AFGE Leader Sheria Smith on Fighting Back Against Trump

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0:30Ben Meiselas:Hi, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Are you looking for a beach read this summer? May I suggest your big wireless bill? It's got suspense, mystery, a slightly flat emotional arc, and a shocking twist where you realize you've been overpaying the entire time. Fortunately, though, Mint's story is better. Every plan,$15 a month, even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending. Zero tears. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy.

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1:48Ben Meiselas:They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight, we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today. on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. I want to dig deeper into the catastrophic impact, the cataclysmic impact, if you will, of Donald Trump firing critical government workers across the board and who he's replacing them with and what we're actually seeing. So you probably have all seen the visual and that this is playing out in different ways across different government departments. But you've all may have seen, you know, in the State Department with a clap out as career people, people who've worked their whole lives at the State Department, dedicated their lives to our country, were all of a sudden fired.

2:36Ben Meiselas:We're talking, by the way, about people who worked in the International Sex Trafficking Prevention Unit, people who worked in USAID, people who worked across the board in order to show America's soft power across the world and also to engage in diplomacy. So let me just show you some of these scenes because, and to me, it's so un-American, but to see these career workers holding boxes and basically being perp walked out of buildings where they've been for their lives. Let me show you one of them right here.

3:27Ben Meiselas:And here's another example of that. Let's play this.

3:36Ben Meiselas:And in comes the MAGA crew, right? People like Laura Loomer, 9-11 conspiracy theorists, people who have said horrific, horrific things publicly. a loomer post, a productive afternoon of meetings at the State Department. So we're getting rid of our best and brightest career people and replacing them with loomers. How despicable is that? We should talk about the Department of Education, the massive cuts there. The only thing it seems that the Trump regime is using the Department of Education for is what Linda McMahon is doing, weaponizing it, one, to basically go after people who need to pay their student loans, and then secondly, to destroy the Department of Education from within and to attack universities publicly, like we saw with Columbia University that recently capitulated, and they somehow think that they're not going to just keep on coming back to the well of the Trump regime and keep coming after Columbia University.

4:40Ben Meiselas:So I want to speak with Sharia Smith. She's the president, the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 252, which is a national local, oversees 3 ,000 Department of Education workers. I want you to tell me what are you seeing from your perspective at the highest level? And then I think we'll kind of surgically go through the impacts this is happening. Yeah, what we are experiencing as a nation is an attack on working people. You know, not just my members and me whose jobs are on the line, but as you mentioned, they're weaponizing this agency to go after people who owe student loans or to go after school districts that are providing programs and resources for their most vulnerable students.

5:30These are all attacks on working people. And then also, you know, trying to defund And the main means for working people to advance and improve their lives, which is through education, defunding those avenues altogether. And so it is extremely disconcerting to not only see these horrific attacks on public employees, but also the impact, the negative impact it's going to have on working America.

6:02Ben Meiselas:What are you hearing from your workers who you represent in the local? What are some of the stories that they're sharing about how their livelihoods were destroyed or what they were experiencing or the type of jobs that they had that are now not being replaced or being replaced by people who are trying to destroy those spots? You know, our members are angry. They're extremely angry because their jobs are necessary. Many of their jobs are constitutionally mandated. They have been lied about by public officials that should know better. We do not do woke curriculum. We do not have anything to do with whether or not students in certain states perform well on the state test.

6:53test. And so, but we do fund all of the programs that are necessary for all Americans, especially those who are looking to advance their lives through education. So very angry that we've been vilified and lied about. And when you talk about their livelihoods, I mean, we have employees who, had spouses who are battling cancer and not sure about whether or not they're going to have health insurance for their spouses to continue these life-saving support and transfusions. Most of our members, though, are extremely qualified. We could find other jobs, but we dedicated our careers in public service because we care about serving the public.

7:44And so I think And even beyond our livelihoods, we are concerned about what will happen to the public if this administration continues its illegal behavior unchecked.

7:58Ben Meiselas:You know, you mentioned a great point there. It's also kind of like defamation of character. You know, it's losing a job is removing somebody's dignity. Doing it with very little notice is equally horrible. But then basically saying you're doing it because you are a like we're doing it because you're a bad human being and you are engaged in bad behavior. And and that's how it's being messaged, I think, in these in these terminations as well. And so can you speak to that part of it? Because it does seem to also just be, you know, kind of a cruel firing people. Downsizing is always difficult. Sometimes it's needed.

8:46Ben Meiselas:Sometimes there's reasons for it. But it's always something that human beings who care about people should handle with tact and care. And it's the opposite here. I mean, it's being done like a reality show. You're fired. Get the hell out of here. And you deserve it. And don't you dare come back. And people are like, why are you treating me like this? Yeah. I mean, I wish it was like a reality show. I used to watch The Apprentice way back in the day. And, you know, the producers of The Apprentice were way more competent than whoever's running the show in the federal government. I will say, you know, beyond the confusion is also just many of my members have whiplash because they'll get fired or be told that they're going to be fired one day.

9:31And then, you know, the agency will realize, oh, we need these people. We got to push it. We got to rehire them just last week. They just sent about 20 emails to our members who they tried to fire in February, telling them that they needed to report to offices on July 28th because they realized after all these months that their work actually is critical. And so, you know, and if these are the people running the show, these people get paid more than we do. And they are vastly incompetent. They are, you know, not terminating us for any type of cause. you know, in our letters, they'll say, oh, this is not based on your performance.

10:13So then we said, well, if it's not based on our performance, then you can't fire us because we're federal employees. This is not a private company where you just fire people for shareholder profit. There is no shareholders here. We are the shareholders. If there were any, we are taxpayers. We are American citizens. So if you're going to fire us, there has to be just two reasons. That is because there's bad performance, which, again, as a union, we understand and the government has the right to do that. But that is not what exists in our terminations or if there is no longer a need for our jobs.

10:48And as this, you know, the lawsuits that many states and schools are raising against the Department of Education, that's letting the world know that our jobs were needed. They're filing suits against this administration, against Trump and Secretary McMahon, because they are without the services that we provided. And most of those services are financial.

11:10Ben Meiselas:Before we go, anything else you want? We have about six million subscribers on this. Maybe people want to help or you think there's some things that there may be misunderstandings about that you want to clarify. Or just anything you think our audience should know about your local and what's going on and where we go from here. You know, our local is designed to help our employees in the U.S. Department of Education provide a better future for all Americans. You know, there's been a lot of rhetoric hitting people with degrees against people without degrees. But, you know, many people without degrees want their children, their grandchildren to continue to have an education to improve their lives.

11:52I'm a product of sharecroppers. They didn't go to college, but they wanted to work hard. They worked in factories to make sure their children, their grandchildren have the opportunity to go. So what we're seeing is an attack on the ability for students who come from low income areas or low income families or working families. They're foreclosing the opportunity for them to get Pell Grants, to get student loans. That's the only reason why I'm here. You have to ask yourself why. So one of the things I want your listeners and your viewers to know is that they absolutely should and can contact their elected officials and let them know that they want this, you know, these illegal actions to stop.

12:35If they want to fire us, fire us properly. That's all we're asking. Make sure that you're not firing people whose services are necessary. Make sure that you are not wasting taxpayers' time and resources by firing people that you have to rehire because their work is important. They are putting a bulldozer to our administration, our agency, without any plans to recreate the important work that we do. And it's completely inefficient and it's a disrespect for the American people.

13:04Ben Meiselas:Sharia Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 252. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth Over Lies collection at store.midastouch.com. All 100 % USA Union made.

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