David, welcome to after words on booktv. Your book is titled you report to me. Who was reporting to . Guest this 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 sate down with the president and had a discussion about potentially taking this role after serving as the deputy secretary. And in our discussion, we got to the end of the discussion and i said to him who do i report to and 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. So i walked out of there come 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 , but i founded is thai called him, discussed issues with him and he made, you know, the input that he wanted to make and it turned into a working relationship that was very, very efficient and much different than the experienced i had experienced in the Bush Administration. I use that title but as you read the book for those that do read the book it has a broader meaning and my view is all of the individuals in government whether they are 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. We will talk a lot in the conversation about to the agencys relationship to the president , the leader of the agencies relationship to the bureaucracies. But maybe we should talk first about the interior department. Its a Large Organization that 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 department, no offense. For those who dont study interior quite so closely, can you talk about what it does . Absolutely. First off, it is an Important Agency with a very important mission. In the department of the interior, they manage approximately one in every 5 acres of land in the United States through its administrative jurisdiction thats been converted to by congress as well as activities that take place on the outer continental shelf. And so, it has responsibilities related to those lands depending on the Direction Congress has provided for example some of the Areas Congress has designated to be National Parks and others, fish and wildlife refuges. Other land as our designated multipleis use lands administerd 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 recommendation and has a very Important Role in delivering water for agriculture and municipal and industrial uses. Then there is scientific responsibilities such as the u. S. Geological survey. Whats really interesting about theab department is that its a very old agency. It was actually 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 their jurisdiction, so the department of treasury was able to get out of the Work Associated with the general land office, which was largely in charge of transferring lands as a means of creating revenue for the federal government. The department to transfer the e responsibilities associated witt American Indians to the department of the interior. The veterans pensions and benefits were part of the department of the interior and the Patent Office was initially 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. Host when you come to washington often you see these other agencies and feel like theyve been here forever but some of them are very new and some are old and you start at the history that reminds me 20 years ago when the government created the department of Homeland Security and had to bring together so many different component parts, some new, some old and sometimes its hard to work out how all these things grow in the same direction. And i gather that even for an agency that is almost 200yearsold sometimes it is difficult to Row Everything in the a same direction. What you have added an agency like interior is specific within the departments specific agencies hadat a very different statutory missions and so in the role of deputy secretary or solicitor or even secretary, youre 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. And you learn through that process how to try to manage the responsibilities in a way that is consistent with the law and the fact is and obviously to the extent that its appropriate consistent with the policy direction that the president has. Even before you became deputy secretary, this is an area that knew pretty well. You had a long career. I spent eight years as a political appointee first as a very junior appointee working my way up in the Bush Administration. I ultimately served as a solicitor in the department, which is the chief legal officer and the end of the george w. Bush administration then of course returned to serve as deputy secretary in the Trump Administration. Host back to the theme of the book you reported to me, how would you describe the relationship between a president and his cabinet secretaries . Thi think that it really is a relationship that is largely dependent on the views of the relationship the president wants to have. If you look at the constitution, there is not a lot of direction on the Job Description of the relationship between the secretary and the president. The president appoints you that you have to be confirmed by the United States senate and then the constitution basically says the president can ask you for a written report. And ultimately, the responsibilities associated with of that job are laid out in the law but you have to have a relationship with the president and what he wants. For example when i sit down with of the president to talk about potentially serving as secretary, one of the questions i had for him is what did he want in the job of secretary, because depending on his interest, 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 and what the involvementt is that he wants withcr the secretary and its a very personal choice in my opinion. This is a big place. The president has not just the core staff and advisors, the domestic policy council, economic council, National Security council, all of that. So when President Trump says you report to him, i understand that in the sense that you are his appointeee and you will have a oneonone relationship and a lot of your work, but you are still surely working a lot with the broader team of the white house and at its best that larger structure helps the policymaking process. So how did you navigate that reporting to the president and working with the broader team . First of all, you are right if there is an entire team and 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 and you are part of an effort where the white house is raising issues potentially. You are giving them solutions over raising issues to them to ensure that they are aware of activities. The president 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 i needed to were wanted to, and that to me was a difference than the experience that id seen in the Bush Administration. At times in the Bush Administration, i witnessed it taking literally months for a secretary to be able to raise an issue directly tohi the presidet while working through that white house process. With President Trump, you could move forward and get that call back very quickly and that allowed you to resolve issues and move forward at a pace that was dramatically different than my experience in the Prior Administration and that was important. Toto me it was at least importat and i think it would be to any manager. What you want as a manager i think of any role is, you know, you want clear direction, you want a degree of consistency in that direction, and when you need feedback or a response, you want that quickly and you want to know that the superior has your back to c a certain extent. I think anybody that works for anyone once those kind of things and as i lay out in the book, you report to me, i felt that i had to that with the president. Host what is an example of that . Guest an example would be one of the first actions that i took i came in as an acting secretary. It was in the middle of a Government Shutdown and i explained this in the book and i made a decision to begin to utilize money for recreation that was from recreational fees to address some issues at the National Parksks and actually go wto some of our folks that were in facilities and maintenance who were really hurting back to work right away during the shutdown. And in doing that i knew it would be controversial. I was confident it was legal, but i raised the issue with the white house and directly with the president , explaining to him what i was going to do and he said to me hey, three things essentially. Youre doing this now, even though its been a while in the shutdown maybe you should have thought about doing this sooner which i thought was a completely legitimate and responsible issue. Second, youre the new guy, and because you are the new guy and maybe you ought to say i directed you to do this which i found incredibly interesting given that i told him it would be a controversial decision that he would have my back. And third, and this was important to me, he said when you have something 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. That was very enabling. To have that direction from the president of the United States to move forward on his policy decisions i thought was an incredible act of management. Host now youre dealing with a broad interior team and thats one of the core messages of the book the difficulty of leavingg a large cabinet agency, cabinet level agency with many statutory responsibilities and a huge team of Civil Servants and others who dont necessarily agree with the given president s particular agenda. How would you describe the relationship between the cabinets, the agencys leader and the Civil Servants . First off, it starts with the role of the respective secretary, and in the case of the secretary 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 and whats interesting about that ive always thought is the word supervise. Supervise, to me, is a word that conveys both an active sense like you need to be on top of things and an element of accountability. And then the word all added to that means you are responsible for everything that is occurring in that department, which is significant. The folks in that office believe it was their mission to help the secretary shine no matter who the secretary was. And so that was an experience to work with her staff taught me a couple things first off it taught me that i could over perform if i worked with them. If they collaborated with me. If i was able to learn from their expertise and then use that to move the ball forward. In 2016, after the election what we saw in the press in particular was a lot of media highlighting efforts to suggest that folks in the Civil Service should be resistant to the new president. That was encouraged in that media if you go look back and look at bloomberg stories and others i highlight some the stories in the book. That was very troubling to me. At the end of the day you take the same of everyone takes too well and faithfully execute the law. In doing that, you buy into the system of whoever it is the is n that is elected, you need to carry out the mission according to the direction the American People have picked. My first message as deputy secretary laid out my view of the need for us to work together. And to highlight you know, the respective roles of the Civil Service on one hand and political appointees. Now the book outlines a whole series of events from other agencies where you see a lack of collaboration at different times. I also highlight some great points of collaboration. A president s frustration with the bureaucracy is a very old store inn washington. President trumans frustrated with bureaucracy. If i remember correctly joked president eisenhower would arrive thinking he was a general everything he did what he meekly get saluted and he would find out it things are a lotan slowe. Kennedy and his Administration Professor with bureaucracy but president clinton, president obama were often frustrated with military bureaucracy. We often think about this as republican president s being frustrated by domestic policy Civil Servants but this happens on both sides of the aisle. That said there does seem to be a difference recently in the last few administrations. Legacy of the outset of the Trump Administration had Civil Servants protesting on the arrival of their new leadership. I remember stories of the epa bureaucracy protesting outside thepa epa building. Even before administrator pruitt was appointed to the agency. What has changed in the last say 20 years . I would say a couple things. I also think all of these things can be overcome. But i do think on one hand it became socially acceptable to engage in this activity. And on the other hand its also a result i believe of a feeling of impunity. There will be no consequence for acting in a manner that is unacceptable. And i think in some instances they actually believe the activities are beyond appropriate. I highlight in the book an example of an individual who is working with the white house on communications. And she divides the methodology or if the white house does not like what she has written sheet will make the changes to the edits. But then reinsert her own language that was not approved back into the document and other places and send it forward as a quote workaround. In any other line of work that would be blatant insubordination. Here the person wrote a book highlighting her utilization of doing that. So think on one hand it became acceptable. Now why is that . Part of it in my opinion is the leaders of these agencies themselves have allowed some of this tof happen from a standpoit of not being clear that they are responsible for these document. They are going to truth check them for their going to edit them. They are going to own them and in doing that theyre going to the effort to be rigorous in their review. What i really found if you are rigorous in your review and you are willing to do the work people will find a way to accommodate you and realize that ultimately the buck does stop with you if you are willing to shoulder the burden of the responsibility, they are typically willing to work with you. Professional Civil Service nonpartisan Civil Service is actually one of the great achievements of American History. After the civil war the late 19th century we have laws like the pendleton act that were enacted to get us away from a spoiled system were each newly elected president would come in and hand out jobs like politicau gifts. You had a professional Civil Service so it carry over from one administration to the next for the sake of stability and government. Her expertise in government and more. A moment ago you mentioned the respective roles of the Civil Service versus the political. What are the respective roles of a political appointee and Civil Service . I think at the end of the day just as i said the secretary is a supervisor of that agency whether people like it or not. Whoever is appointed and confirmed is in charge. The policy views of the president are on one hand and important components. But equally important are the milaws you are tasked with administering. Those are ultimately your true responsibility. And then you have facts. It is within the realm looking at the confines of the law. Looking at the facts you have and the extent there is policy discretion is the difference in election should make it. But ultimately, all of that responsibility rests with the senior appointeesdo and then its delegated down. As its delegated down those responsibilities are there for the Civil Servant to help the actual official, the principal make the right decision or take the right action and help them and inform them. They are there to be an aid in terms of assistance in carrying out their responsibilities. They are not there to be the policy director. They are nothe there to be the advocate for a cause. They are there