In the second hour of Monday’s CBS Mornings, the crew hawked a new book edited by longtime liberal author Michael Lewis based in part on a series of Washington Post stories about federal workers and lamented “truly inspiring work” is being axed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and too many refuse to see “who these people are, and they’re being treated kind of indiscriminately as one giant, you know, amorphous, faceless, you know, group.”
And the real issue with the federal workforce? Lewis proposed those pesky political appointees — including cabinet secretaries selected by the President, who actually answers to voters — don’t truly have the leeway they deserve. It’s a fact many do live-saving work. But if they’re paid by we, the people, how then should they be held accountable based on merit?
Co-host Tony Dokoupil had three teases in which he promised an interview about “some of the truly inspiring work” government workers “do” even though they’re “unseen by the American people” and been “the crosshairs of sweeping spending cuts.”
“There’s been a lot of talk, a lot of news lately about federal workers as President Trump and Elon Musk slash their way through what they call waste, fraud and abuse, but others say the administration is firing dedicated public servants doing essential work, so who are these dedicated public servants,” Dokoupil said later in cuing up Lewis.
After Dokoupil acknowledged there’s little granular details the public may know about the federal workforce and that this book “begins to correct that,” Lewis argued the notion of there being “waste, fraud and abuse in the federal workforce” ignores “who these people are, and they’re being treated kind of indiscriminately as one giant, you know, amorphous, faceless, you know, group” when they’re “mission-driven,” “unbelievable” “characters.”
“[I]t’s not just like public service. It’s like people figured out, like, the key to a meaningful life, almost,” he added.
Lewis next went to argue those pesky political types (i.e. those actually accountable to voters) get in the way:
You find these stories and you think, like, why are they available to tell? Like, why hasn’t someone come in and done this? And there are a couple of reasons, and one is the political process, the way we’ve designed our Executive Branch, there are all of these, you know, people from the White House, political people who are the communications people whose job it is to prevent me from getting to know the government. I mean, that it is such an — the work it takes to get through them to the people who are actually doing the work of governing is — it’s such a nuisance that that’s one of the reasons. The other reason is, as people, they’re like — they’re not self- promotional.They’re — the kind of people who go into those jobs do not brag about themselves. And they’re — they — but this is also true of characters, generally. People who don’t think their characters make the best character.
Lewis also explained what’s happened to some of the government workers profiled (click “expand”):
BURLESON: And one of the essays says, the factory of the federal government ain’t going nowhere. So how are the people profiled in this book, how have they been affected by the federal layoffs —
LEWIS: Very good question.
BURLESON: — by the Trump administration.
LEWIS: Very good question. So I’ve taken an informal survey of my characters and the other writers. Two have left, felt uncomfortable and left.
DOKOUPIL: They left voluntarily?
LEWIS: Yes.
DOKOUPIL: Wow.
LEWIS: One — the SEAL Team Six guy in the IRS who has recovered billions — billions money for the taxpayer by finding kind of crypto fraud rings, broken up child sex trafficking rings, he has had his whole unit gutted.
BURLESON: Is his name Jarod Koopman?
LEWIS: Yes. he feels like he can’t — I know that half his unit has been like gutted.
DIAZ: Wow.
LEWIS: The character, the first character I wrote about, the guy who figure out how to stop roofs falling in on the heads of coal miners saved thousands of lives, an amazing story, I think he feels at risk right now. I mean, he’s been told his credit card is being taken away and this —
BURLESON: What?
LEWIS: — all of this kind of stuff. Yes. No, it’s — can I just — I hate to go on, but it is — I think this is an important subject.
BURLESON: Go ahead.
LEWIS: In what large organization do you successfully manage if you start by telling everybody is a crook, a waste, by vilifying the employees? They all feel vilified.
CBS Mornings Plus co-host Adriana Diaz closed things out with a softball question wondering “what do you think the administration is misunderstanding about these federal employees[.]”
Lewis replied the Trump administration has “paid very little attention to what they actually do” and have been “unclear what [they are] trying to achieve.”
Note how Lewis said what constitutes “waste” is complicated:
[I]t really isn’t like eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, because they’ve done — they’ve done the opposite. They’ve eliminated the people in the government, the Inspector General, who’s looking for fraud. Waste is — waste is complicated, but it’s — they’re going — what they’re doing, I think they have some other agenda. I don’t think the agenda — I think they’re saying they’re doing something different than what they actually want to do, and they don’t actually care very much what people do. I think this is a little experiment on what happens to our society if we decide not to govern ourselves.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from March 17, click here.
