Unbiased, word for word, from the Nations Capital to wherever you are, because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan powered by cable. David, welcome to after words on book tv. Your book is titled you report to me, where did that title come from . Who was reporting to who . Well, that book is really titled based on a conversation i had with President Trump right as i was becoming acting secretary of the interior. And i sat down with the president and had a discussion about potentially taking this role after serving as deputy secretary and in our discussion, we got to the end of the discussion, and i said to him, who do i report to . He said you report to me, which was a very different perspective than i expected. I expected to be told i reported to the chief of staff or someone else. And so, i walked out of there, out of the oval office with that crystallized in my memory and it turned out that it was actually true, that as i worked with the president , what i found is that i called him, discussed issues with him, and he made, you know, the inputs that he wanted to make and it turned into a working relationship that was very, very efficient and much different than the experiences id experienced in the Bush Administration. So, i used that title, but as you read the book for those that do read the book, it actually has a broader meaning and my view is that all of the individuals in government, whether theyre in the Civil Service or elected officials, or in the judiciary ultimately, all of them through their oath of office, report to the American People and we should remember that. Well talk a lot in this conversation about the agencys relationship to the president , the leader of the agencys relationship to the bureaucracy. Well talk about congress and the courts. Maybe we should talk first about the interjunior department. Its a large organization. It does a lot of things. A lot of people are there, but my guess is that its not necessarily the most famous of the cabinet departments. No offense. Ll from my old career in energy law. But for those who dont study interior quite so closely, could you just talk what it does . Absolutely. First off, its a Important Agency with a very Important Mission in the department of the interior manages approximately one in every five acres approximately one in every fivd states. Through its administrative jurisdiction thats been conferred to it by congress. As well as activities that take place on the outer Continental Shelf here and so it has responsibilities related to those lands, depending on the Direction Congress has provided, for example, some of these Areas Congress has designated to the national parks, and others fish in my life refuges. Other lands are designated multiple use lands administered by the bureau of Land Management the department of the interior also manages water responsibilities in the west through what is called the bureau of reclamation. And play a very Important Role in delivering water for agriculture and municipal and industrialnd uses to a lot of people in the west and did their scientific responsibilities such as the usgs geological survey. Was interesting about the department is its a very old agency. It was established in 1849 and when it was established it was the outcome of other cabinet departments hoping to get rid of certain activities that they had within the jurisdiction. So the department of the treasury was able to get out of the work associate with the General Land Office which was largely in charge of transferring lands as a means of creating revenue for the federal government. Thee War Department transferred to responsibilities associated with American Indians to the department of the interior. The veterans pensions and benefits were part of the department of the interior pier and even the Patent Office was initially a part of the department of the interior. So it was even back in the 1840s and 50s it was this organization that was very complex based on a lot of stuff that other departments didnt want to focus on [inaudible conversations] when you come to washington often you see these agencies and you kinda feel like theyve been here forever but some of them are very new, some of them are very old and your story about the history of interior reminds me of just 20 years ago when the government created the department of armored security and had how to bring togethr somebody different Component Parts and some new,s some old d sometimes its hard to actually work out how all these things grow in the same direction herei gather even for an agency thats now almost white, 200 years old sometimes it is difficult to run everything in the same direction. Guest what you have added agencies like interior is specific within that department specific agencies have very different statutory missions and so in the role of deputy secretary or solicitor or even secretary, you are often harmonizing the mandates of these different agencies in a way that works for your overall responsibilities. And so historically that can have tension. That can have a lot of public attention. You learn through that process how to try and manage those responsibilities in a way thats consistent with the law, consistent with the facts and obviously to the extent that its appropriate, consistent with the policy direction that the president has. Host before you begin a deputy secretary, the secretary interior was an agency you knew. You had a long career there. Guest thats correct i spent eight years as a political appointee first as a junior appointee working my way up in the Bush Administration for eight years. I ultimately serve as a solicitor of thehe department which is a chief legal officer at the end of the bush, george w. Bush administration. And then of course returned to Service Deputy secretary in the top administration. Host back to the theme of the book you report to me, how would you describe the relationship between a present and his cabinet secretaries . Guest i think it really is a relationship that is largely dependent on the views of the relationship the present action wants to have. If you look at the constitution, theres not a lot of direction on the Job Description of the relationship between the circuitry and the president thes president appoints you. You have to be confirmed by the United States senate, and in the constitution basically says the president can ask you for a written report, right . Andd ultimately the responsibilities associated with that job are laid out in law but you have to have a relationship with the president and what he wants. For example, when i sit down with the president to talk about potentially serving as secretary, one of the question i had for him is what did you want in the job of the secretary . Because depending on his interests, the role may be something that i was not the optimal candidate for. So we talked about that. And ultimately the president decides how that relationship is going to work, what the involvement is that he wants them with the secretary, and its a very personal choice, in my opinion. Host interior is a big place but the white house is a big place. The president has his core staff andna advisors, the entire domestic policy council, National Economic council, National Security council, all of that. With President Trumps as you report to him, i understand that incident you are his appointee and you will have a one on one relationship and a lot of your work, but you are still surely working a lot with a broader team of the white house. And that its best that larger structure helps the policymaking process. How did youav navigate that reporting to the president but working with the prodigy . Guest first off youre absolutely right that theres an entire team. My perspective on the president s direction was as follows. You are working with everybody collaboratively because you are a team. And you want to accomplish what you need to accomplish here and you are part of an effort where the white house is raising issues, potentially. You are givingor them solutionsr raising issues to them to ensure that they are aware of activities. The present set very clear goals for me. He said here are your goals. But what that statement meant to me was that ultimately i have the ability to talk directly to the president when they needed to or wanted to. And that tome me was a differene than the experiences that i had seen in the Bush Administration. At times in the Bush Administration i witnessed it taking literally months for secretary to be able to raise an issue directlyes to the presidet while working through that white house process. With President Trump you could move forward and get that callback very, very quickly. That allowed you to resolve issues and move forward at a pace that really was dramatically different than my experience in the prior administration. And that was important. To meet that was at least important and and i think id be important to any manager. What you want as a manager i think of a hero is you want clear direction. You want a degree of consistency in that direction, and when you need feedback or response you want that quickly and you want to know that the superior has your back to a certain extent that i think everybody that works for anyone wants those types of things. As i lay out in the book you report to me, i felt that he had that with the e president once n example of that . Guest a great example would be one of the first actions that i talked, i came in as an acting secretary. It was in the middle of a Government Shutdown and explain this in the book and i made a decision to begin to utilize some money for recreational, that was from recreational fees to address somend issues at the national parks. Can actually put some of our folks that were in facilities and maintenance who were really hurting back to work right away during the shutdown pier and in doing that i knew that it would be controversial i was confident it was legal but i raised the issue with the white house and directly with the president , explained to them what is going to do and he said to me, hey, three things essentially. Youre doing this now, even though its been a while with the shutdown come maybe you shouldve thought about this to exhibit which dixon which i thought was a completely legitimate and responsible issue. Secondly, youre the newre guy d because youre the new guy maybe you ought to say that i directed you to do this, which i found incredibly interesting, given that i told it would be a controversial decision that he would have my back here and then third, this is really important to me, he said hey, when you have something that you think is right and you need to do it, just do it and let me know, and run your department the way you need to. And that was very enabling. And to have that direction from the president of the United States to move forward on his policy vision, i thought was an incredible act of management. Host when youre not dealing with the president with the white house you were dealing with a broader Interview Team and thats one of the core messages of the book of the difficulty of leaving a large cabinet level agency with many statutory responsibilities and a huge team of Civil Servants and others dont necessarily agree with a given presidency particular agenda. How would you describe the relationship between the agencys leader and the Civil Servants . Guest well, first off it starts with the role of respective secretary. And in then f case of the secrey of the interior, congress has clarified that the secretary of the interior supervises all functions of the department of the interior and then it lists those functions. Whats interesting about that, i have ill reset the word supervise, supervised to be is a wordd that conveys both an active since like you need to be on top of things, and development of accountability. And in the word all attitude that needs you are responsible for everything that is occurring in that department, which is significant. The role, i was very lucky when i first came to interior during the Bush Administration. I ended up working in the very small office in the great thing about that particular office was that the folks in that office believed it was their mission. For career folkswa in in thee believed it was their mission to help secretary shine, about who the secretary was. And so that was getting an experience to work collaboratively with career staff taught me a couple of things. First off it m taught me that i could over perform if i worked with them if they collaborate with me if i was able to learn from their expertise and then use that to move the ball forward. In 2016 after16 the election wht we saw in the press in particular was a lot of media highlighting efforts to suggest that folks in the Civil Service shoulde be resistant to the new president. That was frankly encouraged him immediately go back and look at bloomberg stories are others. I heights some of the stories in the book and i was very troubling to me because at the end of the day i highlight when you signed up for the Civil Service andou you take, you take the same oath everyone takes to well and faithfully execute the law, and in doing that, in doing that you buy into the system of whoever is the person thats elected. Need to carry out the mission according to the direction the American People expect and so my first message as deputy secretary laid out, you know, my my view of need for us to Work Together and highlight, you know, the respective roles, the Civil Service on one hand and political appointees. Now, the book the book, a whole series of of events from other agencies where you see a lack of collaboration at different times. And i also highlight some great points of collaboration in a president s and a president s frustration with the bureaucracy is that its a very old story in washington. President truman was was frustrated. The bureaucracy he, if i remember correctly, he joked that president eisenhower would arrive thinking hes like a general, where everything he does will immediately get saluted. Youll find out. In fact, things move a lot. Kennedy and his administration frustrated with the bureaucracy. President clinton, president obama, they were often frustrated with military bureaucracy. We often think about this as republican president s being frustrated by by domestic policy, Civil Servants. This happens on both sides of the aisle. That said, there does seem to be a difference recently in the last few administrations. And like you said at the outset of the trump administration, where you had Civil Servants protesting around the arrival, their their new leadership, i remember stories of the epa bureaucracy protesting outside of the epa building. Thats right. Even before secretary or administrator pruitt was was appointed to the agency. What has changed in the last, say, 20 years or so . I think a couple of things. But but i also think all of these things can be overcome. But do think that on one hand, it became socially acceptable to engage in this activity. The other hand, it is also a result, i believe, of a feeling of impunity that there will be no consequence for for acting in a manner thats unacceptable all. And i think in some instances actually believe that the activities are beyond appropriate. And i highlight the book an example of an individual who is working with the white house on communications and she devises a methodology where if the white house doesnt like shes written and gives her edits back she will make changes to the edits but then reinsert her own language that wasnt approved back into the document in other places and then send it forward, quote a workaround and you know, in any other line of work that would be blatant, blatant in subordination here, the person actually a book highlighting her utilization of doing that. And so i think on one hand it became acceptable. Why is that. Yeah. Well, of it, in my opinion, is that the leaders of these agencies themselves have allowed some of this to happen from standpoint of not clear that they are responsible for these documents. Theyre going to try to check them, going to add in them, theyre going to own them and doing that, theyre going to do the effort to rigorous in their review and. What i really found is if you are rigorous your review and you and you are willing to do the work, people find a way to accommodate you and realize that, you know, ultimately the buck does stop with you. And if youre willing to shoulder the burden of the responsibility they are. They are typically willing to work with, you know, a professional Civil Service, a nonpartisan Civil Service is actually one of the great achievements of american history. In the after the civil war in the late 19th century, you had laws like the pendleton act that were enacted in order to get us away from a spoils system, where each new newly elected president would come in and hand out jobs like political gifts. Youd have a professional Civil Service that would carry over from one administration to the next for the sake of stability in government for for for for expertise, government and more. A moment ago, you mentioned the respective roles of the Civil Servants versus the political appointees. Maybe you could unpack that a little b