Transcript
Caroline Levitt (0:03)
We are saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars with this buyout. In fact, I can confirm that more than 77,000 federal employees accepted this very generous buyout offer from the Trump administration.
Unnamed Reporter (0:18)
That was White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt announcing the number of federal employees who have accepted the Trump Doge buyout. Thirty days into his second term, President Trump has taken aggressive steps to reshape the executive AGENC by forcing out tens of thousands of federal workers, part of a personnel is policy approach designed to remove those who'd block his America first agenda.
Georgia Howe (0:41)
In this episode, we speak to daily signals Tyler O'Neill about the deeply entrenched Washington bureaucrats that he documents in his new book and what it's going to take to fully revamp the federal government. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor in Chief John Bickley. It's Saturday, February 22nd, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now is the Daily Signals Tyler O'Neill, author of the Woketopus. Tyler, thanks so much for coming on.
Tyler O'Neill (1:14)
Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Georgia Howe (1:16)
So I wanted to start by noting an article that you wrote for the New York Post discussing a concerning poll of federal employees. Can you tell us a little bit about what that poll found?
Tyler O'Neill (1:26)
Yeah. So this was a really shocking poll. It found that 64% of Washington, D.C. based federal bureaucrats who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the last election said that they would not follow a lawful order from Trump if they considered it to be bad policy. I think back in the first administration, you had some Republicans or some who identified as Republicans who would still oppose Trump from within. Thankfully, that seems to be less of the case. But the fact that anybody who works in the executive branch would decide and really gear up, up for not following the legal orders of the sitting president is a really shocking development.
Georgia Howe (2:15)
Now, did this ever exist in the reverse? So, for example, do we know if Republican partisans engage in this kind of obstructionist behavior or is this culturally more entrenched on the left?
Tyler O'Neill (2:25)
It's definitely more entrenched on the left wing side. This broader phenomenon dovetails very much with my new book, which is called the Woke the Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government. And in my book, I talk about, you know, the left's vast influence campaign that's propped up by a dark money network led by people like George Soros, who now his son Alex is heading the Open Society Foundations. So in the Biden administration, the influence of this left wing network really exploded. And we saw what I call the Woke to Puss revealing itself in its true form, showing how far its tentacles had reached into the federal government when it came to staffing and advice, and really brainwashing and weaponizing the government to achieve its woke purposes. But even under Biden, we saw many bureaucrats gear up against the sitting president. And these were left wing bureaucrats gearing up against a left wing president because they didn't support his rhetorical stance on Israel. And many of us who know the issue of Israel and the Middle east and Iran in general will know that Biden was by far not the most reliable president when it comes to standing for Israel. He loosened the sanctions on Iran that enabled the rogue state to fund Hamas and likely led to the October 7th terrorist attack. But as soon as that attack happened, Biden came out and said to Israel, we will never fail to have your back. And that messaging didn't comport well with some of the activist groups. And so you saw this gearing Deep State move against a Democratic president from the left because they wanted him to focus on securing a ceasefire deal and essentially not allowing Israel to protect itself and prevent another October 7th terrorist pogrom.