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The Jim Acosta Show
Rep. Madeleine Dean on GOP budget cuts plus former Rep. Max Rose and a disabled Air Force veteran who was fired from her job at FEMA by DOGE tells her story.
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
All right. Welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta Show. It is Tuesday, March 4th. Trump is going to be giving a big speech to a joint session of Congress in just a few hours from now. The fact checkers better get ready. Fact checkers, start your engines. This is going to be the Indianapolis 500 of fact checking, and all of that gets started very soon. In the meantime, though, I do want to give you a couple of housekeeping items right off the bat. I have coming up in just a short while from now. Congresswoman Madeline Dean from Pennsylvania. She's gonna be joining me in just a few minutes from now. And then later on in the program at about half past the hour, I'm gonna be speaking with former Congressman Max Rose. He is now with the organization Vote Vets, which advocates for veterans around the country. And a woman by the name of Aileen Renaud. She is an Air Force veteran who was laid off over at FEMA as part of these DOGE cuts. She has a very powerful story to tell that is coming up in just a few moments. And so we're just getting everybody ready, getting everybody into the substack machine. But again, as I was saying a few moments ago, Trump's going to be giving this speech before a joint session of Congress. And obviously, it's going to come as a big bitter pill to swallow for a lot of Americans out there who are obviously impacted negatively, not, not feeling so good about the fact. Disappointed, disheartened, what's the right word here? Pissed. It might be the right word by the fact that he's going to be up there giving a speech before a joint session of Congress when a lot of Americans feel like, and you could put me in this category, he should have been disqualified from the presidency a long time ago. He has no business being there. And so this is going to be difficult, I think, for a lot of people to watch and listen. Let's get through some headlines because there's a lot of big stuff happening, a lot of stuff to talk about. We'll break it down with the congresswoman in a few minutes from now, and then we'll talk about it with Max Rose and this Air Force veteran. As I was saying, Trump's speech before joint session of Congress begins in a few hours from now, just as Trump is putting his finishing touches on his speech. Get a load of what his White House counselor. Have you heard of Alina Haba? She was a prominent spokesperson for Trump when he was in all that legal hot water before he was reelected. Alina Haba, she's A White House counselor. Now, she told reporters earlier today what her thoughts were on veterans who are losing their jobs as a part of these Doge cuts. So it's perfect that we have this lady from the Air Force who was working for fema. Her name is. She's just, she's just a very sharp person. I'm going to call her Mrs. Renaud because, because she's in the Air Force. I want to show some respect. Aileen Renault is her name. She's going to be joining us in just a few moments. But I've heard a lot of dumb things uttered by White House officials over the years. You remember when Sean Spicer said Trump had the biggest inauguration crowd size in American history, even though we knew that wasn't true. Remember when Kellyanne Conway uttered the term alternative facts? Well, we have a new statement from the Trump White House that is going to blow your mind. This, this is all about what Alina Haba said earlier today. She was talking about veterans who have lost their jobs as part of these Doge cuts. And she said, quote, perhaps this is what she said, quote, perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment. That's right. That is what she said. Perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment. Let me give you the full context. This is from NBC News. White House advisor Alina Haba said today that military veterans affected by the Doge led layoffs of federal workers may not be, quote, fit to have a job at this moment. Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn, Haba was asked about fired workers whom Democrats have invited to Trump's joint address to Congress. Later on tonight, Haba defended the cuts and said she had no sympathy for the thousands of people who have lost their jobs. This is what she said about the people who've lost their jobs in these dogecots. Quote, I really don't feel sorry for them. Haba said, quote, they should get back to work for the American people like President Trump and this administration. A reporter then noted, this is again according to NBC News. A reporter then noted that some military veterans have been a part of this group. Here's what she said. Quote, that's something that the president has always cared about. Anybody in blue, anybody that serves this country. But at the same time, we have taxpayer dollars, we have a fiscal responsibility to use taxpayer dollars to pay people that actually work. She said, the quote continues, that doesn't mean that we forget our veterans by any means. She added, we're going to take care for them in the Right way. But this is. Here's the money part. She goes, but perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment or not willing to come to work. I can't wait to hear what Aileen Renaud thinks about this. Haba goes on to say, and we can't, you know, I wouldn't take money from you and pay somebody and say, sorry, you know, they're not going to come to work. It's just not acceptable. End quote. All of that from Alina Haba. I mean, what a. I mean, there's tone deaf and then there's what Alina Haba just said. And I think this typifies the attitude that we've been hearing from the Trump administration. They seem to think that people who work for the federal government don't actually work. Okay, we'll tell that to the people who are trying to cure cancer at the nih. Tell that to the air traffic controllers who work for the faa. Tell that for the people who work at usaid. Tell that to the people who work for the FBI who are trying to solve crimes and solve cases, important cases out there. People who work in all people at the CIA, people who protect the president over the U.S. secret Service. They don't work. And if you're a veteran, I think Alina Haba owes these veterans a whole lot more than, well, perhaps they're not fit to work. Give me a break. Give me a break. And that's one reason why I'm glad we're going to be talking with Max Rose. He's a military veteran. I'm going to be talking with Aileen Renaud. I should say. I keep messing up Renault. I apologize for that. She worked in the Air Force. She's a veteran of the Air Force and was working for fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, until she was laid off just a couple of weeks ago and is a part of these sweeping layoffs that have been going on around the country. And, I mean, wait till you hear what Helene has to say. She was telling us the story that she was one of the first workers to be deployed for Hurricane Helene. I mean, that is something that people just don't think very deeply about. This inside the Trump administration. A lot of the people who work at FEMA are military veterans, and they're perfect for that kind of a job to respond to a big emergency if a natural disaster happens and FEMA has to deploy. People who are people who are ideal for those kinds of assignments, people who have worked in the military, people who are veterans who are accustomed to the concept of hurry up and wait. This is something that goes on with folks in the military all the time. And they're absolutely ready to go, ready to be deployed. And a lot of these veterans, they want to work, they want to serve. They want to serve this country. So I'm really looking forward to talking to Aileen Renaud. I'm going to get her name right when she comes on in about 20 minutes or so. Now, Max Rose is going to be with her. But we have some other headlines to walk you through at this hour. I'm not even at what may be the top story of the day. And that is Trump's trade war is on. The Washington Post reporting this as President Donald Trump's new tariffs on the nation's three top trading partners took effect today. China, Mexico and Canada announced that they would retaliate with tariffs of their own, unleashing a potentially devastating trade war. This is how the Washington Post is describing it. During a Tuesday news conference, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decried the American trade war, as he called it, warning that it is going to hurt all of us. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, she's also told reporters down in Mexico City that she is going to announce retaliatory actions at a rally in the Zocalo that's the country's main square in Mexico City on Sunday. So Mexico also preparing retaliatory tariffs. Yahoo. Finance reporting on the reaction on Wall Street. The reaction was not good. The Dow Jones industrial average fell about 1.5% or over 650 points as losses escalated into the close, while the Benchmark S&P 500 dropped around 1.2%. The tech heavy NASDAQ was traded in the green at one point of the day in trading. This is according to Yahoo. Finance, closed down about 0.4% but was able to avoid entering correction territory. Folks, I mean, this is something that Trump has long threatened to do. He talked about this during the campaign. He sort of talked about it as if it's an economic magic wand. Well, if I just impose some tariffs, it's gonna solve all of these problems. And one of the things that somebody with the handle God points out, he bankrupted a casino. Yes, that is true. One of the things that Donald Trump has been saying, and I hope to talk about this with Congresswoman Madeline Dean here in just a few moments, he's been saying, well, these companies that have moved to Canada, Mexico and are supplying goods and manufacturing products that come back in the US Are going to get tariff. They can just go and build a factory over here in the U.S. okay, well, that's not going to happen overnight. Obviously these companies are not going to build factories in the US Overnight to the extent where workers can go in and start working. And it just goes to show you, it goes back to what Alina Habo was saying about the people who have been affected by these Doge cuts. They just don't seem to get it. They just don't seem to get it. And that is why you're seeing these town halls erupt with all sorts of pissed off Americans, people who are saying, I can't believe this is happening. And this is happening at Republican town hall meetings, whether they're in the House or they're in the Senate. And so for Trump to go out and say, well, they just built a factory in the US that, that is completely missing the point that it is going to cause pain right now. It is going to cause prices to go up. Avocados coming from Mexico, lumber coming in from Canada. That is why we have these free trade agreements with our neighboring countries. Because we send goods to them. They send goods and products to us. It's called free trade. It's something that Republicans used to care about. So we're going to talk about this with the congressman in just a moment. And one other headline I want to get to as for the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a new framework for partial ceasefire with Russia on Tuesday. He posted on X earlier today that Kyiv would be willing to release prisoners and agree to a truce that would ban long range attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure. That I think is very important. Zelenskyy was obviously here in Washington the other day. He was taking a lot of incoming from Donald Trump and from, from J.D. vance and you know, let's see here. All right, you know what? Actually right now we're going to bring in Madeline Dean. I believe she is ready to go. Let's do this. And stand by everybody. Hopefully see if I've done this correct here. If I've got Madeline Dean ready to go. I'm hoping that this is all good and set, folks. Stand by. I believe I have, I believe I have. There's the congresswoman right there. Hey, Congressman, great to see you.
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Madeline Dean
Hello, Jim.
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Jim Acosta
It's so, it's, it's terrific to see you. And, and welcome to Substack. Is this your first Substack?
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Madeline Dean
This is my first substack. I would do it with no one except Jim Acosta.
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Jim Acosta
Very good. Well, I appreciate you Being patient with me working the substack machine, because as I used to say when I was working in television, never let the correspondent, never let the anchor handle the equipment. And now I'm hand handling the equipment. So I know batten down the hatches, but I don't know if you were listening to some of the setup there that I was doing for the show. A lot of places to start, I guess, first of all, the thing that might have the most immediate effect on Americans, these tariffs that are going into effect on products coming in from Mexico and Canada. Justin Trudeau, Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, they're announcing these retaliatory actions. What do you think the impact is going to be on Americans?
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Madeline Dean
Tariffs are attacks on Americans. We all know that. The president actually knows that. But he just continues to peddle this lie. And can you imagine doing this to our closest allies, Canada and Mexico? So it's bad for business, it's bad for our economy, it is bad for prices for everyday Americans, which is exactly what Donald Trump ran on. He was going to reduce prices for you and me. Well, he's not doing that. And I think about it, I think about it. I was recently out in LA taking a look at the horrific, they're incomprehensible fire damage. And you think of lumber coming in from Mexico, you think of fruits, vegetables, avocados coming in from Mexico, you know, Canada, Mexico, our closest allies. And, you know, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are wrecking balls. But what I don't want to focus on is I don't want to focus on those characters because that's what they become. They're just characters. I want to focus on the harm to everyday Americans. So tariffs are taxes on you and me increasing the prices for that which we buy.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. And you know, when Trump says, oh, well, why don't they just build some factories in America and that'll solve the problem. I mean, I was making the point earlier. Okay, yeah, we would love to see more factories built in this country. As a matter of fact, President Biden was doing some of that. The manufacturing sector was coming back when he was president. But at the same time, it's sort of overlooking the, the practical matter of the fact that you can't just build a factory overnight. I mean, it's not going to happen overnight. And so you are going to have. And they seem to be acknowledging that people are going to be put through some economic pain. And in the hopes of realizing what something he's been talking about for years and years. As some sort of economic magic wand. When it's not. When you have a trade war, folks do suffer, industries suffer, farmers suffer.
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Madeline Dean
You know, I was thinking about that. And for example, what's going on is hurting directly farmers in my district, farmers across America. I am all for more manufacturing in the United States. I've done everything in my power and we have the chance to make a difference there for manufacturing in America. As you rightly point out, in the last administration, with Democrats in the majority, we passed legislation that got to President Biden's desk that initiated more incentives for manufacturing in America. We need to do more of that. Specifically, I'm talking about the Chips and Science act with IRA and the other bills that we have passed, but jobs and our economy, the Infrastructure act, sadly, this current president isn't interested in that. And he naively says to the American people, yeah, we're just going to demand more manufacturing overnight of lumber, you know, of chips. And he's not even talking about chips, frankly. So we're in a very strange place, Jim. Yeah, I'm very worried. I mean, I'm going to be at the State of the Union tonight wearing my white and I wear it every single year. And it is a sense of a reminder of suffrage, of women's fight to vote, of others fight to vote, that our voices and our vote would be heard. But this I want your viewers to know what we're going through is so not normal. And while there is a sideshow of Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump and all of those who are in this cult like place, the real Americans, my constituents are being hurt, Veterans are being hurt, Veterans health care is being hurt. Tonight I have a really fantastic guest for the State of the Union. It is Joe Idle and his family, his mom and dad. Joe Idle received the first dual transplant, dual organ transplant.
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Jim Acosta
Wow.
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Madeline Dean
As a Down syndrome adult American saving his life. And his parents said thank you to Medicaid. Medicaid, it's life saving health care in this country. And so they're coming tonight. I can't wait to be here with them. But this isn't about the shiny object that is the disgrace of this president, this vice president. This is about real Americans getting hurt.
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Jim Acosta
Well, and you brought up the situation with Medicaid. I mean, it is, we're sipping from a fire hose these days. And perhaps not enough attention is being paid to the deep cuts that may occur if this Republican budget is passed. The so called big beautiful bill, which may be big, but it may not be beautiful for a lot of Americans who Rely on Head Start, food stamps, the SNAP program, Medicaid, like you said. And it sounds as though you're going to have very deep cuts in a lot of programs a lot of Americans rely and depend on to make room for an extension of the Trump tax cuts, which obviously benefit the wealthy and big corporations.
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Madeline Dean
I thank you for covering that. And you've always been a part of the truth tellers. You know, Jim, I've been in Congress. This is the beginning of my fourth term, so six plus years. And I recognized that really my job has become to just keep telling the truth. And so, for example, over the weekend, I was so disappointed in the speaker of the House who kept saying, by the way, do a fact check, do a word check on the budget framework. Nowhere in there will you see cuts to Medicaid. That is so disingenuous. You and I both know it. Because when the framework says cut energy and Commerce by $880 billion, there's nowhere else to go. That's a cut to Medicaid, which is health care to Americans.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the sausage making process from an Upton Sinclair book. I mean, it's, you know, you don't want to see what's going into this sausage press when it's being, when it's being churned out. And I see you wearing the yellow and blue scarf for Ukraine. Yes, I do want to ask you about that because we saw that, I mean, that debacle in the Oval Office on Friday. Now Zelenskyy is trying to put the pieces back together again. He's offering a ceasefire deal of his own, a truce deal of his own. Where are we in all of this? And I mean, what, I mean, what can Democrats do at this point? The commander in chief is the commander in chief. And he can make a mess out of this if he wants to and align himself with Putin if he wants to.
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Madeline Dean
Well, I hope all of America will say, no, you can't, not on our behalf, not on our watch. We will not align with Mr. Putin. What we saw February 28th, Friday in the Oval Office, I'll never forget. And we mustn't forget, we mustn't say that is normal. What that did was to elevate Mr. Putin to weaken Donald Trump and J.D. vance. It was shameful behavior to our ally, a president at war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I have an op ed that I'm hoping somebody will pick up, Jim. We'll see if it works out. But of the idea of decency, of the idea of gratitude, it should be on us to be thankful to Ukraine for doing exactly what we would do, which is to stand up against an oppressor and to stand up for democracy. And so I'm certain this can be repaired. But I have to admit to you, I can't understand how an American President and J.D. vance as Vice President acted like two bit bullies on a playground against a president at war. They did it for their own self interest. They did it because for some strange reason, they are more aligned with Putin than they are with the American people. With democracies, with our allies, I'm confident we can repair it. I want to make sure we get all of the aid that we passed. By the way, guys, $183 billion passed by Congress, signed into law by a president. 83 billion has gotten across, Jim. As you know, 100 billion not there yet. Ukraine needs it. They are doing what we would do. They are standing up for us.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, but Trump says he's going to pause that military aid and what happens then?
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Madeline Dean
We are involved, as you know, in dozens of lawsuits and we will continue to do that. And I'll just continue to cry out, and I'm wearing this scarf because my district has a tremendous number of Ukrainian Americans, cultural center, a couple of churches, Ukrainian Catholic churches. So I'll keep crying out and I believe the President will be called on this illegal. Let's face it, folks, this stuff is illegal. What the President is doing, it's unconstitutional. It's against the first, the Article one, our authority, it's against Article two, it's against Article three. And so we're going to have to depend upon those courts to make sure that they reverse that. I do want to say something else, which is that Doge and all of this stuff, this anti Ukraine stuff, which is literally un American to me, it's a smokescreen. We all know that. And what I thank you for doing is calling out that while we have this crazy budget framework that would steal from Medicaid and from health care from the neediest of us, whether it's children, disabled folks, Medicaid for my buddy Joe Idle, who's coming in tonight, this is a smokescreen. They're not trying to save money, they're trying to smoke screen, confuse us. Because what they really want is a huge, huge tax cut for the wealthiest among us.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, and one of the things that, I mean, we pointed this out yesterday over at the New York Times, David Fernhold and his team reported that some of these cuts over a Doge aren't even what they're cracked up to be. They're claiming that they're saving this money and that money. And as it turns out, they're not saving it. It's, you know, they've made accounting errors and so on, I guess. Congressman, the other thing I wanted to ask you is what happens tonight? What should Democrats do? What are you hoping your colleagues will do when we know Trump's going to tell some whoppers in this speech and you saw the behavior from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert when Joe Biden was the president giving a speech like this? What do you think Democrats should do? And overall, how should Democrats react to this moment? There are some, like James Carville who say just hang back, don't do anything right now. Let Trump blow himself up and so on. I, I know a lot of Democrats are saying, you know what, we don't want to take this line down. We want to fight. Where, where are you in all this? And what should we see from Democrats tonight? Sort of some polite applause, a rolling of the eyes. I, I don't know. I, I, I guess I'm sympathetic. I don't know what I would do in your shoes.
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Madeline Dean
Quite often I'm trying to think about it.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, I might stand up and say, well, Mr. President, that's not true. But anyway, yeah, I'm going.
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Madeline Dean
And I think it's a very personal choice, so I won't criticize any of my colleagues who go or don't go. I think it's an incredibly personal choice. I am going because I have respect for the institution that is Congress. I'm lucky. I am privileged to be here to do this work. And so I'm going to say I have respect for that which is the United States House of Representatives. You're in our house, Mr. President. But I will not say this is business as usual and just polite apart and stand up 19 times. I won't be doing that. I hope I hold on to some sense of decorum, but I also will hold on to the truth versus lies. I am there. I have no hope anymore. I literally attended his second inaugural with some stupid hope that some decency would come across from the President who returned to office. That didn't happen. So I no longer have that naive rose colored glasses. Yeah, I will hold on to the truth. I will call out the lies and I will try to show with decency my respect for the office of the President, even as I do not respect, sadly, I do not respect the President of the United States.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah, well, Congresswoman, I appreciate you taking the time for us. I'm glad we made some history here. The very first substack interview with Congresswoman Madeline Dean. This is good stuff here.
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Madeline Dean
Jim Acosta, I'm delighted to see you. Thank you. Thank you for keep. Do your work. You do it so very well. I am so proud to talk to you.
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Jim Acosta
I appreciate it. And come on back anytime, anytime you want to come back on. I'd be glad to have you. Really appreciate the time. Thanks very much. Congresswoman Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania, the very critical state, as we learn every four years, of Pennsylvania, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Congresswoman, thanks very much for your time. We appreciate it.
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Madeline Dean
We'll do it again. Thank you.
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Jim Acosta
All right. Good to see you. Thanks. Well, that was really nice of the congresswoman to join us. I don't know if you've noticed this, folks, folks who are watching this program on a regular basis. We're starting to get some lawmakers, some pretty important lawmakers coming in here and spending some time with us, which I just think is terrific. It's, it's such a, a great tribute to the folks who have been tuning into this program every day. You know, for the folks like yourselves who are watching every day, I mean, you're the reason why, because you're here and you're doing this. You're the reason why you have members of Congress coming on, important, you know, important things, thought leaders coming on. And it just tickles me to death that, that this is all happening. All right, so as I was saying at the top of the program, I'm going to bring in former congressman Max Rose with vote vets, and I'm going to try to bring on as well Aileen Renaud. And I hope, I'm sure I've butchered her name. This is one of my, I will admit, my weaknesses, and one of them is I butcher names from time to time. So she's going to have to set me straight here, here. But let's bring in the former congressman, let's bring in Aen, and if I've said her name wrong, she can set me straight. She wouldn't be the first person to set me straight. You know, I need it from time to time. So we'll. We'll bring in Max and we'll bring in Aen. And I love talking to somebody who not only was in the armed services, but also working for fema. And I've covered a lot of hurricanes over the years, guys. In my very first reporting job at the network level at cbs, I covered Several hurricanes and you know, sometimes, you know, sure. Did FEMA do a bang up job during Hurricane Katrina? Anybody who was around for that? No, but what happened after Katrina was FEMA got its act together and has been performing pretty well over the years responding to natural disasters. And one of the excellent things that they do is they bring in people like our next guest who's coming up in just a few moments. People who work in the armed forces or veterans of the armed forces and are ready to go. They want to continue to serve their country and they do it beautifully. So let's see here. I've got, I think I've got a couple of folks signing on here in just a moment. And the reason why, I mean, one of the reasons why I want to talk about this is because, because, you know, when you're talking about these DOGE cuts, there's, you know, one of the things that can kind of fly over people's heads when you look at these numbers and who's being affected and so on, is the personal impact, the real lives that are at stake, the real people who are at stake. And you know, I mean, I've been talking to folks who are in this fight right now and they're losing very important jobs. And one of the things that we just don't know is what the net effect is going to be when we lose a lot of these people in these very important jobs. There's former Congressman Max Rose. Max, good to see you. Hey, how are you?
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Max Rose
Hey, how's it going, my friend? Good to see you.
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Jim Acosta
Good to see you. Hey, thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Had one of your former colleagues on Madeline Dean just a short while ago and appreciate your patience. I was trying to get the, as I, as I call it, the sub stack machine. I'm trying to get the sub stack machine working there and I see you've done it as well. So congratulations to you. Is this your first time on Substack?
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Max Rose
It actually is and it's, it's wonderful. I'm like, it's like a whole world I didn't know existed.
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Jim Acosta
This is, it's a whole world. And as you'll see at the, on the screen, there are all these chat comments coming in, all these hearts coming in. Obviously they're showing a lot of love to you, Max. So we appreciate that. And you're over at Vote Vets, which is obviously a very important organization. And one of the things that we've been talking about during this program, I talked a little bit about this with Congresswoman Dean is The way that this is impacting veterans, and I wonder if you can speak to that. We're going to have a fellow veteran come on in just a moment to tell us her story. But, Max, why don't you fill us in on how this has been affecting veterans.
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Max Rose
Look, you know, 50% of the federal workforce are veterans, and 50% of those individuals are disabled veterans. So anytime you wage war against the federal workforce, you're going to disproportionately impact veterans. But the other point I would make, and then I think that the words of your other guest are far more important than mine. You know, the. Because they fired individuals who were on their probationary period, there were two ways that you were going to get on your probationary period. One was if you were a recent hire for the first time, and the second is if you were recently promoted. And I believe that that is also having an undue and disproportionate impact on veterans. One, because obviously, veterans are constantly transitioning away from their service into government service, service in uniform to service out of uniform. But also, anyone that spent a day in the military knows that you give veterans an even playing field, and they're going to be disproportionately promoted as well. Yeah. So this is just all around sad and disgraceful, and I think it's imperative that we remember what's happening and forcefully bring it up anytime Trump or his acolytes attempts to say thank you for your service to veterans going forward.
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Jim Acosta
Absolutely. And I believe joining us now as well next to Max is. And I, I think I've said your name like, four different ways teeing up this part of the program. So forgive me, but is it Aileen or Eileen?
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Aileen Renaud
It's Aline. My name is 66 vowels. I don't mind if people mispronounce it the tricky one.
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Jim Acosta
And what's your last name, Elaine? Is it Renaud? Did I get that part right?
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Aileen Renaud
Yes, yes. French Renault.
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Jim Acosta
Very good. Okay. Well, we love the French. Well, your. Your signal is a little unstable. You're breaking up a little bit. But I'm going to take a chance here because we are on substack. And so folks, I found, are a bit forgiving when it comes to, you know, if the signal is a little unstable, usually things stabilize. We've got, you know, we got a good 8,000 people watching that. You'll see more tuning in as we get going through the program. But, Aileen, tell us what happened to you. You were working at fema, right? And then out of nowhere, they you got laid off? What happened?
- [33:49]
Aileen Renaud
Yes, sir. So I actually started with FEMA on July 1, 2024, after I served in the Air Force as a linguist. And then I became a public school school teacher and I decided to go ahead and join the federal government since I'm working on my JD and I, you know, served well. And then when Hurricane Helene hit, I actually was the first person from FEMA on the ground in Unicoi County, Tennessee, which is on the border of North Carolina. So I was where, unfortunately, a lot of the victims of Helene were washing up from North Carolina into Tennessee in the Noachucky River. I was there for a little over 40 days, and when I came back, there was an opportunity for a internal promotion. And I applied and interviewed, went through the process, and I was very excited to start on July. I'm sorry, January 12th, in my new role. And I had also been assigned the team lead role on the healthcare and medical suite of courses offered at the center for Domestic Preparedness where I work. What I, I do is I. Well, what I did was, you know, make sure the, the curriculum for the center for Domestic Preparedness was the best that it could be and update course materials and do the research and implement, you know, pedagogically sound methods to ensure that our state, local, tribal and territorial responders were equipped to deal with stuff, disasters. So at that point, I was really excited about my future, quite frankly. I was recognized, I was recognized nationally by former Deputy administrator Eric Hooks for excellent service while deployed.
- [35:35]
Jim Acosta
Wow.
- [35:35]
Aileen Renaud
I had just received this promotion and on President's Day, I was at Barnes and Nobles with my, my husband and children when I got an email stating that, you know, we need to talk.
- [35:51]
Madeline Dean
Right.
- [35:51]
Aileen Renaud
And it was from the acting superintendent of the center for Domestic Preparedness. So, you know, that's no good if it's on a federal holiday. And thankfully, my local leadership were compassionate enough to give me a heads up and have a really nice conversation with me and with my other colleagues that were also let go and just tell us, like, hey, later today you will be receiving a termination letter. Our hands are tied. We have no choice. We would keep you if we could, but we have no choice. This is coming from the top down. So I did receive the termination letter that day, and I knew probationary employees were on the chopping block, but I genuinely thought, you know, I received an Exceeds Expectations field evaluation while deployed. I received an Exceeds Expectations evaluation while. For my annual review.
- [36:47]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [36:47]
Aileen Renaud
And I just been promoted and I was doing the best I could do and, and I'm a disabled veteran, so I thought I had protections.
- [36:59]
Jim Acosta
Well, that's what I was going to ask you about. Yeah, I was. So you're a disabled veteran of the U.S. air Force?
- [37:05]
Aileen Renaud
Yes, sir.
- [37:06]
Jim Acosta
And, I mean, one would think, gosh, the last people we're going to let go were the veterans and somebody who's disabled on top of that. I mean, it sounds like they just didn't take any care at all. They just said, well, nope, you're a number. You're out of here.
- [37:21]
Aileen Renaud
Well, I actually did receive confirmation that that's exactly what happened. Because when opm, the Office of Personnel Management, sent out that memoir not long after the inauguration stating, send up a list of your probationary employees, we had a town hall at the National Preparedness Directorate level of fema, and I asked that upper leadership, when HR sent those names up.
- [37:47]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [37:47]
Aileen Renaud
Did we include any supervisor recommendations for retention or termination? Did we send annual reviews? Was there anything besides our name? And the answer was, nope, just a name on a list. So. So I can't take it personally at least.
- [38:05]
Jim Acosta
Well, I. I take it personally and it ticks me off. And Max, I'm wondering what you think, and I don't know if you saw this earlier today, but Alina Haba, who is the counselor for the President, said something along the lines of, well, perhaps some of these folks aren't fit to serve and aren't fit to work. Work. And, you know, it just bugs me. It just rubs me the wrong way the way they're going about this. There's just no compassion. There's no sense of humanity. It's just, even if you're a veteran who they profess to care about, you're out.
- [38:39]
Max Rose
Well, remember that. What, what is the North Star they set out here. They set out to address waste, fraud and abuse and try to strengthen America for the future, to overcome future threats. Now, of course, if they were actually serious about waste, fraud and abuse, the last thing that they would do is fire committed veterans who we all know by every stat, by every anecdotal experience, do the job of tens of other people combined. But of course, what they would focus on was, are maybe things like Elon Musk's tens of billions of dollars in subsidies and contracts. Maybe they would focus on tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars of Medicaid fraud. Maybe they would focus on tax giveaways to the billionaire class. No, they don't focus on any of those things all at the same time while they seek to advance a multitrillion dollar debt laden tax cut bill. So what this is actually about in the end is a radical ideological project to destroy the federal government. They don't want the federal government stepping in to ensure equity and education. They don't want the federal government stepping in as a security net when it comes to health care and food provision. And as we talk about veterans, though, Jim, you know, this is not as disastrous as it is that veterans are getting fired. Unfortunately, the story does not end there. They are irreparably harming the va, firing people left and right from the va, preventing new facilities from opening up as they cut programs at HUD that prevents homeless veterans from getting the grant services that they so desperately need. As they cut people at the Small Business Administration, they prevent veterans from getting new small business loans that they need to pursue that next chapter of their lives. Left and right, we're seeing this war on veterans. And it can't be by accident because what these people have done for their entire careers is scoff at veterans, look down at military service, but then try to just say the right song and dance 90 days prior to an election. Well, we're not going to let them forget about what they just did. We will never forget about what they just did.
- [40:57]
Jim Acosta
Well, and it sounds like people are starting to get ticked off. They're starting to show up at these town hall meetings and they're giving members of Congress a piece of their mind. And you're seeing Trump's poll numbers go south. And if we're going to talk about waste, fraud and abuse, I mean, to me, Lena Haba sounds like an example of waste, fraud and abuse. I mean, I don't know why she's there. She was there as a spokesperson for Trump when he was on trial here, there and everywhere. And so, I mean, I don't know how useful she is. I don't know how useful it is for Trump to go to the super bowl and the Daytona 500 and spend tens of millions of dollars on those trips. Yeah, and, and it just bugs me. And because of real people like Aline who are getting hurt. And so, Aline, what does your family do now? How has this affected your family? Oh, no, she might be frozen there. I was on a roll there. Max.
- [41:47]
Max Rose
Substack will forgive us.
- [41:49]
Jim Acosta
I was on a roll there. Well, Max, maybe you could pick up the question because it sounds as though this is just the beginning. This is just a sneak preview of coming attractions. And you talk and I'll try to get a lean back on, but it's, it sounds to Me, they're not stopping. They don't seem to be. And we're going to hear this from Trump tonight. He doesn't seem to be bothered at all by the way this is going for him in the headlines. And I, you know, he doesn't seem to be bothered at all by the idea that you might have Republican members of Congress get knocked out in the upcoming midterms because of the way that they're taking a lot of heat right now.
- [42:29]
Max Rose
Well, look, what Trump and his family truly cares about is ensuring that they have the criminal protection of the presidency for the coming years, ensuring that they can engage in varied forms of grift. I doubt that they care about proximate politics or quite frankly, the voice of the people here. But I don't want the Democrats, I don't think the Democrats should be the defenders of status quo bureaucracy either. You know, and one of the mistakes I think that the Dems have made is that they haven't more forthrightly put forward what their vision of cutting waste, fraud and abuse actually is. Because what's, what's so striking about this right now is while Doge and Trump. We should stop talking about Doge. Let's talk about Trump. Trump is crippling the federal government and crippling vital services to people who need it most most, especially veterans. That's not where the waste, fraud and abuse is, as we spoke earlier. It's about something else entirely.
- [43:40]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, it looks like I gotta lean back. Aline, can you hear me?
- [43:44]
Max Rose
Oh.
- [43:45]
Jim Acosta
Oh, man. As we got going the last time, it sounded as though it stabilized as she was, as she was talking. Elaine, if you can hear me, are you there? Oh, boy. Well, that just, that just sums it up right there. I mean.
- [44:07]
Max Rose
Yeah, well, listen, Elaine has spent the day along with many other veterans who never thought that they would be in this situation, visiting offices on Capitol Hill, having their voices heard. And I do just want to take a moment to reflect on that because, you know, she's just, she's going through right now unmistakable trauma to herself and to her family. And there's a tremendous amount of anxiety centered around that. She's got young children thinking about how am I going to provide or help provide for my family? And the fact that she's taking time and her former colleagues are taking time to continue to serve, to continue to be selfless. That actually tells you everything you need to know about vet culture. That tells you everything you need to know about why veterans are such a positive contribution to the federal workforce. Because it's Always mission first, it's always country first. And in so many ways stand for the exact opposite of what Donald Trump and his colleagues in the White House stand for right now. So it's just, I was blown away and continue to be blown away by everything that she's doing. And what's striking as well was never about her. You can even sense it when she was talking that there's a hesitancy about talking about her own story. It was always about veterans that she knew who were going through something worse. That just reminds me so much of the folks that I served with and acted duty that, that I continue to see in, in uniform.
- [46:00]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [46:00]
Max Rose
It's just, it's the most beautiful thing.
- [46:02]
Jim Acosta
And, and Max, I was making this point and, and before I brought you guys on and, and maybe we can't get Aileen back. We'll try to bring her back another time, but I'm glad we got to hear her story is that one of the things about FEMA that is a nice place for veterans to show up and, and, and go work there after they leave active duty is, you know, it's, it's one of those organizations when, when duty calls, you're out the door. And I know this from covering a lot of hurricanes over the years. And you see those FEMA people show up on the ground, they are deployed by fema. And folks who serve in uniform have that experience in their background. They understand what that's all about. Being asked to go serve their fellow Americans in a disaster zone. And we need people like Aileen. I mean, my goodness, she's a disabled veteran. She's willing to go work for fema, be sent to places like western North Carolina and Tennessee after hurricane like Helene. That's what we need more of in this country. And it just seems like, you know, I know some people are saying, oh, the Doge thing, it's this big distraction and it's Elon Musk dancing around with the chainsaw and stuff. But if they're going and they're cutting real jobs out there and affecting real people like Aileen, you know, that doesn't sound like a bright, shiny object. That doesn't sound like some distraction thing. That sounds like something that's causing real heartache.
- [47:22]
Max Rose
Yeah. And you know, there's a certain level of slack in the federal government that we rely on, too.
- [47:29]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [47:29]
Max Rose
You know, when there's a disaster, people turn around and say, where's the federal government? Right. When you think back to the pandemic, when suddenly hospitals needed all these nurses and Provided providers that suddenly came out of nowhere because they were military reservists and they were other federal employees that were mobilized to go to these localities that were really in pain. Yeah, it's. We, we are going to see the consequences of this for years and years to come. And it, what, what's, I think vital from the, the Democrats standpoint is to tell the story of the actual suffering that this causes.
- [48:12]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [48:13]
Max Rose
And not to make it theoretical, not to talk about, you know, constitutional separations of powers and all the rest of. It's time to get real. It's time to get real. Yeah. And people, people will not support this.
- [48:28]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, Max, it's great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on with Aileen. I know this was your substack. We're getting people accustomed to the substack thing. Sometimes it's your cell phone service, you know, but, but what's, what's great about this is that talk about getting real. Talk about getting raw. This is what it's all about. But Max is quite cool. It's quite, yeah, it's very cool. But we'll have you on again and we'll try to get a lean back again. But really great to talk to you. Thanks a lot, Max.
- [48:57]
Max Rose
Thank you.
- [48:59]
Jim Acosta
Good to see you.
- [49:00]
Max Rose
Bye.
- [49:00]
Jim Acosta
Bye. Bye. And that is that, that's the beauty of, of substack is, you know, you bring people on. They may not be, you know, active on social media. They may come from a, a world where, you know, like Aileen, you know, she was disabled Air Force veteran looking for work. She thought, where else can I serve? Oh, yeah, I can go ret respond to natural disasters. In this country, we need more people like Aline in this country, we need more people like Aline working in the federal government. And that's why these doge cuts, you know, I'm sorry, you know. Yes. Finding waste, fraud and abuse. Let's do that. But my goodness, Alina Haba, when you make comments like perhaps military veterans aren't fit to work, maybe you're the waste, fraud and abuse. Maybe the White House needs to go around and hold up a mirror and take a look at some of the people who are working there and ask whether they're waste, fraud and abuse. Our military veterans are not waste, fraud and abuse. They're our veterans. They've served this country. We owe them a debt of gratitude and the least that we can do, you know, and she was telling the story how she was qualified for a position. She went for a position, she got this promotion after she Went out in the field for four. Did anybody hear that part? I know it was a little tough at times. She was out there for 40 days responding to Hurricane Helene. 40 days. And what's the thanks? What's the thanks that she gets? She gets laid off because to some of the people in this government, running this government, she's just a number. She's not just a number to me. She's not just a number to Max Rose and I appreciate him coming on. She's not just a number to people like Congresswoman Madeline Dean. I thank her for coming on today. I thank all of you for tuning in. And, you know, I always try to end with some, some final thoughts, and I'm just going to leave it right there. Our fellow Americans are not just another number. And you know, we owe people like Ellene a debt of gratitude. We should be thanking her. They should be hiring her back tomorrow. Whoever the administrator is over at fema, who I hope is qualified, the Department of Homeland Security should take a look at this. Hire Aileen back. She's an Air Force veteran. She deserves to have this job. She was qualified for this job. Hire her back. We'll keep talking about this every day, but for now, thanks everybody for watching. Still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. We'll be watching the speech later tonight. I'll try to come up maybe with a late night substack. If you think I'm raw and unfiltered now, wait until after the, after the speech tonight. So tune in then. All right. And I, I believe I'm talking to Don Lemon on his thing later on tonight, I believe over on YouTube. So you want to catch me over there? You can catch me over there as well. All right, everybody, take care. Have a good night. Bye.