.
03:48But to argue the counterpoint that we should absolutely not root out waste, fraud and abuse
03:52and the counterargument would be, oh, we're all for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.
03:57I've been here eight weeks.
03:59They've been here centuries combined, centuries, like literally centuries combined.
04:05And it's never been done.
04:07So maybe sit this one out and allow this effort to go forward and not defend insanity
04:14like what we're seeing.
04:16Look, what the Doge effort is being done, I want to say what I think history is going
04:20to judge this moment.
04:22You have the world's most successful entrepreneur, a guy who has zero reason even to go to work.
04:29He could literally point to anything on earth and say, I'll take it.
04:32I'm going to take that 500-foot yacht and go sail away.
04:35He's sleeping at the executive office building, going through line by line of the federal
04:41budget and recommending things like that to be cut, 4.7 million credit cards out in the
04:48hands of government workers.
04:50I ran a company with 1,100 employees, so a minuscule comparison.
04:53I had five corporate credit cards and I had anxiety over all five of them.
04:59How do you defend that?
05:00Like, why not be on the side where you say, this makes sense.
05:03We've got this incredible entrepreneur, a generational talent, the Thomas Edison of
05:08our time, and he's willing to serve our country to help us.
05:13The guy who you once loved, I mean, the left loved Elon Musk, and now they hate him.
05:20This is the subject of a Taylor Swift breakup song.
05:24I've never seen anything like it.
05:27But I want healthy competition from the other side.
05:30I think we should have a healthy exchange of debate and ideas, but watching them humiliate
05:36themselves last night at the State of the Union address was just too much.
05:40You can't applaud for a 13-year-old black kid who has brain cancer.
05:48Is this where we're at, Mr. Chairman, where we're sitting here as a body that's supposed
05:53to be the deliberative body of the world?
05:57And instead, we can't even get them to applaud for a 13-year-old kid.
06:02We can't get them to say rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse is a good thing.
06:07I urge my Democrat colleagues, don't be like that team that played the University of Miami
06:14and got beat 97 to 0.
06:17We need a healthy, vibrant Democrat Party to challenge us, but challenge us on the things
06:22that make sense.
06:23Don't put out misinformation like we're going to go out there and randomly cut 50% of Medicaid.
06:29Those messages on TV affect real people, real people who think, my God, if this happens,
06:35I don't know what I'm going to do.
06:36That's not what we're doing.
06:38Attack us when you think we're wrong on real information.
06:42My time is way expired.
06:44I used my minute and a half that took me to get to my chair.
06:48But thank you, Mr. Bishop, for serving.
06:49I look forward to you serving with Director Vote.
06:53It was great to see him here today, and I yield the negative amount of my time back
06:57to you, Mr. Chairman.