Latest / The Breakfast Club / The Firing Order, A Moment of Silence, and BET's Next Chapter

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The Firing Order, A Moment of Silence, and BET's Next Chapter · The Breakfast Club

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: President Trump just signed an order giving him the power
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to fire thousands of career federal workers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: This is another executive order on reforms to the federal workforce. Sir.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: The Minnesota Republican Party just held a moment of silence
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: for Derek Chauvin at its state convention.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: The motion was not out of order, it was seconded.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: And b ET just announced a new board of advisors
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: featuring Bob Johnson, Queen Latifa, and ll Cooljay.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Because I've lived a life, huh yeah.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, June fourth, from the Black Effect Podcast Network.
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: I Mimi Brown.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: This is front page and here are the day's biggest stories.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Plus on the headlines, we didn't take seriously enough the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three law that built the modern federal workforce
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and why Trump is trying to undo it.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Stay with me.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Imagine showing up to work one day after twenty two
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: years on the job and realizing that President of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: United States can now fire you immediately, no warning, no
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: longer review process, no protection, just gone. That's the reality
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: for thousands of senior federal workers who woke up this week.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: President Trump signed a new executive order on Wednesday that
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: gives him the power to fire some of the highest
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: ranking career employees in the federal government.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: This is another executive order on reforms to the Federal Workforce, Sir. Currently,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: with respect to many policy making positions in the departments
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and agencies across government, we lack the ability, because of
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: existing personnel rules, to effectively discipline or promote people who
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: are in policy making roles. This executive order follows on
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: a number of previous executive orders. The end goal is
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: making the federal workforce more accountable.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Let me break down why this matters to people who
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: are living outside of Washington. So, the federal government has
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: about two million civilian workers. Most of our career employees
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: not politicians. These are people who stay at their job
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: whether the president is Republican or Democrat. We're talking scientists, attorneys,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: senior IRS officials, public health experts, people at agencies handling
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: everything from your taxes to veteran benefits to food safety. Historically,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: those workers had protection, meaning they couldn't just be fired
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: because someone in power didn't like what they said or found.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: This new order removes those protections for about eighty thousand
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: senior employees, mostly people at the top of the government
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: pay scale. The White House says this is about accountability,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and the Trump administration argues some powerful federal employees have
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: too much influence over policy and are too difficult to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: remove even if they underperform or resist the president's agenda.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: But federal worker unions say this is about something much bigger.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: They say this opens the door for politics to completely
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: reshape the federal workforce and could scare employees away from
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: speaking up about corruption, fraud, political pressure, or misconduct about it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: If your boss can fire you instantly, are you really
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: going to challenge his leadership? Are you really going to
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: blow the whistle? And that's the fear. Federal unions are
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: already suing, and this fight is expected to end up
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in the courts for months, perhaps even years.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: I want to talk.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: About something that happened in Minnesota this week that a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: lot of people are struggling to understand. The Minnesota Republican
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Party held a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin, the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: former police officer who is convicted of murdering George Floyd.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: This happened during the Minnesota Republican State convention in Duluth
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: over the weekend. A Republican state lawmaker stood up and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: asked the room for a moment of reflection for Chauvin.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: He also said he believed Chauvin deserves a retrial or
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a pardon. So the room voted on it. Then the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: room went silent for Derek Chauvin. And now the Minnesota
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Republican Party is trying to soften the backlash. The party
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: chair later said the moment of silence should not be
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: viewed as an official party position.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: This particular delegate, and I don't know his name, the
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: delegate stood up and made a motion for a moment
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: of silent prayer for Derek Chauvin. He came up and
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: stood in front of the podium and asked if he
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: could do it. And I recommended at that point that
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: he not, but it's his right to be able to
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: do that, as it is any other delegate at that convention.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: And so he did, and the motion was not out
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: of order. It was seconded. I put it to the body,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: The body voted, and we took a very short moment
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: of silent prayer for Derek Chauvin.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: George Floyd's murder was not some unclear case where nobody
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: knows what happened.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: The world watched that video.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: People watched George Floyd be pinned to the ground in
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis in twenty twenty while he repeatedly said he could
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: not breathe. Derek Chauvin was later convicted of murder in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the state courts. He also pled guilty in federal courts
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: who violating Floyd's civil rights. His appeals failed, So for
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: George Floyd's family and a lot of Americans, this moment
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of silence felt less like politics and more like honoring
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the man responsible for Floyd's death. Civil rights attorney Ben
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Crump called it cruel and demanded an apology. Minnesota Attorney
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: General Keith Ellison, who prosecuted Chauvin, said it was shocking
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and disrespectful to both the Floyd family and the justice system.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: But critics are saying this happened at the official state
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: convention on the convention floor after a vote, so people
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: are questioning how separate the party can really be from it,
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  Speaker 1: And honestly, this says a lot about where the country
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: still is five years later after.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: The murder of George Floyd.
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  Speaker 1: Every Thursday on Front Page, we pull back to look
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: at a story that was treated as small or routine
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: at the time, but ended up shaping the world we
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: live in right now.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Today's pick.
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  Speaker 1: January sixteenth, eighteen eighty three, President Chester A Author signed
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a law called Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. You probably
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: never heard of it. I had never heard of it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Most Americans had never heard of it. But if you
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: have a federal job, if you've ever applied for a
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: federal job, if anyone in your family works at the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Post Office, the IRS, Social Security, the VA, the Department
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: of Agriculture, a military base, a federal hospital, NASA, any
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: of it, that eighteen eighty three law is the law
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: that made it possible. So let me walk you through
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: what happened Before eighteen eighty three. The United States government
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: ran on what was called the spoil system. The word
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: spoils comes from the phrase to the victor belongs the spoils.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: What that meant in practice was whoever won the presidency
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: got to hand out federal jobs to whoever they wanted. Friends, donors,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: family members, political loyalists. The people who delivered votes for
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the winning party got the jobs. When the administration changed,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: every federal worker got fired and the new president put
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: in their own people. It was a system that produced
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: massive corruption, people who had no idea what they were
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: doing running federal agencies, bribery, kickbacks, and most importantly, a
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: government workforce that worked for the politician, not the country.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty one, President James Garfield was shot and
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: killed by a disappointed government office seeker, a man who
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: believed he was old a federal job under the spoil
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: system and was upset he didn't get one, so Garfield died.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: The country reacted, and two years later Congress passed the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Pendulan Act. President Arthur who was Garfield's vice president, signed it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: The law created a merit based civil rights service. Federal
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: workers would now be hired through competitive examinations. They could
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: not be fired for political reasons. The federal workforce became,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: for the first time nonpartisan. That's the same system that
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: has built modern American government over the last one hundred
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and forty three years. It's the same system that the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: world looked at and copied France, Germany, Japan. Most modern
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: democracies have a nonpartisan civil service today because the United
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: States showed how it could work. But it's also the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: same system that allowed black Americans into the federal workplace
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: after slavery. Black Americans largely shut out of politics and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: political appointments, the merit system created a pathway. By the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, black Americans were getting federal jobs through exam
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: base hiring at a higher rate then they could get
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: most other jobs in this country postal workers, federal clerks,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: federal scientists. Civil service became one of the largest employers
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: of black Americans in the twentieth centuries. Now, let's check
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the math. The executive order signed by President Trump this
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: week is the first major attack on the pendulum system
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: in this country in modern history. It reclassifies eight thousand
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: career federal workers as at will employees. It stripped civil
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: service protections that have existed since eighteen eighty three, and
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: if it survives the lawsuits, it sets a legal precedent.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Future presidents Republicans or Democrat could expand it to twenty
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: thousand workers, fifty thousand workers, two hundred thousand workers. So
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the lesson when you hear the White House say it's
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: just trying to make the federal government quote more accountable,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: read the fine print, because a fine print is about
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  Speaker 1: who controls the federal government and whether it works for
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the country or it works for the person sitting in
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the Oval office.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: That year, a man got.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Assassinated to build the system we have now, it took
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: ninety years for Black Americans to fully participate in it,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and in twenty twenty six we are watching it get
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: rewritten with an executive order. That's the throwback. So let's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: d the show with something good. B ET just announced
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: its first ever board of advisors, and honestly, the names
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: alone say a lot. The board includes BEET founder Bob Johnson,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Queen Latifa, LLL Cooljay NFL executive Troy Vincent, investment banker
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Roy MacGuire, and Paramount Television chairman George Cheeks. And if
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: you grew up on Beet like I did, this feels
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: bigger than a corporate announcement because these are the people.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Who help shape black culture.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Lokuj helped define hip hop, Queen Latifah helped define what
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: black women in entertainment could be, and Bob Johnson built
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: BET from the ground up at a time when black
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: audiences were largely ignored by mainstream television. B ET says
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the board will help guide the network into its next chapter,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and that matters because there's been a lot of conversation
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: over the years about b ET's future, black ownership and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: whether black culture is being truly protected inside these large corporations.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So putting these names at the table feels intentional. It
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: feels like BET is saying, if we're going to figure
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: out the future of black media, we want the people
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: in the room who help build the culture in the
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: first place. And honestly, a lot of people are hoping
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that's a sign of what's to come, and that's your
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: front page.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: I'm Mimi Brown.
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  Speaker 1: This podcast was brought to you by the Black Effects
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Podcast Network.