Tim Kaine Blasts Trump Over Mass Firings: 'Victims' Have Been  'Disproportionately, Veterans' - video Dailymotion

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke about President Trump's mass firings.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Powers, let me just pick up on what the senator just said.

00:05I heard you say you're going to, within weeks, if you're confirmed, and I think you will be,

00:14that you'll establish benchmarks and markers.

00:21If you come back and testify before us in early January of next year,

00:30do you think you'll be able to say that you will have achieved those benchmarks and milestones

00:38that you're going to set out very soon?

00:44I think I can come back and tell you what those benchmarks and milestones are

00:50and when we expect to get those checked off, not getting them actually completed by January.

00:57That's not going to happen.

00:59Okay.

01:00I see.

01:00Well, we'll explore that further.

01:02Thank you very much for that answer.

01:04Senator Cain, you are recognized.

01:05Thank you, Mr. Chair, and this is a great panel.

01:07All people highly qualified for the positions.

01:11Mr. Coleman, you said, began and finished your testimony with,

01:14the United States is worth defending.

01:16And it made me think if the United States is worth defending,

01:19and we all believe that it is, then public service to the United States is worth defending.

01:25I found it interesting, a common theme in all of your opening testimonies,

01:30and you each write them independently.

01:31But you all emphasize the deep connections that both you and family members have had

01:36to the service of the United States in civilian capacities, in military capacities, in judicial capacities.

01:45Each of you walked through your life and chose to allocate a lot of your five minutes to talk about your justified pride in serving the country.

01:56I've got an awful lot of public servants in Virginia who are right now feeling like they've just been cast aside.

02:03And this is not about any of you, but in the same way that you feel pride in having served the country

02:11and excitement about this next opportunity for service,

02:14in the same way that a whole lot of people in this room and a whole lot of people behind me up here

02:18feel pride that they've chosen to serve their country by being U.S. public servants,

02:24tens of thousands of public servants have been rift, doged, kicked out, fired, locked out of their office,

02:35placed on administrative leave with virtually no process to analyze the merits of their service,

02:42the productivity of the office they work in, or their own careers.

02:47A whole lot of them have been fired for the simple reason that they're probationary,

02:51that they can be fired, that they're in their first year of service and they have little recourse.

02:57Because the federal civilian service is about 30% veteran compared to the public sector being in the single digits veteran,

03:06the victims of this mass firing of federal employees in the last eight months have been disproportionately veterans,

03:15overwhelmingly veterans, DOD civilians, USAID employees,

03:20because veterans serve long periods of time, and then when they transition to civilian workforce,

03:25even if they've been in the military for 25 years, in that first year,

03:28you're a person of great expertise, but you're a probationary employee,

03:32just like a 23-year-old who can be cast aside like you're trash.

03:37And so I'm glad that each of you, in your own way,

03:41decided when you had five minutes before the committee,

03:43the thing that you really wanted to tell us about yourself was your pride in serving this nation

03:48in a whole variety of different ways.

03:51And I want everyone who serves this country to feel proud of it,

03:54to want to do it, and to feel respected and appreciated for having done it.

04:00Mr. Coleman, I just want to, I appreciated our visit in the office a lot,

04:05and this is a really important post, as all of your posts are important.

04:10I'm the lead Democrat on the Sea Power Subcommittee,

04:12so the Navy-Marine issue is really important to Virginia, really important to me.

04:16One of my kids is a Marine Reservist.

04:19How are you going to, should you be confirmed in the Navy,

04:22ensure a smooth transition for employees who were in the deferred resignation program

04:27or the voluntary early retirement authority?

04:30How can you manage that in a smooth way while maintaining operational readiness?

04:36Senator, thank you for the question.

04:38And the civilian workforce that we have is critical to our national security

04:41and the Department of the Navy.

04:42And the decisions that were made previously was not something I took part in,

04:45but future transitions of individuals,

04:49and if we do need to make, you know, right-sizing adjustments,

04:51need to be made done in a data-driven way

04:53to ensure that we're making the right decisions for the Department of the Navy.

04:57One opportunity we could explore is something similar to the TAPS program

05:01that the active duty military has to look at what options to transition are.

05:06You know, shipbuilding and workforce is a critical thing

05:10that we have to think about in the private sector.

05:13There could be opportunities to take folks who have adjacent expertises

05:16and help make those seamless transitions happen for them.

05:20But I look forward to diving in deeper

05:22and understanding the problem more deeply.

05:24You and I talked in my office,

05:25and I won't go further into it, about the Brandon Act,

05:27which is an act that I helped get passed

05:30to really focus upon the mental health needs of sailors,

05:34and there's components to it that are applicable throughout the defense enterprise.

05:37Really important that those resources be available,

05:41that there be no stigma attached to seeking mental health services.

05:44I know that you share that goal.

05:46And then the last thing is,

05:48we talked about the civilian workforce,

05:49but you were also a reservist.

05:50Talk about the way to make sure that our reservists

05:53are really fully, you know, integrated into the Navy mission.

05:57Senator Cairn, thanks for the question.

05:59There's an immense, to the chairman's point,

06:02eagerness to serve our country with very unique skill sets.

06:05And I think the reserves has a unique opportunity

06:07to take the existing reserve members we have

06:09and bring in new members for very targeted skill sets

06:12that we can put them into roles

06:13so they can have immediate impact within the department of Navy.

06:16I think of people who are in, you know, banking or consulting

06:19or are on the front lines of manufacturing

06:22that we need direct insight into in the service.

06:25I think we can find ways to make use of their skills very quickly.

06:28Thank you for that.

06:29I yield back, Mr. Chair.

Tim Kaine Blasts Trump Over Mass Firings: 'Victims' Have Been 'Disproportionately, Veterans'

Category

Transcript

Recommended