time. but this is them this is them doing it. this is what it looks like when they do it. joining us now is michael beschloss, nbc presidential historian. michael, it s great to see you. thank you for being here tonight. oh, my pleasure, rachel. always. republicans always talk about emptying out agencies. are there other times in modern history where we see so many people, so many experts, so many top-tier people leave one agency all at once? nothing like this. this is really sort of stretching the boundaries of that idea. but under ronald reagan you saw a little bit of this. for instance, 1982, the epa had had an administrator who got into a scandal over the superfund, just like what you were talking about a moment ago. congress asked her for documents. she would not give them up. she was declared in contempt of congress and she was forced to resign. and her name was ann gorsuch, and her son has just been appointed by president trump to the supreme court. you made that part
her name was ann gorsuch, and her son has just been appointed by president trump to the supreme court. you made that part up, right? no, as they say in texas, it has the added advantage of being true. okay, yeah. is there a president despite the rhetoric, that s actually done it. is there a clear winner, under which president we ve seen the most departures. have presidents succeeded in shutting agencies down. they have, and this has been the republican dream especially since ronald reagan, who tried to do it at the beginning and began to lose interest. it goes back to the 19th century, congress passed all these civil service laws, they were worried the presidents would turn into dictators, because they could appoint people once they became
about a moment ago. congress asked her for documents. she would not give them. declared in contempt of congress and forced to resign and her name was ann gorsuch and her son appointed by president trump to the supreme court. you made that part up. right? no. that s a as they say in texas, has the added advantage of being true. yeah. that s yeah. okay. yeah. brr. under is there a president despite rhetoric, is there a president who s actually done it? is there a clear winner under which president we have seen the most departures? have presidents succeeded in shutting down agencies by dictate or attrition? they haven t. this is sort of a republican dream, especially since ronald reagan who tried to do it at the beginning and really began to lose interest. but, you know, it goes back to the 19th century. congress passed all these civil service laws because they were worried that the presidents would turn into dictators because they could appoint people once they became
congress asked her for documents. she would not give them. declared in contempt of congress and forced to resign and her name was ann gorsuch and her son appointed by president trump to the supreme court. you made that part up. right? no. that s a as they say in texas, has the added advantage of being true. yeah. that s yeah. okay. yeah. brr. under is there a president despite retd rick, is there a president when s actually done it? is there a clear winner under which president we have seen the most departures? have presidents succeeded in shutting down agencies by dictate or attrition? they haven t. this is sort of a republican dream, especially since ronald reagan who tried to do it at the beginning and really began to lose interest. but, you know, it goes back to the 19th century. congress passed all these civil service laws because they were
it is not based on economic considerations, skills and knowledge. while we need to revitalize education for americans, we need to recognize the extent to which people are coming to america to learn we need to do what we need to do to keep them in america. this is our core problem. there trillions of connections in the brain called neurons. they start down at age 6 when they start public school. kids at a school soared like eagles, got college scholarships, they got wired. when you know this and you do not talk about it and do not do anything about it, this is another recipe for disaster. our public education system is just really got to be strained out. the teachers unions are primarily concerned about how much they make a year, and that is not where the concern has to be. it is making sure that children have the funds in education that are needed for education. we spend double per person to educate k through 12, double other nations. we do the same thing in health care.