ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
On Capitol Hill this week, the buzzword's been efficiency.
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MIKE ROUNDS: You've got stories of federal employees come into an office once a week for a day or a part of a day. Are they really adding anything to the value in terms of services to the public?
NADWORNY: That's Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota at the Capitol this week, as President-elect Trump's incoming efficiency czars were meeting with lawmakers. NPR's senior Washington editor and correspondent, Ron Elving, joins us now. Good morning, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good morning, Elissa.
NADWORNY: So Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk will head something that, so far, doesn't have any authority to do anything. And yet there seemed to be some enthusiasm for them and their mission on Capitol Hill this week.
ELVING: Quite a bit of enthusiasm on both sides of the Capitol - that is the House and the Senate - but not so much on both sides of the aisle. There are some Democrats - let's be clear - who want to be involved in this, but it's mostly been the Republicans' jam. And that's who Musk and Ramaswamy were up there courting this week.
Now, some of us longtimers remember all the other commissions and big, bold plans to slash federal spending and shrink the federal workforce - lots of that kind of talk over the last 40 years or so - let's say back to about 1980. And some of these ideas have saved some money. But the federal debt has gone from about a trillion to more than 36 trillion over those exact same decades. Meanwhile, the size of the federal workforce has stayed roughly the same, and you won't save trillions eliminating telework.
Now, the big-ticket items are Social Security and Medicare and other payments to U.S. citizens who are entitled to them by law, plus defense spending, interest on the accumulated debt, and there's not much these new kids on the block are likely to be able to do about any of that. Their Department of Efficiency is not even a real department.
NADWORNY: Right.
ELVING: And the authority for spending rests with Congress.
NADWORNY: Yeah. So, Donald Trump posted online yesterday that his defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, has support that is, quote, "strong and deep," despite allegations of sexual misconduct against him, which he denies. Is that true?
ELVING: The news here is Hegseth's support does appear to be much stronger and deeper with Trump than it was a day or two earlier, when Trump was talking up other candidates for the job.
NADWORNY: Right.
ELVING: But since then, Hegseth has taken on the media directly, angrily. And that seems to have triggered a fight-like-hell response from Trump, not unlike what happened with Brett Kavanaugh, saving his seat on the Supreme Court in 2018.
NADWORNY: Right. Matt Gaetz's nomination to serve as attorney general failed in the face of Republican opposition in the Senate. And that sparked some speculation about how much daylight there may end up being between congressional Republicans and Trump. What's your take on that now, you know, that some time has passed?
ELVING: Very few Republicans in Congress are showing any interest at all in bucking Donald Trump right now, and he's in a stronger position than ever. But beyond Trump himself, these members are sensitive to what they hear from Trump's supporters. His followers are largely their voters too. And they really don't want to make those people choose. So there will be times, but right now, it appears those times will be few and far between.
NADWORNY: Well, let's not end this conversation before we hit the branch-of-government trifecta. The Supreme Court is now considering what it's going to do about a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
ELVING: We don't have a decision yet, but when the case was argued in the High Court this past week, only the three liberals seemed open to the Biden administration argument. That argument holds that transgender rights should be equal nationwide under the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. But the majority of the rest of the court seemed inclined to let Tennessee ban gender-affirming health care, such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy for people under 18, and two dozen other states also already have similar laws.
NADWORNY: Ron, what do you make of the reports that President Biden is considering preemptive pardons?
ELVING: Not a place you want the country to go. It was distressing to see Biden reverse his long-standing pledge not to pardon his son, but it's frightening to think each exiting president would need to protect people who have done their jobs but displeased the opposition.
NADWORNY: Yeah. That's NPR's Ron Elving. Ron, thanks.
ELVING: Thank you, Elissa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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