'Makes Perfect Sense': Tammy Bruce Touts 'Fold In' Of USAID To State Dept As Rubio Announces Changes

Forbes Breaking News

State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce praised Secretary Marco Rubio's reorganizational plan when asked about opportunities for former USAID employees at the State Department.

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00:00Just on the hiring freeze and the way that this affects the folding in of USAID to the State

00:04Department, how, you know, given the fact that these people are not considered State Department

00:08employees, what opportunities, if any, are going to be given to them to be able to reapply or

00:13for their position? Sure. First of all, the USAID fold in, that in a way is kind of the genesis of

00:19this, right? We knew that was going to happen. USAID was going to become a part of the State

00:24Department. And in this framework, what you'll see, and it makes, I think, perfect sense and

00:28people seeing this will see that it makes sense, is that instead of this monolithic entity

00:33that was, you know, its own object in Washington, D.C., making decisions about aid and where the

00:40money would go, the usual experience, and I've experienced this with the Secretary's travels

00:45and his conversations with the leaders and also our own embassy and consulate staffs, is that you

00:51would have donations or funding for a project that the country itself was not interested in or

00:58did not want and had other needs, that the embassy staff or the ambassador was never consulted,

01:05that the opinions of the people who are working in the country were not consulted. So they would

01:09see money going into a nation, as an example, put in to fund something that was even, in

01:15some cases, detrimental to the nation that we were working with or opposed by an ambassador,

01:21and yet there was no input and no action. In this particular kind of reorg, it's about consolidating

01:28things, right? Weaving certain offices into other bureaus, making situations smaller, reorganizing

01:35it, literally. And in that case, you will see the bureaus, which used to have a lot of power,

01:40but it really kind of lost that in a certain way through the giant bureaucracy that became evident

01:47through the 70s and 80s and 90s. And that you would have a dynamic now where the intention is,

01:54and described in this plan, to have each regional bureau have the element of the USAID that is relevant

02:02to that bureau, so that they would be working together and it would be a coalition, if you will,

02:10of ideas and minds and efforts to then also bring in and have the embassies, the ambassadors,

02:17and the governments who are working with having a say and making sure that the money that's donated

02:22is relevant to that nation, is relevant to the region. And that's what will be, you know, that's where USAID

02:28essentially is going, is into positions where, as I've mentioned to you, don't, as we were doing

02:34our review of USAID, is don't mistake a change for being something, for indicating something is gone

02:41or missing, that it was never about us abandoning our commitment to funding, to any kind of life-saving

02:49efforts or our work with other nations in assisting them, but it was going to look different. And now it

02:56will, but it will not just look different, but it's actually going to be within a functional framework

03:01to make sure that any aid that goes out is aid that the nation, that we work with the nation on,

03:06that we work with the embassies on, and people on the ground with an interest who are stakeholders

03:12will have a say in that. I think that that's a certainly a much more functional way to move foreign

03:16aid through. But on the employees themselves, they're already sort of in limbo in terms of how their jobs

03:20are going to change when the department was going to be taking over USAID. Are those employees going to have the

03:26opportunities to apply for other positions? How many people? Well, some will, some will. So that,

03:30so in the, in, again, this is a proposal, this obviously could change, but as you have offices

03:35that are cut or, or even some bureaus that were set up for a specific situation that end up being cut

03:41entirely, uh, that you will have people who then foreign service officers, uh, the career workers, etc.,

03:48being able to apply for something else. So these are a, it's a dynamic where you've got a certain number of

03:54open seats that exist, and then people who, of course, will then be out of the seat where they

03:59were if, in fact, their office is, uh, cut or even folded in to another bureau. So these are, again,

04:06this is, again, a roadmap, uh, and it's a dynamic where, as we've said, uh, in the past, certain dynamics

04:13where people, and this is new for me as somebody who's never worked for government, very much in a way

04:18like the military, where you can be working for the State Department, working in a specific,

04:23let's say, embassy overseas, and then that job ends, and then you come home, and you get slotted

04:29into a new job. Um, that, I think, for the American people, maybe for large corporations, that makes

04:35sense, uh, but that's how it works here, when, of course, that's possible. So that is possible,

04:41and we will, uh, clearly watch that as it plays out. Oh, yes, sir.

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