Podcasts about GSA

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Best podcasts about GSA

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Latest podcast episodes about GSA

Dream Keepers Radio
You're Not Lost at Sea Anymore: The Bonds Of Liberty

Dream Keepers Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 15, 2025 40:51 Transcription Available


Send us fan responses! What if everything you thought you knew about your legal identity was actually designed to limit your financial sovereignty? Don Kilam pulls back the curtain on a system few truly understand: how courts, banks, and governments use your name as a financial instrument.This eye-opening exploration takes you through the historical roots of admiralty jurisdiction, explaining how the Cesti Que Vie Act effectively declared individuals "lost at sea," allowing governments to assume custody of people and property. You'll discover why your name appears in all capital letters on official documents and how this represents not you as a living being but a legal entity functioning as a "special purpose vehicle."Kilam meticulously connects the dots between the Social Security Trust Fund, where citizens function only as beneficiaries rather than trustees, and how courts operate as banks—complete with judges sitting on "banks" and clerks functioning as CPAs for your legal identity. Most importantly, he reveals how GSA bond forms can be used to reclaim your position in this legal-financial framework.Whether you're struggling with court cases, seeking financial sovereignty, or simply curious about the hidden mechanics of our legal system, this episode provides practical knowledge you won't find in conventional education. Learn how to transform from a mere beneficiary of a public trust to a position more akin to a trustee with greater control over your financial affairs.Ready to take control of your legal and financial identity? Text "Private Life" to 702-200-4900 or join Kilam's upcoming in-depth class on July 23, 2025, where he'll explain these concepts in greater detail. Your prosperity isn't just possible—it's your divine birthright.https://donkilam.com FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD - DON KILAMGO GET HIS BOOK ON AMAZON NOW! https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Touch-This-Diplomatic-Immunity/dp/B09X1FXMNQ https://open.spotify.com/track/5QOUWyNahqcWvQ4WQAvwjj?autoplay=trueSupport the showhttps://donkilam.com

Aquademia: The Seafood and Sustainability Podcast
Inside the 2025 Responsible Seafood Summit in Cartagena, Colombia

Aquademia: The Seafood and Sustainability Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2025 25:29


Responsible Seafood Summit - REGISTER NOW Responsible Seafood Summit - AGENDAEmail the Summit team - summit@globalseafood.org* Episode Clarification: Oceanariums are not always located directly in the ocean. While many oceanariums are situated near the coast and utilize natural seawater, some are located inland and rely on transported seawater or artificial seawater systems. Check out our website!: https://www.globalseafood.org/podcastFollow us on social media!Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | InstagramShare your sustainability tips with us podcast@globalseafood.org!If you want to be more involved in the work that we do, become a member of the Global Seafood Alliance: https://www.globalseafood.org/membership/ The views expressed by external guests on Aquademia are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Aquademia or the Global Seafood Alliance. Listeners are advised to independently verify information and consult experts for any specific advice or decisions.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
GSA unveils USAi; How the government is working to fast-track security reviews for AI companies

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2025 5:47


The General Services Administration rolled out a new governmentwide tool Thursday that gives federal agencies the ability to test major artificial intelligence models, a continuation of Trump administration efforts to ramp up government use of automation. The AI evaluation suite, titled USAi.gov, launched Thursday morning and allow federal agencies to test various AI models, including those from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta to start, two senior GSA officials told FedScoop. The launch of USAi underscores the Trump administration's increasing appetite for AI integration into federal government workspaces. The GSA has described these tools as a way to help federal workers with time-consuming tasks, like document summaries, and give government officials access to some of the country's leading AI firms. The GSA, according to one of the officials, will act as a “curator of sorts” for determining which models will be available for testing on USAi. The official noted that additional models are being considered for the platform, with input from GSA's industry and federal partners, and that American-made models are the primary focus. Grok, the chatbot made by Elon Musk's xAI firm, is notably not included on the platform for its launch Thursday. Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the country's leading AI companies, recently announced that they're offering their powerful models to federal agencies for $1 for the next year. But the new deals, which are both available through a General Services Administration OneGov contract vehicle, don't on their own clear the way for widespread government adoption of artificial intelligence. Instead, the new financial incentive seems to be daring government officials to move quickly and approve the technology as soon as possible. Currently, no major AI provider is authorized under FedRAMP, a critical security program that allows agencies to use a company's cloud services — including software or models offered on a cloud service — across government. While several companies — including Anthropic, xAI and OpenAI — have released government-focused product suites, they're still somewhat dependent on cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon that have already cleared the FedRAMP process. If AI companies want to sell much of their technology directly to the government, they need their own authorization-to-operate or ATO. What's changed, though, is that federal officials now have a new reason to move through security review processes more quickly, a former GSA employee and another person familiar with the matter both told FedScoop. That strategy could involve going through an authorization-to-operate process through an agency's authorizing official — typically, their chief information officer — as well as the security review process explicated by FedRAMP, both people said. GSA is now looking at strategies to speed up the process. An agency spokesperson confirmed that these companies still need to seek FedRAMP authorization if they want to offer their technology directly. But to make that happen faster, GSA is now consulting with the Chief Information Officers Council and the board that oversees FedRAMP about “prioritization for AI companies” that are added to GSA's multiple award schedule. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Dial P for Procurement
From Billable Hours to Measurable Impact: The GSA's Push for Outcome-Based Contracts

Dial P for Procurement

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2025 21:18


“If you're as good as you say you are, you should be able to keep your cost structure down, deliver the mission and the outcome, and still make a margin.” - Josh Gruenbaum, Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the GSA The General Services Administration (GSA), responsible for Federal contracting, has been making DOGE-style headlines of their own this year. In late June, they sent a letter to a number of large consulting firms under contract, looking for opportunities to reduce spending and better understand the work that is underway. Josh Gruenbaum, who is overseeing the review, specifically requested “No consultant gobbledygook” in the responses. The GSA has signaled a mindset shift from time-and-materials to outcome based contracts, a dynamic that is likely to impact private sector consulting contracts and spending as well. In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner looks into this shift and what it will require from all involved parties: How the government defines consulting services The multi-round outreach process being led by the Federal government and how firms are responding How to shift to outcome based agreements and the pressure of AI is likely to change the future of consulting Links: Kelly Barner on LinkedIn Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter  Art of Supply on AOP Art of Supply on YouTube Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Lynne Parker exits White House following publication of AI plan; GSA inks deal with Box for discounted AI products

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 13, 2025 4:15


Two-time Trump administration vet Lynne Parker has exited as principal deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy following the release of the administration's AI plan. In a LinkedIn post Tuesday, Parker said she was “passing the torch” and had fulfilled her mission of helping the Trump administration “hit the ground running,” citing the launch of AI innovation and education initiatives as well as drone-focused policy, and the administration's “gold standard” science initiative. She said she plans to return to her retirement in Tennessee. Parker joined the administration in January, working alongside OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. In addition to her OSTP title, she was also named executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. Parker had returned to the current Trump administration after serving as deputy CTO and founding director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on her departure. In addition to Parker, OSTP senior policy advisor Dean Ball also recently announced he was leaving the White House following the release of the administration's anticipated AI Action Plan last month. Ball rejoined the Foundation for American Innovation, a technology-focused think tank formerly known as the Lincoln Network, as a fellow focused on AI policy and governance models for emerging technology. The cloud management company Box is the latest agency to strike a deal with the General Services Administration to offer its artificial intelligence services to the federal government at a fraction of the normal price. The GSA said in an announcement Wednesday that federal agencies can buy Box's Enterprise Plus for Government software for up to 75% off and the company's Enterprise for Advanced Government software discounted by up to 65% of the listed price for a year-long term. The announcement follows a series of other deals with major AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic that aim to increase the use of AI across the federal government. Like the other OneGov collaborations, the GSA said Box's AI platform will help boost productivity at agencies, automate workflows and assist with tasks like document generation, e-signatures and forms. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Anthropic offers Claude AI to federal agencies for $1; FedRAMP authorizations in 2025 already more than double last year

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 12, 2025 4:24


Federal agencies will now have access to Anthropic's Claude model for $1, the General Services Administration announced Tuesday, continuing the agency's push for artificial intelligence products across government. Under the OneGov deal, all three branches of government will be able to use Anthropic's Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government for a nominal $1 fee. Approval for members of Congress and the judiciary is pending, the GSA noted. It is the latest in a series of deals between private AI firms and the federal government to increase the use of automation in agency workflows and boost workers' productivity and efficiency. Anthropic said in a release Tuesday: “We believe the U.S. public sector should have access to the most advanced AI capabilities to tackle complex challenges, from scientific research to constituent services. By combining broad accessibility with uncompromising security standards, we're helping ensure AI serves the public interest.” Anthropic's Claude for Government models have FedRAMP High certification and can be used by federal workers dealing with “sensitive unclassified work,” while Claude for Enterprise models have expanded features for data protection, Anthropic said. Anthropic said it will also offer technical support for agencies to implement its products into workflows. The Federal Risk Management and Authorization Program has already approved more than twice as many government cloud services in fiscal year 2025 as all of fiscal 2024, the General Services Administration announced Monday. FedRAMP reached 114 authorizations in July for fiscal 2025, along with four new cloud services through the FedRAMP 20x revamp program, according to a GSA statement. In fiscal 2024, FedRAMP authorized 49 cloud service providers, according to a GSA spokesperson. The reform program, unveiled in March, is focused on simplifying the authorization process and shaving the approval timeline from months to weeks. Eventually, agency sponsorship will no longer be needed to win authorization, a process that is often expensive and time-consuming. The new numbers come just over a year since the Office of Management and Budget published a memo calling for the modernization of the cloud authorization process. GSA said FedRAMP had a “significant backlog” at the time of the memo, with authorizations taking more than a year. A year later, FedRAMP's increased use of automation and streamlined workflows cut the wait time to about five weeks, the GSA said.

Federal Tech Podcast: Listen and learn how successful companies get federal contracts
Ep. 264 How Automation is Accelerating Digital Transformation Across Federal Agencies

Federal Tech Podcast: Listen and learn how successful companies get federal contracts

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 8, 2025 20:42


Ep. 264 How Automation Is Accelerating Digital Transformation Across Federal Agencies Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com In this episode of the Federal Tech Podcast, host John Gilroy interviews Nabil Amiri, Vice President of Business Development for the federal practice at NWN. The discussion introduces NWN's expanding role in helping federal agencies adopt advanced technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), as part of broader digital transformation efforts. Amiri explains NWN's recent acquisition of Leverage Information, a move that brought deep federal experience—especially with defense, intelligence, and civilian agencies—into NWN's already strong commercial portfolio. This merger allows NWN to deliver robust, secure IT solutions tailored to the complexities of federal requirements such as FedRAMP, STIGs, and Zero Trust. He emphasizes that innovation and compliance can—and must—coexist in the federal space. The conversation touches on the real-world challenges federal agencies face, like outdated systems, budget cuts, workforce reductions, and tool sprawl. Amiri critiques the proliferation of “single panes of glass” in IT environments, which often complicate rather than simplify operations. NWN's strength lies in delivering visibility across systems, reducing complexity, and enabling security and automation through integrated, scalable platforms. Key themes include Zero Trust architecture, infrastructure modernization, automation, and streamlining tech procurement. NWN's flexible acquisition pathways (e.g., via GSA and SEWP contracts) make it easier for agencies to respond quickly to crises like COVID or cyberattacks. On AI, Amiri emphasizes its role in real-time data analysis to improve visibility and prevent outages, critical for mission continuity. NWN remains vendor-neutral, working with a broad ecosystem of partners to deliver best-in-class, mission-focused outcomes. Looking ahead, Amiri confidently predicts that AI will become foundational to all federal IT strategies, driving operational resilience and transformation in the next five years. The interview sets the stage for deeper dives into emerging topics like agentic AI and cloud-native strategies in future discussions.

Govcon Giants Podcast
$5K Missed Daily?! Why the Government Contracting Industry Is Desperate for You NOW

Govcon Giants Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2025 7:47


If you're even thinking about government contracting or consulting, let me give you the inside scoop—the #1 bottleneck in the industry is finding good contractors. In today's windup, I break down exactly how having a list of reliable, responsible contractors (even just five!) can make you a go-to source overnight and potentially earn you thousands a day in referrals or direct contract opportunities. Whether it's concrete in the Keys, painters in Florida, or drivers in California, everyone is scrambling to fill the gap. I share real examples from my own team—projects delayed, opportunities missed—simply because we didn't have people to call. You don't need certifications or a GSA schedule to start. All you need is a spreadsheet, a phone number, and some hustle. If you know contractors, you've already got leverage. And if you don't get out from behind the screen and attend a job site visit or contractor event—you're missing massive opportunity. I challenge you to become a solution to this billion-dollar problem. Let's get it!

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Federal agencies can buy ChatGPT for $1; New deal with AWS brings $1B in potential credits for agencies

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2025 4:36


The General Services Administration has been on a roll lately, negotiating what it calls OneGov agreements with some of the federal government's biggest IT vendors. On Thursday, GSA announced it has negotiated a governmentwide purchasing agreement with Amazon Web Services that could save agencies up to $1 billion through credits for AWS services. The deal is the latest in a flurry of OneGov agreements GSA has initiated under the Trump administration to consolidate and centralize IT purchasing at scale and unlock greater, consistent savings for civilian agencies, rather than agencies negotiating one-off contracts with vendors themselves. As part of the governmentwide package, AWS has come to the table offering direct incentive credits that could total up to $1 billion in value for cloud services, modernization support and training. The deal will run through Dec. 31, 2028. In addition to streamlining federal IT procurement by working as a single, unified federal entity, GSA's OneGov initiative also aims to work directly with technology developers themselves, rather than intermediaries such as value-added resellers. As such, GSA touts the potential for additional savings by contracting directly with the cloud giant for its services. That deal comes just a day after GSA announced a similar one with OpenAI that will offer its ChatGPT tool to federal agencies for just $1. It marks the artificial intelligence firm's latest effort to expand use of its generative AI chatbot across the federal government. Like the AWS deal, GSA said the agreement with OpenAI supports the White House's AI Action Plan, which encourages widespread adoption of AI in the federal government. Through the partnership, OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise product can be purchased by federal agencies for $1 per agency for one year. GSA called this a “deeply discounted rate.” Commenting on the deal, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement: “One of the best ways to make sure AI works for everyone is to put it in the hands of the people serving the country.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Data leaders condemn Trump's order to fire BLS commissioner; Trump nominates former private equity exec Edward Forst as GSA administrator

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2025 5:15


Organizations and leaders representing the interests of statistical professionals and public data access strongly criticized President Donald Trump's order to fire the leader of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after lower than expected jobs numbers Friday, saying his comments undermine public trust in that information. Their responses came after Trump posted on his social media site Friday afternoon with allegations that Commissioner Erika McEntarfer “faked” BLS statistics in an effort to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, pointing to instances of revisions — which are a standard part of the agency's process. Trump's comments and order to fire McEntarfer appeared to primarily be in response to a BLS jobs report that showed lower figures than anticipated, which sent shockwaves through the statistical community. Multiple leaders, including his own former BLS commissioner, spoke out against the action in no uncertain terms, saying the president's comments politicize the data. President Donald Trump has nominated Edward Forst, a longtime financial services executive, to serve as the next administrator of the General Services Administration. The nomination was received in the Senate and referred to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, congressional records show. According to his LinkedIn profile, Forst was most recently the chairman of Lion Capital, a private equity firm, and previously served as president and CEO of Cushman and Wakefield, a real estate services firm. Earlier in his career, Forst spent nearly 17 years at Goldman Sachs, and in 2008, he served as an adviser to the Treasury secretary for a year, per his LinkedIn. The nomination follows various staff shakeups at GSA and comes just weeks after Trump tapped State Department leader Michael Rigas to serve as GSA's acting administrator. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

AI in Action Podcast
AI in Action E553: 'Empowering Government through AI' with CGS Federal's Anthony Miller

AI in Action Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2025 21:11


Today's guest is Anthony Miller, Partner and CEO at CGS Federal. Founded in 2017, Contact Government Services (CGS) simplifies and enhances government operations by optimizing human, technical and financial resources. They combine cutting-edge technology with world-class personnel to deliver sustainable, customized solutions that meet your specific needs. With an agile and empathetic approach, they work closely with you to solve complex challenges because they care as much about your agency's success as you do.In this episode, Anthony talks about:0:00 His journey from GSA building tech to launching CGS Federal in 20172:27 From overcoming early setbacks to now thriving in the govtech industry3:57 Their three-prong approach - introduce, integrate, innovate5:46 Introducing AI to law enforcement as mission-enhancing tool6:56 Integrating AI through low/no-code tools to empower non-tech staff8:38 Innovating legal tech with AI to simplify government eDiscovery11:18 Focus on building talent, being authentic and truly serving the government13:46 Expanding AI with customers and guiding government with trusted tools17:03 Why CGS Federal is a great place to work

Federal Drive with Tom Temin
Top federal buildings official steps down from GSA before implementing agency reorganization

Federal Drive with Tom Temin

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2025 8:11


The General Services Administration continues to shake up its leadership ranks. The top federal buildings official at GSA is out before implementing a reorganization plan for his part of the agency under his leadership, GSA set a goal of cutting the federal real estate portfolio in half. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has nominated a new permanent head to lead GSA Federal News Network story Heckman is here with more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
GSA is planning to bring its chatbot to the rest of government; Trump administration launches effort aimed at improving health records

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2025 4:53


The General Services Administration is looking into how it can implement its internal artificial intelligence chatbot across the federal government, the agency's top AI and data official said Thursday, the latest indication that the Trump administration is planning on streamlining government access to AI. The new initiative marks the “next iteration” of the GSAi platform, Zach Whitman, the agency's chief AI officer and data officer, said during a speech at the Digital Government Institute's annual convention in Washington, D.C. The GSA rolled out GSAi internally in March after a lengthy research and development process, which involved an AI safety team that evaluated a number of major AI vendors. Like other AI chatbots available to the public, the tool was initially designed to respond to user prompts and assist in basic tasks. GSAi gives users access to a number of models, including ones from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, and aims to increase workflow efficiency at the agency. This next chapter, Whitman said, is “one where other agencies could use what we have, use it in an isolated environment, use it for their specific purposes and own it in a tenant-based model.” The Trump administration on Wednesday announced an initiative to improve the digital health ecosystem for patients and providers, leaning on the voluntary support of dozens of health and tech companies. More than 60 companies — including data networks, health systems and providers, and developers of AI and other applications — have committed to improving the flow of electronic health information, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That group of adopters includes tech leaders such as Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Google, and OpenAI. The announcement comes after a May request for information that generated nearly 1,400 comments, which “were instrumental” in forming the initiative, according to CMS. It also appears to primarily be a collaborative effort between CMS and the Department of Government Efficiency. In addition to CMS's announcement, the White House held an event Wednesday with remarks from CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, DOGE acting director Amy Gleason, President Donald Trump, and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In her remarks, Gleason spoke about her daughter's experience navigating the health system as someone with a rare disease and the difficulty posed by transferring physical copies of her medical history from place to place. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Democrats demand answers on Grok's use in government; Starlink outage impacted Starshield services for militry users

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2025 6:00


Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the General Services Administration on Friday demanding more information about how the agency is using Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot built by Elon Musk's xAI. The correspondence comes after FedScoop reporting earlier this month revealed that government coders at GSA seemed to be looking at integrating Grok into their artificial intelligence work. Other sources told FedScoop that Grok had recently been approved for integration as an option into the GSAi app, a platform the agency has built to help federal workers access various generative AI models. Four days after the publication of FedScoop's story, xAI officially announced a “Grok for Government” service and confirmed that the company had been working to make its product available through GSA. As a result, Grok said ”every federal government department, agency, or office” could now access the company's tools. xAI also announced a $200 million Defense Department contract. The federal government's interest in using Grok — which recently espoused antisemitic and pro-Hitler content — has received pushback from Democrats. A group of Jewish Democrats recently wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about their concerns with the tool. Democrats in the House AI Caucus have also raised issues with the use of Grok, as has Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who condemned the Pentagon contract on the chamber's floor. But the latest letter, obtained by FedScoop, demands more information on the GSA's work with Grok. The letter was addressed to Stephen Ehikian, the deputy GSA administrator who led the agency on an acting basis until earlier this week, and signed by Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, the current and former ranking members of the committee, respectively. An outage last week of Starlink, the satellite internet service run by Elon Musk's company SpaceX, did have an impact on some services in the federal government. While several civilian federal agencies told FedScoop that the service interruption didn't disrupt operations, the U.S. Space Force confirmed that Starshield, the military-focused communications service on the Starlink network, was taken offline during the outage. “The Space Systems Command Commercial SATCOM Communications Office procures Starshield Global Access services over the Starlink Satellites/network,” a spokesperson for Space Systems Command told FedScoop. The spokesperson continued: “As such, the global outage did affect CSCO customers for the entire duration of the outage (~2.5hrs for most users). Services had a partial restoration midway through the outage and a complete restoration by the stated end time.” Defense customers are currently able to access Starshield through the Space Force, among other procurement mechanisms, SpaceX's website states. SpaceX says Starshield is for “national defense use cases” while Starlink “is not intended for any military end-uses or end-users.” Several branches of the U.S. military are currently testing or using Starshield, including the Air Force and the Navy. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard told FedScoop earlier this month that the agency began installing both Starlink and Starshield back in 2023. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Project 38: The future of federal contracting
Our EIC Frank Konkel on Uber's federal pact and procurement centralization

Project 38: The future of federal contracting

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2025 21:08


Uber is the newest example of a consumer technology company entering into a government-wide arrangement with the General Services Administration, which negotiated the pact on behalf of every federal agency.Frank Konkel, editor-in-chief for all GovExec publications including WT, joins for this episode to break down the finer details of that agreement and how contractors are a part of it too. Then there is the bigger picture theme for Frank and Ross to talk about: how GSA views it as fitting into the agency's OneGov strategy for more consolidated buys of common tech goods and services.Which also was the subject of Frank's interview with GSA's deputy administrator Stephen Ehikian at GovExec's Government Efficiency Summit on July 17. Frank and Ross share their takeaways from that conversation with each other.Click here to watch the Summit, which was recorded by C-SPAN.WT 360: All roads lead back to GSA in this ‘Editor's Summit' episodeGSA, Uber partner to cut travel costs for feds, military and select contractorsGSA's vision for procurement is about having 'one wallet'GSA plans to optimize operations following cost-cutting, agency head saysNew OMB memo lays out GSA's plan to consolidate contractsIndustry awaits significant disruption as GSA works on contract takeoversGSA prepping plans to move NASA SEWP and NIH contract vehicles under its managementGSA's procurement chief details administration's acquisition reform plansGSA unveils new unified procurement strategyANALYSIS: GSA's new procurement strategy begins with consumer tech

Aquademia: The Seafood and Sustainability Podcast
Tilapia, Tech, and Transformation: Elevating Fish Welfare in Africa

Aquademia: The Seafood and Sustainability Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2025 35:05


Contact Ethical Seafood ResearchEthical Seafood Research WebsiteTilapia Welfare App and Online CoursesCheck out ESR's new Activity Book for childrenNewly Released Educational module: Intro to Fish WelfareCheck out our website!: https://www.globalseafood.org/podcastFollow us on social media!Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | InstagramShare your sustainability tips with us podcast@globalseafood.org!If you want to be more involved in the work that we do, become a member of the Global Seafood Alliance: https://www.globalseafood.org/membership/ The views expressed by external guests on Aquademia are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Aquademia or the Global Seafood Alliance. Listeners are advised to independently verify information and consult experts for any specific advice or decisions.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
A new effort to rebuild federal capacity in the wake of cuts

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2025 27:03


Since taking office, the Trump administration has made it a top priority to dismantle what it perceives as federal bureaucratic bloat. But it's the belief of some that those cuts to the federal workforce and federal programs have gone too far, damaging the government's capacity to meet its mission and serve the American public. Rob Shriver, former acting OPM director during the Biden administration, is one of those. And in his new role as Managing Director of Democracy Forward's Civil Service Strong initiative, he's helping launch a new Civil Service Defense and Innovation Fellowship Program that aims to rebuild that lost capacity by calling on former government officials to “produce research and analysis documenting the scope and consequences of cuts to federal agencies, and develop and incubate innovative work to inform future policymaking and to rebuild government capacity.” Shriver joins the podcast to discuss the state of the federal workforce, the new fellowship and what he sees ahead. Let's go now to that interview. The Department of Defense's No. 2 IT official for the past two years is leaving the role, the department announced Monday. Leslie Beavers, who also served as acting DOD CIO for a period at the end of the Biden administration and during the early days of the second Trump administration, will step down as DOD principal deputy CIO at the end of September. In a social media post, the DOD Office of the CIO congratulated Beavers who announced Monday that she will be stepping down from her position at the end of September after more than 30 years of uniformed and civilian service. Beavers played a key role in the Office of the CIO's delivery of its Fulcrum IT strategy in 2024 with then-CIO John Sherman. When Sherman stepped down from the CIO role at the end of June 2024, Beavers filled it temporarily until Katie Arrington was appointed to perform the duties of CIO in March. Since then, Beavers retained her deputy role, supporting new efforts under Arrington's leadership like the Software Fast Track initiative and “blowing up” the Risk Management Framework. It's unclear what Beavers' next role will be after her departure or who will take her place when she officially leaves. President Donald Trump has tapped State Department leader Michael Rigas to serve as the General Services Administration's new acting chief, the agency announced Monday. It marks the third GSA appointment for Rigas, who has spent the past few months at the State Department as the deputy secretary for management and resources, according to a statement from Marianne Copenhaver, associate administrator for the GSA. Copenhaver wrote in a statement to FedScoop: “We're thrilled to have his institutional knowledge, leadership, and decades of experience in the private and public sector. Under Mike's leadership, GSA will continue to deliver effective and efficient government services in real estate, acquisition, and technology.” Stephen Ehikian, who has served since January as GSA's acting administrator, will continue his role as deputy administrator, Copenhaver added. Ehikian is a former Salesforce vice president and self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Game Changers for Government Contractors
Ep 380: Why GSA Schedules Just Became Urgent for Government Contractors

Game Changers for Government Contractors

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 21, 2025 34:30


he GSA schedule just became the hottest asset in government contracting. In this episode of Game Changers for Government Contractors, host Michael LeJeune sits down with RSM Federal sales strategist Rich Ernest to break down why GSA schedules are more critical than ever thanks to a recent executive order pushing 400–500% more spending through them. They expose costly myths, explain why getting a schedule doesn't guarantee success, and outline how to market your schedule effectively. Whether you go the DIY route or hire help, this episode shows you how to do it smartly, avoid rip-offs, and position your company to win once you're on schedule. Don't wait! Missing out on this shift could lock you out of the federal market. ----- Frustrated with your government contracting journey? Join our group coaching community here: federal-access.com/gamechangers Grab my #1 bestselling book, "I'm New to Government Contract. Where Should I Start?" Here: https://amzn.to/4hHLPeE Book a call with me here: https://calendly.com/michaellejeune/govconstrategysession

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Trump White House launches ‘Schedule G' for political policy officials; GSA head says nearly half of agency workforce is using GSAi daily

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 18, 2025 4:15


President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to establish a new classification of federal workers in policy-related roles who aren't career civil servants called “Schedule G.” The schedule appears to create another avenue for political officials in the U.S. government and follows myriad efforts by the Trump administration to reshape the federal workforce, including reductions-in-force, terminations, and programs to incentivize worker departures. In a fact sheet accompanying the order, the White House described Schedule G as an effort to increase “the horsepower for agency implementation of Administration policy” and fill a gap in federal hiring classifications. Per the fact sheet, existing schedules don't “provide for non-career appointments to policy-making or policy-advocating roles.” Federal workers at the General Services Administration are increasingly using the agency's internal AI chatbot GSAi on an everyday basis, the agency's acting head said Thursday. Stephen Ehikian, GSA's acting administrator and deputy administrator, offered a glimpse into how the agency is utilizing AI for its day-to-day activities during an appearance at GovExec's Government Efficiency Summit. “Fifty percent, on average, of GSA employees are using this tool every single day,” Ehikian said of GSAi. It is not clear how this percentage was determined. The agency revealed the tool in March, touting it as a way to boost efficiency and help automate repetitive tasks within the federal government. Like other AI chatbots available to the public, the GSAi tool was designed to respond to user prompts and assist in basic tasks. Nearly four months later, workers are now turning to GSAi for a range of activities, Ehikian said, “from writing descriptions of properties before we send them to markets, to contracting officers using it to review contracts or thinking of outcome-based pricing initiatives, to people learning how to code.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Federal Drive with Tom Temin
GSA softens tone with consulting contractors, but long-term goals of effort remain vague

Federal Drive with Tom Temin

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 17, 2025 9:23


From the beginning of the Trump administration's crusade to remake federal contracting, political leaders made it clear how they saw industry and what they thought of the value of what they considered consulting contracts. As one industry executive told us it has been very adversarial. Now five months into the review of consulting contracts, vendors and Industry observers say they've adjusted to the new normal. Many are now waiting for GSA to act on the data and ideas they provided. Federal News Network's Executive Editor Jason Miller joins me now to discuss how the last five months have turned GSA and vendor relationships inside out, and what the new normal looks like today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Elon Musk's Grok is now working with the US government; Pentagon awards mega contracts for new ‘frontier AI' projects

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2025 4:57


xAI, the artificial intelligence company led by Elon Musk, announced new efforts Monday to get its generative AI tool, Grok, into the hands of federal government officials. In a post to X, the company announced “Grok for Government,” which it described as a suite of products aimed at U.S. government customers. FedScoop reported on the General Services Administration's interest in Grok last week. xAI disclosed two new government partnerships: a new contract with the Defense Department, which we'll get to in a moment, and that the tool was available to purchase through GSA. “This allows every federal government department, agency, or office, to purchase xAI products,” the post added. “We're hiring mission driven engineers who want to join the cause.” The new products from xAI follow the introduction of government-specific AI intelligence platforms from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. The announcement was made just days after xAI's formal apology for the chatbot's recent antisemitic outputs. Last Thursday, FedScoop reported that government coders at GSA were discussing, on GitHub, incorporating Grok into a testing sandbox associated with a yet-to-launch tool called AI.gov and GSAi, a GSA-created AI platform. Anthropic, Google and xAI will join OpenAI on the CDAO's nascent effort to partner with industry on pioneering artificial intelligence projects focused on national security applications. Under the individual contracts — each worth up to $200 million — the Pentagon will have access to some of the most advanced AI capabilities developed by the four companies, including large language models, agentic AI workflows, cloud-based infrastructure and more. Chief Digital and AI Officer Doug Matty said in a statement: “The adoption of AI is transforming the Department's ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries. Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.” OpenAI received the first contract for the effort June 17 and will create prototypes of agentic workflows for national security missions. According to CDAO, work with all four vendors will expand the Pentagon's experience with emerging AI capabilities, as well as give the companies better insights into how their technology can benefit the department. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Federal Tech Podcast: Listen and learn how successful companies get federal contracts
Ep. 259 How AI-Driven Engineering Is Accelerating Digital Transformation in Federal Systems

Federal Tech Podcast: Listen and learn how successful companies get federal contracts

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2025 21:24


Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com   Artificial Intelligence can dazzle people to the point where they lose focus on the objectives of the federal agency. In today's interview, Adam Lurie from Knexus begins by discussing a corporate strategy that combines research and innovation with engineering. This approach has been consistent over decades of serving the federal government. One stellar example of this fusion was their success in the $919 million 10-year Supply Chain Risk Illumination Professional Tools and Services (SCRIPTS) Blanket Purchase Agreement from the GSA. One of the challenges in “applied” AI is the data itself. Often, particularly in the federal government, there are strict rules governing the handling of data. We have all heard about the encryption of data at rest and data in transit. Given this limitation, it may be challenging to establish an iterative process that optimizes security and reliability. The answer from Knexus is to use synthetic data to emulate an actual sensitive federal data set. That way, several methods can be used to rapidly identify foreign influence, monitor vendor integrity, and visualize complex risk management scenarios. This innovation enables developers to optimize the security of a supply chain, taking into account variations that incorporate modern technologies and adapt to emerging threats. A key partner in this creative approach is Google. Knexus was recently named 2025's Google Cloud Business Application Partner of the Year for Government. Retaining security while innovating will be the key to applying AI to solve federal business needs now and in the future.  

The Daily Scoop Podcast
GSA's plans to test the controversial AI tool Grok; Why IRS's data-sharing deal with ICE could lead to ‘dangerous' mistakes

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 14, 2025 5:02


Employees at the General Services Administration appear poised to test Grok 3, the artificial intelligence tool built by Elon Musk's company xAI, according to a GitHub page referencing the agency's work. The GitHub page operated by GSA and its digital government group Technology Transformation Services references the Grok AI model as one it is testing and that the team is actively discussing as part of its 10x AI Sandbox. A GSA spokesperson told FedScoop in a response to an inquiry about the agency's work with Grok “GSA is evaluating the use of several top-tier AI solutions to empower agencies and our public servants to best achieve their goals. We welcome all American companies and models who abide by our terms and conditions.”A post from Tuesday shows what appears to be one GSA employee trying to access Grok 3 for testing, but struggling to do so. Several names of the people active on the GitHub page match those of workers affiliated with GSA. The 10x AI Sandbox project is described on GitHub as “a venture studio in collaboration with the General Services Administration (GSA). Its primary goal is to enable federal agencies to experiment with artificial intelligence (AI) in a secure, FedRAMP-compliant environment.” It continues: “By providing access to base models from leading AI companies and offering advanced UI features, the sandbox empowers agencies to test and validate new AI use cases efficiently.” The public version of the 10x AI Sandbox project page on GitHub was taken down after the publication of this story, redirecting now to a 404 error page. Interest in testing Grok comes as GSA continues to work on GSAi, an artificial intelligence tool built by the agency and meant to help employees access multiple AI models. At launch, the GSAi tool included access to several systems, including tools from Anthropic and Meta. Notably, Grok came under fire last week after promoting various antisemitic statements on the Musk-owned social media platform X. A top digital rights group is pushing back on the IRS's data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, writing in a new court filing that the pact violates federal tax code and fails to take into account the real-world consequences of bulk data disclosure. In an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the “historical context” of the tax code section that ensures confidentiality of returns and return information “favors a narrow interpretation of disclosure provisions.” EFF also made the case for why the bulk disclosure of taxpayer information — in this case to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is especially harmful due to “record linkage errors” that set the stage for “an increase in mistaken and dangerous ICE enforcement actions against taxpayers.” Nonprofit groups sued the Trump administration in March, shortly after the data-sharing deal between the IRS and ICE was announced. Soon after, the tax agency's then-acting commissioner resigned, reportedly in protest. In May, a Trump-appointed federal judge refused to block the agreement, allowing the IRS to continue delivering taxpayer data to ICE. The ruling, DHS said in a statement, was “a victory for the American people and for common sense.” As the D.C. Circuit Court considers the appeal, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to make sure that the “historical context” of tax and privacy law is taken into account. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Signal 50 Podcast
Episode 205  -  Epstein is a DISTRACTION, KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE, OBUMMER Mate Makes $122000/Month

Signal 50 Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 11, 2025 54:09


Episode 205  -  Epstein is a DISTRACTION, KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE, OBUMMER Mate Makes $122000 a month from GSA and MORE!   Join Alpha Sierra 288, Bravo Golf 592, and Kilo Romeo for discussions regarding the #HardTurth about today's stories the lamestream won't talk about.    (X): https://x.com/Signal50Podcast   GETTR: Follow Bravo Golf 592 below: https://gettr.com/user/bravogolf592   Truth Social: Follow Bravo Golf 592: https://truthsocial.com/@BravoGolf592   Truth Social: Follow Alpha Sierra 288: https://truthsocial.com/@AlphaSierra288   GETTR: Follow Alpha Sierra 288 below: https://gettr.com/user/alphasierra288   Parler Link to Signal50 Page: https://parler.com/#/user/Signal50podcast   Message Us on Telegram: https://t.me/Signal50podcast   Join our Telegram Group Channel: https://t.me/joinchat/HjXf6ZPLfWl9REdi     Watch us on RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/Signal50Podcast   Apple Podcast: Audio Only  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/signal-50-podcast/id1533557486     Google Podcast: Audio Only https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL3NpZ25hbDUwcG9kY2FzdC9mZWVkLnhtbA%3D%3D     Podbean: Audio Only https://signal50podcast.podbean.com     Spotify: Audio Only https://open.spotify.com/show/6uO9fsmbEbhwfKaNYYAFYR   Signal 50 on the web:  www.signal50.com   Email Alpha Sierra 288 and Bravo Golf 592 with your comments: Sig50podcast@protonmail.com

Off the Shelf
Legal implications of the FAR overhaul

Off the Shelf

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 11, 2025 41:55


This week's guest on Off the Shelf is Jason Workmaster from Miller & Chevalier. Workmaster discusses the potential legal implications of the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), and analyzes the key features of the RFO and the implications for contractors and contracting officers. He highlights the potential ramifications for the bid protest process and the roles of GAO and the Court of Claims. Turning to GSA's Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program, Workmaster gives his thoughts on the expansion of Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) across the program and what contractors need to focus on during the expansion. Finally, he outlines the Department of Justice's enforcement priorities for government contractors under the new Trump administration. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Off the Shelf
The implementation of the revolutionary FAR overhaul

Off the Shelf

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2025 46:51


This week's guest on Off the Shelf, is Ken Dodds, executive vice president, and general counsel for the Coalition for Common Sense in Government Procurement.During the show, Dodds shares his insights on implementing the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) and how the reform will likely reshape key aspects of the procurement process. Dodds also highlights some the key parts of the FAR that will have the biggest potential impact on contracting officers and contractors, and he gives his thoughts on the current round of acquisition reform legislation being considered by Congress. Dodds also addresses GSA's expansion of Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) and the implications for the program, including the demise of the Price Reduction Clause.Finally he alks about small business issues and the procurement system. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
CDC data chief announces departure from agency; Oracle products discounted under GSA OneGov deal

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2025 4:17


Alan Sim, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's chief data officer, announced his departure from the agency after nearly five years in the position, per a post he wrote on social media Monday. Sim took on the role of chief data officer in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and over the years has been a leader on initiatives such as the agency's generative AI projects. Reflecting on his time, Sim pointed to several “firsts” the agency achieved, including launching its enterprise data catalog and using data and cloud technologies to improve emergency response. “It is with mixed emotions that I announce my departure from the CDC,” Sim wrote in a post to LinkedIn. His time as CDC's data leader was his second run at the agency. Sim, who has a PhD in epidemiology, had also been a graduate fellow and then a health informatics scientist at CDC early on in his career in the late 90s to the early 2000s. In his post, Sim said that period was “defined by concerns like bioterrorism, Anthrax, and SARS.” “Returning in 2020 as CDC's Chief Data Officer during the worst pandemic in our nation's history was both a significant challenge and a profound opportunity,” Sim said. Sim didn't include details about his next steps but said he would be sharing more soon. It is unclear who the acting CDO is in his absence. The General Services Administration struck a deal with Oracle as part of its OneGov strategy to provide a variety of cheaper services to federal agencies, including a 75% discount for license-based Oracle Technology Programs. Under OneGov, GSA wants to work directly with original equipment manufacturers like Oracle to negotiate better governmentwide terms for commercial technology. On top of the 75% discount for licensed technology such as database, integration, security, and analytics services, Oracle will also offer “substantial base discounts” for its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services, GSA announced Monday. Oracle is now the latest of several technology vendors, including Adobe, Google, Salesforce and others, to negotiate a OneGov deal with GSA. This deal, however, comes with some additional terms beyond discounts that stand to benefit federal agencies as they modernize their IT infrastructures. In particular, Oracle won't charge data egress fees when agencies move their “existing workloads from Oracle Government Clouds to another cloud service provider's FedRAMP Moderate, High or DOD IL 4, 5 Cloud,” GSA said in its release. The company will also promote pricing parity with other competing commercial cloud providers, “with no additional security or government uplifts ever charged in the Oracle cloud.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

WALL STREET COLADA
Wall Street retrocede por Nuevos Aranceles, Musk Lanza Partido y Amazon Lidera Guerra de Ofertas

WALL STREET COLADA

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2025 4:39


Notas del Show: En este episodio cubrimos los eventos más relevantes antes de la apertura del mercado: • Wall Street retrocede tras amenaza arancelaria: Futuros en rojo: $SPX −0.5 %, $US100 −0.6 %, $INDU −0.3 %. Trump propuso un nuevo arancel del 10 % desde el 1 de agosto a países que respalden a BRICS y pidió al Congreso prorrogar tarifas. También rechazó el plan de Elon Musk de fundar un nuevo partido. El mercado espera avances comerciales esta semana. • Tesla se desploma tras movimiento político de Musk: $TSLA −7 % en premarket. Musk anunció el “America Party”, generando presión política y comercial para Tesla, que acumula una caída del 22 % en 2025. Wedbush advierte que este giro desvía el foco en un momento clave para la compañía. • Amazon desata batalla de descuentos minoristas: $AMZN lanza Prime Day (8–11 julio), estimado en $21B en ventas (+60 % YoY). Walmart responde con “Walmart Deals” (8–13 julio), Target con Circle Week (6–12), Best Buy con “Black Friday in July” y Kohl's con Summer Cyber Deals. La competencia por el consumo se intensifica. • Oracle recorta precios para conquistar el sector federal: $ORCL ofrecerá hasta −75 % en software con licencia y descuentos en cloud para agencias federales. El acuerdo con la GSA busca modernizar TI gubernamental y sigue iniciativas similares de $CRM, $GOOGL, $ADBE y $MSFT. Oracle apunta a +40 % en crecimiento cloud este año fiscal. Una jornada cargada de anuncios políticos, guerra de precios en retail y apuestas por modernizar la nube federal. ¡No te lo pierdas!

Govcon Giants Podcast
282: URGENT: FAR Overhaul Hits in 24 Hours—What Small Businesses MUST Do Now!

Govcon Giants Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2025 49:16


You ever felt like the rules of government contracting change before you can even understand them? In this episode, I sat down with Emily Murphy—former GSA Administrator and current head of Government Procurement Strategies—to break down everything you need to know about the FAR Rewrite and how it impacts small businesses, AI, commercial solutions, and contract consolidation. We're talking about sweeping changes being implemented within 24 hours, missing references to small businesses in key parts of the FAR (yes, even the Rule of Two!), and the major shift toward modular IT procurement and AI oversight. If you think the FAR rewrite is just another bureaucratic update, think again. Emily didn't just drop buzzwords—she revealed why small businesses might be squeezed out if they're not proactive, how a $10K change in micro-purchase thresholds could save $30M, and what this means for the future of contracting officers, procurement strategies, and vendor access. We also dove into the executive orders pushing these changes, what consolidation under GSA means for your pipeline, and why contracting delays are costing your business more than you think. This is essential listening for every BD lead, small business owner, or contractor trying to survive FY25. Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/zpvM1bU269Y Emily's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilywebstermurphy/  Acquisition Website: https://www.acquisition.gov/  For trusted government contract financing, visit encoregov.com. To level up your skills, watch free trainings and connect with our expert coaches at federalhelpcenter.com.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Trump admin issues internal federal guidance on AI reporting; GSA's newly expanded acquisition data reporting program is riddled with ‘shortcomings'

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2025 5:20


The Office of Management and Budget has issued its version of guidance on annual artificial intelligence use case reporting within agencies, outlining a similar process to the previous administration, albeit slimmer. That guidance obtained by FedScoop is dated June 27 and has been shared internally in the federal government but hasn't been made public. It's accompanied by a document breaking down the questions in the various fields. The move suggests that despite the Trump White House's markedly different tone on AI, some details may not look so different. Despite President Donald Trump's criticism of President Joe Biden's handling of AI, including the immediate rescission of his AI executive order, the updated process will ask agencies to provide much of the same information, including the stage of development, whether it was developed in-house or purchased, and whether the use case involves personally identifiable information maintained by the agency, among other categories. Ultimately, it sets a compilation deadline of Nov. 4 and a publication deadline of Dec. 2, maintaining a similar schedule to the previous year. The General Services Administration mandated in June that all multiple award schedule contract holders will be required to report transactional data beginning in fiscal 2026, expanding a pilot that the agency launched nearly a decade ago. However, GSA's Office of the Inspector General takes objection to that decision to institutionalize the transactional data reporting (TDR) pilot because it says the agency “has never effectively implemented TDR and has never made it functional,” according to a new report. GSA's Federal Acquisition Service launched the TDR pilot in 2016, asking contractors in select product lines to share data on government purchases with the intent of driving better buying decisions. In fiscal 2024, the agency expanded the TDR pilot program to encompass 67 categories of products — what GSA refers to as special item numbers (SINs). But along the way, the program has struggled with data quality issues, limited usage in pricing decisions and a lack of competitive pricing actions, the IG points out in the new report. “Ultimately, the TDR pilot has been in effect within the MAS program for 9 years and has yet to accomplish its intended purpose,” it states. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

DoD Contract Academy
GSA Contracts Step by Step in 2025

DoD Contract Academy

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2025 58:58


We're answering all the questions people are asking about GSA.We cover: GSA Advantage, GSA rates and GSA labor rates, e-library GSA, what is GSA? We give you the history, talk about GSA schedules, and how to apply for the schedules. Learn from GSA government officials that I have interviewed and what the GSA catalog looks like. Learn how to shape deals, work directly with federal agencies, and master category-driven acquisition.

FedBiz'5
Executive Order 14240 and the Future of Government Procurement

FedBiz'5

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 30, 2025 7:53 Transcription Available


Send us a textIn this episode of FedBiz'5, Bobby Testa breaks down Executive Order 14240—"Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Government Procurement"—and why it's shaking up the entire landscape of federal contracting.If you're a current or aspiring government contractor, this EO isn't background noise—it's your new playbook.Uncle Sam is cleaning house. The goal? Streamline procurement, eliminate duplication, and centralize control under the General Services Administration (GSA). Agencies are being asked to submit lists of their most commonly purchased goods and services—and GSA will take it from there. That means fewer contract vehicles, more centralized buying, and a big shift in how agencies shop for solutions.This isn't a budget cut. It's a procurement evolution.And the biggest shake-up? IT. The GSA is taking a stronger lead on tech procurement, from SaaS to cybersecurity. Programs like SEWP and CIO-SP are now under a microscope. If you're in tech and not already tied into GSA contracts, it's time to get moving.Bobby's five-step FedBiz'5 Survival Guide outlines exactly how to prepare:Audit Your Contracts: Know which vehicles are vulnerable to consolidation.Get GSA Ready: If you're not on a GSA Schedule, now's the time.Refocus Your Capability Statement: Emphasize cost-effectiveness and performance, not just qualifications.Engage Early: Don't wait for the RFP—respond to RFIs and attend Industry Days.Team Strategically: Partnering with a GSA-savvy prime could be your fast track forward.EO 14240 is not the end of opportunity—it's a redefinition of it. Contractors who move quickly and align with GSA's centralized priorities can come out ahead. The ones who wait? They risk becoming invisible.The bottom line: Adaptability wins. Visibility is key. And staying passive is not an option.

Coach & Kernan
Episode 1525 #shegone Podcast featuring World Champion Gary Gaetti hosted by Jeff Frye with Dave Dagostino

Coach & Kernan

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2025 68:29


#shegone founder Jeff Frye sits down with 1987 World Champion Gary Gaetti. The 4 time Gold Glover shares his sense of reverence for greats like Rod Carew, Kirby Puckett, Tony Oliva, Ceasar Tobar. Gaetti dishes on the special relationship he had with Dan Gladden as a teammate and the even tighter bond they now share in life after baseball. His passion for the gme comes through loud and clear- hear tips on bunting, stealing, hitting, and sliding ... all with the same theme of advice ... know your game and play to it. One of the greatest 3rd basemen of the 80's and 90's, this eventual Hall of Famer prided himself on toughness but admitted that fear plays a key part in baseball, especially vs certain flame throwers- Eckersley, Goose, Morris, Darwin, the Rocket, and Nolan Ryan. Stay tuned until the end and listen to a pitch by pitch breakdown gainst the Ryan Express in spring training his rookie year. Frye brings out some great stories and baseball nuggets from his friend, former teammate and one time hitting instructor. Please take a look at www.GSA.com The Gaetti Sports Academy. It recently opened its doors in Gary's hometown in Illinois to educate the youth on the right way to play the game ... the Gaetti Way.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
VA secretary pledges progress on EHR rollout amid workforce cuts; GSA inks deal with Elastic to discount products for agencies

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2025 4:07


Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins attempted to assuage lawmakers' concerns Tuesday over how the agency plans to deliver critical health tech services amid drastic cuts to its workforce. Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Collins said the VA is full steam ahead on planned deployments of its oft-troubled electronic health record at additional facilities, and is also pushing forward on the rollout of its External Provider Scheduling tool. The VA said in February that it had dismissed 1,000 employees, while the Associated Press reported in March that it planned to cut 80,000 staffers. The Oracle EHR system, meanwhile — plagued by technical problems since its launch during the first Trump administration — is scheduled to be deployed at 13 medical facilities by 2026. A suite of Elastic products will be discounted for agencies by up to 60% under a new deal announced Tuesday by the General Services Administration. The agreement, part of the GSA's OneGov strategy to modernize how the government purchases goods and services, will give agencies access to discounts of Elastic's self-managed solution starting at 27.5%, climbing to higher savings based on governmentwide annual spending. Stephen Ehikian, GSA's acting administrator, said in a press release that the pact “represents a significant step in our efforts to drive cost efficiencies and modernize IT infrastructure across the federal government.” Additionally, discounts start at 15% for FedRAMP Moderate cloud deployments via GovCloud, jumping to 32% at the top volume tier. The pricing options are locked in for orders made prior to Sept. 30, 2027. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
ICE seeks proprietary data, tech to monitor up to a million people; GSA plans to ‘flip' the role of tech resellers with OneGov strategy

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2025 4:40


U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to hire a company to help it mine through data sources including social media, international trade data, blockchain information, property records, and the dark web — the latest example of the agency looking to beef up the tools and platforms it uses in its enforcement operations. In a government procurement posting published late last month, ICE said it was interested in deploying a service that can continuously monitor a million people or entities of interest — and analyze trends for the purpose of “identifying potentially criminal and fraudulent behavior before crime and fraud can materialize,” among other goals. In a request for information for “Data Analytics” shared by ICE's investigations and operations support office in suburban Dallas, the government component outlined a range of requirements that it might seek from a contractor, like staff support, data analytics, and access to proprietary data. As the General Services Administration looks to form direct relationships with IT manufacturers to bring better value to agencies through governmentwide deals under its OneGov strategy, it's going to disrupt a staple of the federal IT acquisition ecosystem: value-added resellers. A significant portion of federal IT contracting traditionally goes through resellers that provide software services on behalf of original equipment manufacturers that often don't have the experience navigating or selling to the federal government. Those resellers, like Carahsoft, CDW-G and Iron Bow, however, specialize in that and provide additional services like integration, customization and support for commercial IT products. Lawrence Hale, assistant commissioner of the Information Technology Category in GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by George Mason University's Baroni Center for Government Contracting that what GSA is trying to do by working directly with the manufacturers is flip that relationship. In going straight to OEMs for IT contracts — as GSA has done now with several vendors like Microsoft, Google, Adobe and Salesforce under its OneGov strategy announced in April — resellers won't be eliminated. Instead, they can still serve as authorized partners or subcontractors to those IT manufacturers, Hale explained, whereas the opposite is often true today. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Project 38: The future of federal contracting
The 2025 Top 100 also is a roadmap for next year and beyond

Project 38: The future of federal contracting

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2025 22:53


Each annual release of the Top 100 also provides a jumping-off point to start pondering what the next year's rankings could look like and how today's macrotrends shape it.For this second part of their 2025 Top 100 conversation, Nick and Ross pick up where they left off by looking at the Trump administration's spotlight and scrutiny of GovCon five months after moving in.The government customer collective wants all the latest and greatest tech tools, but also sounds picky about where they want to get them from. Nick and Ross highlight the different kinds of roles companies across the market play in providing that tech and how those could change in future years.The 2025 Washington Technology Top 100 RankingsWT 360: Our first takeaways from the 2025 Top 100 with more to follow2025's Top 100 rankings reveal a market in major upheavalTOP 100: CGI Federal's Stephanie Mango on navigating Trump's ‘dynamic environment'TOP 100: How Serco Inc. uses its pivot to position for Trump prioritiesGSA expands review of ‘consulting' contracts to 9 more companiesGSA expands contract reviews to resellersIndustry awaits significant disruption as GSA works on contract takeoversGSA's new procurement strategy challenges the reseller ecosystemGSA's new procurement strategy begins with consumer techGSA unveils new unified procurement strategyGSA's procurement chief details administration's acquisition reform plansGSA leaders urge acquisition teams to embrace flexibility as FAR overhaul rolls out

DoD Contract Academy
Death of The Middleman: GSA Just Made It's Move

DoD Contract Academy

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2025 9:23


GSA just changed the game. On May 28th, a letter went out to major value-added resellers—and it wasn't good news for the middlemen. The government is moving toward direct deals with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and that means major changes are coming for federal sales.Train with UsLearn how to shape deals, work directly with federal agencies, and master category-driven acquisition.

PeDRA Pearls
Getting to Know Your Patients: Gorlin Syndrome Alliance

PeDRA Pearls

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2025 41:44


In this episode of PeDRA Pearls, we host a powerful conversation featuring the Gorlin Syndrome Alliance (GSA). Join us as we delve into the world of Gorlin Syndrome through the heartfelt narrative of Taylor Hodge, who recounts her family's journey following her son's diagnosis at just 18 months old. Joined by Dr. Elena Hawryluk of Harvard Medical School, the discussion sheds light on current research gaps and future directions in the field. Meredith Weiss, Executive Director of the GSA, also contributes, highlighting the essential patient support programs offered by the GSA and the organization's unwavering commitment to research and collaboration. This episode offers a blend of personal insight and professional expertise, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of Gorlin Syndrome and the ongoing collaborative efforts to support those affected.

The Buzz with ACT-IAC
ICYMI: Top Strategies from Leading Private Sector Contact Centers

The Buzz with ACT-IAC

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2025 42:08 Transcription Available


*NEW EDIT* In this episode, panelists from industry share their strategies and experiences for improving contact center operations. The session is moderated by Crystal Philcox, a former federal executive at GSA and IRS. Topics discussed include the importance of customer feedback, leveraging AI and analytics for better customer interactions, proactive support strategies, and empowering employees for better performance. Facilitator: Martha Dorris, Dorris Consulting InternationalModerator: Crystal Philcox, Former Federal ExecutivePanelists: Michael Lassiter, Senior Process Manager, Consumer Intelligence, Capital OneTara O'Brien, Senior Director, Johnson & JohnsonBrian Pancia, Senior Client Partner-Solutions, Verizon Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to never miss an episode! For more from ACT-IAC, follow us on LinkedIn or visit http://www.actiac.org.Learn more about membership at https://www.actiac.org/join.Donate to ACT-IAC at https://actiac.org/donate. Intro/Outro Music: See a Brighter Day/Gloria TellsCourtesy of Epidemic Sound(Episodes 1-159: Intro/Outro Music: Focal Point/Young CommunityCourtesy of Epidemic Sound)

The Daily Scoop Podcast
The former leader of 18F speaks out on the digital services team's ‘deletion'

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2025 33:01


Daily Scoop listeners and readers of FedScoop will recall the shocking news earlier this year when 18F, a decade-old digital services consultancy in the General Services Administration, was shuttered by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency. Members of the team have banded together since their termination to keep an active presence online through 18F.org in the wake of their dismantling. But the group isn't going out without a fight. Several senior members of 18F in late May filed a class action appeal to the Merit System Protection Board claiming that GSA lacked a “valid reason” for firing them and targeted them as an act of “retaliation” for their political beliefs. In the appeal, they call for a hearing and to have their removal reversed. Lindsay Young is the former executive director of 18F and one of the name appellants representing the class in the appeal. She joins the podcast for a conversation about how the “deletion” of 18F went down, what she and her team have been doing since, and what they hope to accomplish with the appeal. U.S. officials violated federal privacy law and flouted cybersecurity protocol in sharing Office of Personnel Management records with DOGE affiliates, a federal district court judge in New York ruled Monday, granting a request for a preliminary injunction against the administration. In a 99-page order, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York concluded that federal worker and union plaintiffs had shown that the government defendants in the challenge shared OPM records with “individuals who had no legal right of access to those records” in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974 and cybersecurity standards. “This was a breach of law and of trust,” Cote said in the order. “Tens of millions of Americans depend on the Government to safeguard records that reveal their most private and sensitive affairs.” The ruling is the latest in a challenge to DOGE's data access at OPM brought by a coalition of federal unions and current and former government employees or contractors. A new executive order from President Donald Trump aims to boost drone manufacturing in the United States, an effort the administration hopes will spur productivity and technological development and secure the country's industrial base. Meanwhile, a second executive order aims to combat the risk that, as drone usage proliferates, the technology could also be used to threaten public safety and endanger critical infrastructure. The “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” and “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty” executive orders, both signed last Friday, come amid growing concerns about the operation of the National Airspace System, the airspace the Federal Aviation Administration monitors for commercial flights, space launches, and other aerial activity. Drones, sometimes called unmanned aerial systems, are also used to smuggle drugs and assist in criminal activity. Unauthorized UASs have increasingly shown up near some nuclear facilities, military bases, and commercial airports, raising concerns, too. The new executive order on airspace sovereignty aims to combat the problem, broadly charging federal agencies to detect drone activity, which will require the use of tracking and identification technology. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Federal Drive with Tom Temin
GSA gets closer to centralizing buying of common goods and services

Federal Drive with Tom Temin

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2025 9:56


Two new initiatives are driving the General Services Administration closer to its goals, to centralize the buying of common goods and services simplify acquisition processes and save money. First, GSA is digging into the value added reseller model that has become popular over the last 20 plus years. And second, they're taking initial steps to set up a centralized acquisition office for more on why these two efforts are another signal of the significant changes on the horizon for federal contractors. Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller joins me now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Trump admin eyes new model for TMF in 2026; Pentagon begins recruiting its next cohort of disruptive defense acquisition fellows

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2025 4:36


The federal Technology Modernization Fund has had a bumpy relationship with congressional appropriators since its creation in 2017, and now the Trump administration wants to sidestep the appropriations process entirely to replenish the fund on an annual basis with unused money transferred from agencies. The White House on Friday quietly issued an in-depth appendix of its budget request for fiscal 2026, and executive agencies followed suit, publishing their annual budget justification documents. The General Services Administration, which houses the TMF program and disburses its funds, revealed in its 2026 justification that the Trump administration did not request any “new discretionary appropriated funding for the TMF” in 2026, instead proposing a new model for how it could pull money from other agencies, up to $100 million, to re-up the fund each fiscal year. “President's FY 2026 budget request includes a governmentwide general provision that will allow GSA, with approval of OMB, to collect unobligated balances of expired discretionary funds from other agencies and bring that funding into the TMF,” the justification explains. “To further strengthen the TMF's ability to help agencies kickstart or accelerate their urgent modernization efforts, GSA and OMB are committed to exploring alternative funding mechanisms.” Historically, the sitting administration has called on Congress to fund the TMF on an annual basis, with varying degrees of success. Pentagon procurement officials who are looking to up their expertise in buying cutting-edge tech for the U.S. military can now apply to join the 2026 Immersive Commercial Acquisition Program fellowship cohort, Defense Innovation Unit officials announced Tuesday. Next year will mark the fourth iteration of the educational ICAP initiative, which DIU runs in partnership with the Defense Acquisition University. This fellowship is designed to provide DOD's leading procurement professionals with hands-on experience and virtual training to help them more effectively buy in-demand commercial technologies from non-traditional military contractors. DIU's Deputy Director for Commercial Operations Liz Young McNally told DefenseScoop during a panel at the Special Competitive Studies Project's AI+ Expo. “We have other acquisition officers from across the department who can apply to the year-long fellowship with DIU — to learn our process, how we work with industry, and then bring that back to wherever they're going. And [the next ICAP application] just opened today.”If tapped for the fellowship, personnel will get a chance to work on a variety of real-world, military service-aligned projects alongside a DIU contracting officer, project team and commercial solution providers. The fellows will also gain in-depth instruction on a flexible contracting mechanism designed for rapid prototyping and acquisition of commercial tech, known as other transaction (OT) authority.

The Daily Scoop Podcast
Former 18F employees file appeal of DOGE firings; Fannie Mae partners with Palantir on mortgage fraud detection

The Daily Scoop Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2025 4:53


Former employees of the General Services Administration's 18F digital tech consultancy team filed an appeal Wednesday challenging their alleged wrongful termination and the “targeted” shuttering of the program by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. The employees, represented by the law firm Mehri & Skalet, submitted a class-action appeal with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board to request a hearing and have their removal reversed. Former 18F leaders Lindsay Young, Miatta Myers, Christian Crumlish, James Tranovich and Kate Fisher are named as appellants, representing that larger class of about 80 terminated permanent and term employees from the team who served for more than a year. The group claims that GSA — along with the Office of Personnel Management, DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget — lacked a “valid reason … for the [reduction in force] targeting 18F” that took place Feb. 28, and claimed the action was a result of “retaliation.” Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is enlisting data analytics giant Palantir in a new partnership aimed at cracking down on mortgage fraud. Under the agreement, Palantir's technology will be deployed to uncover fraud in mortgage packages before they reach Fannie Mae. Priscilla Almodovar, president and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, said the tech will allow the organization “to see patterns quicker.” “We're going to be able to identify fraud more proactively, as opposed to reactively,” Almodovar said during a press conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C. “We're going to be able to understand the fraud and stop it in its tracks. And I think over time, this really becomes a deterrent for bad actors, because we're creating friction in the system when they do bad things.” FHFA Director Bill Pulte, who also serves as chairman of the Fannie Mae board, said the financial crimes division that monitors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “is only able to root out crime that it gets made aware of.” Palantir's red-flag approach, meanwhile, tips off those investigators to conduct probes they otherwise might not have known to launch.Almodovar recalled an exercise where Palantir's technology was given four actual loan files to assess. The tech, she said, scoured the “reams of paper” and identified instances of fraud in 10 seconds. The same exercise could take human investigators roughly two months. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Statecraft
How to Run the Treasury Department

Statecraft

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2025 51:03


 Santi: Hi, this is a special episode of Statecraft. I've got a wonderful guest host with me today. Kyla Scanlon: Hey, I'm Kyla Scanlon! I'm the author of a book called In This Economy and an economic commentator. Santi: Kyla has joined me today for a couple reasons. One, I'm a big fan of her newsletter: it's about economics, among many other things. She had a great piece recently on what we can learn from C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, which is a favorite book of mine.Kyla's also on today because we're interviewing Wally Adeyemo, who was the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Biden administration. We figured we each had questions we wanted answered.Kyla: Yeah, I've had the opportunity to interview Wally a couple times during the Biden administration, and I wanted to see where he thinks things are at now. He played a key role in implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, financial sanctions on Russia, and a whole bunch of other things.Santi: For my part, I'm stuck on Wally's role in setting up the IRS's Direct File program, where you can file your taxes for free directly through the IRS instead of paying TurboTax a hundred bucks to do it. “Good governance types” tend to love Direct File, but the current admin is thinking of killing it. I wanted to understand how the program got rolled out, how Wally would respond to criticisms of the program, and what he learned from building something in government, which now may disappear.Kyla, you've talked to Wally before. How did that conversation go? Kyla: I actually was able to go to his office in D.C., and I talked to a couple of key people in the Biden administration: Jared Bernstein, the former chair of the CEA, and Daniel Hornung, who was at the National Economic Council.We're talking to Wally on the day that the House passed the one big beautiful bill. There's also so much happening financially, like the bond market is totally rebelling against the US government right now. I'm really curious how he thinks things are, as a key player in the last administration.Santi: Wally, you've spent most of your career in Democratic Party institutions. You worked on the Kerry presidential campaign in 2004. You served in the Obama admin. You were the first chief of staff to the CFPB, the president of the Obama Foundation, and, most recently, Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Biden admin.30,000ft question: How do you see the Democratic Party today?My view is that we continue to be the party that cares deeply about working-class people, but we haven't done a good job of communicating that to people, especially when it comes to the things that matter most to them. From my standpoint, it's costs: things in America cost too much for a working-class family.I want to make sure I define working class: I think about people who make under $100,000 a year, many of whom don't own homes on the coast or don't own a significant amount of stocks (which means they haven't seen the asset appreciation that's led to a great deal of wealth creation over the last several decades). When you define it that way, 81% of Americans sit in that category of people. Despite the fact that they've seen their median incomes rise 5-10% over the last five years, they've seen the cost of the things they care about rise even faster.We haven't had a clear-cut agenda focused on the standard of living, which I think is the thing that matters most to Americans today.Santi: There are folks who would say the problem for Democrats wasn't that they couldn't communicate clearly, or that they didn't have a governing agenda, but that they couldn't execute their agenda the way they hoped to in the time available to them. Would you say there's truth to that claim?Most people talk about a communications issue, but I don't think it's a communications issue. There are two issues. One is an implementation issue, and the second is an issue of the actual substance and policy at the Treasury Department. I was the deputy secretary, but I was also the Chief Operating Officer, which meant that I was in charge of execution. The two most significant domestic things I had to execute were the American Rescue Plan, where $1.9 trillion flowed through the Treasury Department, and the Inflation Reduction Act. The challenge with execution in the government is that we don't spend a lot on our systems, on making execution as easy as possible.For example, the Advanced Child Tax Credit was intended to give people money to help with each of their children during the pandemic. What Congress called on us to do was to pay people on a monthly basis. In the IRS system, you pay your taxes mostly on an annual basis, which meant that most of our systems weren't set up to pay a monthly check to Americans. It took us a great deal of work to figure out a way to recreate a system just to do that.We've underinvested in the systems that the IRS works on. The last time we made a significant investment in the IRS's digital infrastructure was the 1960s; before we had an ATM machine, before we sent a man to the moon, before we had a personal computer. So that meant that everything was coded in a language called COBOL.So execution was quite hard in the American Rescue Plan. People were left out and felt that the government wasn't working for them. If you called the IRS, only 13% of your calls were being answered. We got that back up to 85% before we left. Ultimately, I think part of this is an execution challenge. In government we want to spend money coming up with new policies, but we don't want to pay for execution, which then means that when you get the policy passed, implementation isn't great.When Jen Pahlka was on your show, she talked about the need to focus on identifying the enablers to implementation. Direct File was one of the best examples of us taking implementation very seriously.But also, on some policy issues that mattered most to Americans, we weren't advancing the types of strategies that would've helped lower the cost of housing and lowering the cost of medicine. We did some things there, but there's clearly more that we could have done, and more we need to do going forward to demonstrate that we're fighting to bring down those costs. It's everything from permitting reform — not just at the federal level, but what can we do to incentivize it at the state and local level — to thinking about what we can do on drug costs. Why does it cost so much more to get a medicine in America than in Canada? That is something that we can solve. We've just chosen not to at the federal level.At the end of the year, we were going to take action to go after some of the middlemen in the pharmacy industry who were taking out rents and large amounts of money. It dropped out of the bill because of the negotiations between the Republican Congress and then President-elect Trump. But there are a lot of things that we can do both on implementation, which will mean that Americans feel the programs that we're passing in a more effective way, and policy solutions that we need to advance as a party that will help us as well.Kyla: Some people think Americans tend to vote against their own self-interest. How can your party message to people that these sorts of policies are really important for them?Ultimately, what I found is that most people just understand their self-interest differently, and for them, a big part of this was, “Who's fighting for me on the issues that I care most about?”From my standpoint, part of the problem we had with Direct File, which I think was an innovative solution, was that we got to implementing it so late in the administration that we didn't have the ability for it to show the impact. I'm hoping future administrations will think through how to start their implementation journey on things like Direct File sooner in the administration, when you have a great deal of political capital, so people can actually feel the impact over time.To your question, it's not just about the messaging, it's about the messenger. People tend to trust people who look like them, who come from the places they come from. When it came to the Child Tax Credit and also to Direct File, the biggest innovation wasn't the technology: the technology for Direct File has been used by the Australians, the British, and other countries for decades.The biggest innovation was us joining that technology with trusted people in communities who were going out to talk to people about those programs and building those relationships. That was something that the IRS hadn't done a great deal of. We invested a great deal in those community navigators who were helping us get people to trust the things the government was doing again, like the Child Tax Credit, like Direct File, so that they could use it.We often think that Washington is going to be able to give messages to the country that people are going to hear. But we're both in a more complicated media environment, where people are far more skeptical of things that come from people in Washington. So the best people to advocate for and celebrate the things that we're doing are people who are closer to the communities we're trying to reach. In product advertising today, more companies are looking to influencers to advertise things, rather than putting an ad on television, because people trust the people that they follow. The same is true for the things that we do in government.Santi: I've talked to colleagues of yours in the last administration who say things like, “In the White House, we did not have a good enough sense of the shot clock.” They point to various reasons, including COVID, as a reason the admin didn't do a good enough job of prioritization.Do you think that's true, that across the administration, there was a missing sense of the shot clock or a missing sense of prioritization? No, because I'm a Lakers fan. These are professionals. We're professionals. This is not our first rodeo. We know how much time is on the shot clock; we played this game. The challenge wasn't just COVID. For me at Treasury — and I think this is the coolest part of being Deputy Secretary of the Treasury — I had responsibilities domestic and international. As I'm trying to modernize the IRS, to invest all my time in making the system work better for customers and to collect more taxes from the people who owe money, Russia invades Ukraine. I had to turn a bunch of my attention to thinking about what we were going to do there. Then you have Hamas attacking Israel.There was more we should have done on the domestic end, but we have to remember that part of the presidency is: you get to do the things you want to do, but you also have to do the things you have to do. We had a lot of things we had to do that we weren't planning for which required all-of-the-administration responses.I think the most important lesson I've learned about that is that it comes down to both being focused on the things that matter, and being willing to communicate to the American people why your priorities have to change in light of things that happen in the world.But the people I'm sure you've talked to, most of them work on domestic policy alone, and they probably never have been in a National Security Council meeting, where you're thinking about the risks to the country. The president has to do both of those things. So I get how difficult it is to do that, just given where I sat at the Treasury Department.Santi: Looking back from an implementation perspective, are there things you would've done differently during your time at Treasury?The most important thing that I would've done differently was to immediately set up a permanent implementation and delivery unit in the Treasury Department. We always like to pretend like the Treasury Department is just a policy department where we make policy, we collect taxes. But in any crisis the country ever has, a great deal of responsibility — for execution or implementation of whatever the response is — falls to the Treasury Department. Think about the financial crisis, which is clearly something that's in the Treasury's domain. The vast majority of money for COVID flowed through the Treasury Department. You think about the IRA, a climate bill: the vast majority of that money flows through the Treasury Department.And Treasury doesn't have a dedicated staff that's just focused on implementation: How do we do this well? How do we make sure the right people are served? How do we make sure that we communicate this well? We did this to a degree by a team that was focused on the American Rescue Plan. But it was only focused on the American Rescue Plan. If I could start again, I would have said, “I want a permanent implementation structure within the Treasury Department of people who are cross-cutting, who only think about how we execute the policies that we pass through Congress and that we put together through an executive order. How do we do that extremely well?”Kyla: What you're talking about is very people-centric: How do we get an implementation team, and how do we make sure that the right people are doing the right jobs? Now we have DOGE, which is less people-centric. How do you reconcile what Doge is doing relative to what you would've done differently in this role that you had?As you would suspect, I wasn't excited about the fact we had lost the election, but initially I thought DOGE could be helpful with technology. I think marrying technology with people — that's the key to success for the government. We've never really been great at doing technology in the government.Part of the reason for that is a procurement process that is very slow because of how the federal acquisition rules work. What we are trying to do is prevent corruption and also waste, fraud, and abuse. But what that does is, it leads to slowness in our ability to get the technology on board that we need, and in getting the right people.I was hoping DOGE would bring in people who knew a great deal about technology and put us in a position where we could use that to build better products for the American people. I thought they would love Direct File, and that they would find ways to improve Direct File and expand it to more Americans.My view is that any American in the working class or middle class should not have to pay a company to file their taxes. We have the ability in this country, and I think Direct File was proving that. My goal, if we'd had more time, was to expand this to almost any American being able to use it. I thought they'd be able to accelerate that by bringing in the right people, but also the right technology. We were on that path before they took those two things apart.My sense is that you have to reform the way that we hire people because it's too hard to hire the right people. In some cases, you don't need some of the people you have today because technology is going to require different skills to do different things. It's easier to break something, I found, than it is to build something. I think that's what they're finding today as well.Santi: When I talk to left-of-center folks about the DOGE push, they tend to be skeptical about the idea that AI or modern technology can replace existing federal workers. I think some of that is a natural backlash to the extreme partisan coding of DOGE, and the fact that they're firing a lot of people very quickly. But what's your view? After DOGE, what kinds of roles would you like to see automated?Let me say: I disagree with the view that DOGE and technology can't replace some of the things that federal workers do today. My view is that “productivity enhancing” tech — it's not that it is going to make employees who are currently doing the job more productive. It is going to mean you need fewer employees. We have to be honest about that.Go to the IRS, for example. When I got there, we had a huge paper backlog at the IRS because, despite what most people think, millions of people still file their taxes by paper, and they send them to the IRS. And during the pandemic, the commissioner, who was then working for President Trump, decided to shut down the IRS for public health reasons — to make sure employees did not have to risk getting COVID.There were piles of paper backing up, so much so that they had filled cafeterias at the IRS facilities with huge piles of paper. The problem, of course, is that, unlike modern systems, you could not just machine-read those papers and put them into our systems. Much of that required humans to code those papers into the system by hand. There is no need in the 21st century for that to happen, so one of the things that we started to do was introduce this simple thing called scanning, where you would scan the papers — I know it sounds like a novel idea. That would help you get people's tax returns faster into the system, but also get checks out quickly, and allow us to see if people are underpaying their taxes, because we can use that data with a modern system. But over time, what would that mean? We'd need fewer people to enter the data from those forms.When we get money for the IRS from Congress, it is actually seen as revenue-raising because they expect it to bring down the debt and deficit, which is completely true. But the model Congress uses to do that is reliant on the number of full-time employees we hire. One challenge we have with the IRS — and in government systems in general — is that you don't get credit for technology investments that should improve your return on investment.So whenever we did the ROI calculations for the IRS, the Congressional Budget Office would calculate how much revenue we'd bring in, and it was always based on the number of people you had doing enforcement work that would lead to certain dollars coming in. So we got no credit for the technology investments. Which was absolutely the opposite of what we knew would be true: the more you invested in technology, the more likely you were to bring in more revenue, and you would be able to cut the cost of employees.Santi: If the CBO changed the way it scored technology improvements, would more Congresspeople be interested in funding technology?It is just a CBO issue. It's one we've tried to talk to them about over the last several years, but one where they've been unwilling to move. My view is that unlocking this will unlock greater investment in technology in a place like the IRS, because every dollar you invest in technology — I think — would earn back $10 in additional tax revenue we'd be able to collect from people who are skipping out on their taxes today. It's far more valuable to invest in that technology than to grow the number of employees working in enforcement at the IRS. You need both, but you can't say that a person is worth 5x their salary in revenue and that technology is worth 0. That makes no sense.Kyla: When we spoke about Direct File many months ago, people in my comment section were super excited and saying things like, “I just want the government to tell me how much money I owe.” When you think about the implementation of Direct File, what went right, and how do you think it has evolved?The thing that went right was that we proved that we could build something quite easily, and we built it ourselves, unlike many technology projects in government. We didn't go out and hire a bunch of consultants and contractors to do it. We did it with people at the IRS, but also with people from 18F and from GSA who worked in the government. We did it in partnership with a number of stakeholders outside the government who gave us advice, but the build was done by us.The reason that was important — and the reason it's important to build more things internally rather than hiring consulting firms or other people to build it — is that you then have the intellectual capital from building that, and that can be used to build other things. This was one product, but my view is that I want the IRS home page to one day look a lot more like the screen on your iPhone, so that you can click on the app on the IRS homepage that can help you, depending on what you need — if it's a Direct File, or if it's a tax transcript.By building Direct File internally, we were getting closer to that, and the user scores on the effectiveness of the tool and the ability to use it were through the roof. Even for a private sector company, it would've been seen as a great success. In the first year, we launched late in the filing season, mostly just to test the product, but also to build stakeholder support for it. In the limited release, 140,000 people used it. The average user said that before Direct File, it took them about 13 hours to file their taxes, and with Direct File, it took them just over an hour to file their taxes.But you also have to think about how much money the average American spends filing their taxes: about $200. That's $200 that a family making under $100,000 could invest in their kids, in paying some bills, rather than in filing their taxes.Even this year, with no advertising by the Trump administration of Direct File, we had more than 300,000 people use it. The user scores for the product were above 85%. The challenge, of course, is that instead of DOGE investing in improving the product — which was a place where you could have seen real intellectual capital go to work and make something that works for all Americans — they've decided to discontinue Direct File. [NB: There has been widespread reporting that the administration plans to discontinue Direct File. The GOP tax bill passed by the House would end Direct File if it becomes law. At the time of publication, the Direct File has not been discontinued.]The sad part is that when you think about where we are as a country, this is a tool that could both save people money, save people time, improve our ability to collect taxes, and is something that exists in almost every other developed economy. It makes no sense to me why you would end something like this rather than continue to develop it.Santi: People remember the failure of healthcare.gov, which crashed when it was rolled out all at once to everyone in the country. It was an embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, and political actors in that administration learned they had to pilot things and roll them out in phases.Is there a tension between that instinct — to test things slowly, to roll them out to a select group of users, and then to add users in following cycles — Is there a tension between that and trying to implement quickly, so that people see the benefit of the work you're doing?One of my bosses in the Obama administration was Jeff Zients, the person who was brought in to fix healthcare.gov. He relentlessly focused on execution. He always made the point that it's easy to come up with a strategy to some degree: you can figure out what the policy solution is. But the difference between good and great is how you execute against it. I think there is some tension there, but not as much as you would think.Once we were able to show that the pilot was a success, I got invited to states all over the country, like Maryland, to announce that they were joining Direct File the next year. These members of Congress wanted to do Direct File events telling people in their state, “This product that's worked so well elsewhere is coming to us next.” It gave us the ability to celebrate the success.I learned the lesson not just from Zients, but also from then-professor Elizabeth Warren, whom I worked for as chief of staff at the CFPB. One challenge we had at the CFPB was to build a complaint hotline, at that point mostly phone-operated, for people who were suffering. They said it would take us at least a year to build out all the product functions we need. We decided to take a modular approach and say, “How long would it take for us to build the system for one product? Let's try that and see how that works. We'll do a test.”It was successful, and we were able to use that to tell the story about the CFPB and what it would do, not just for mortgages, but for all these other products. We built user interest in the complaint hotline, in a way that we couldn't have if we'd waited to build the whole thing at once. While I think you're right that there is some tension between getting everyone to feel it right away and piloting; if the pilot is successful, it also gives you the opportunity to go out and sell this thing to people and say, “Here's what people who did the pilot are saying about this product.”I remember someone in Texas who was willing to do a direct-to-camera and talk about the ways that Direct File was so easy for them to use. It gets back to my point on message and messenger. Deputy Secretary Adeyemo telling you about this great thing the government did is one thing. But an American who looks like you, who's a nurse, who's a mom of two kids, telling you that this product actually worked for her: That's something that more people identify with.Healthcare.gov taught us the lesson of piloting and doing things in a modular way. This is what companies have been doing for decades. If it's worked for them, I think it can work for the government too.Santi: I'm a fan of Direct File, personally. I don't want this administration to kill it. But I was looking through some of the criticism that Direct File got: for instance, there's criticism about it rivaling the IRS Free File program, which is another IRS program that partners with nonprofits to help some folks file their taxes for free.Then there's this broader philosophical criticism: “I don't want the feds telling me how much I owe them.” The idea is that the government is incentivized to squeeze every last dollar out of you.I'm curious what you make of that, in part because I spoke recently to an American who worked on building e-government systems for Estonia. One of the things that has allowed Estonia to build cutting-edge digital systems in the government is that Estonia is a small and very high-trust society. Everybody's one degree of separation from everybody else.We're a much bigger and more diverse country. How do you think that affects the federal government's ability to build tools like Direct File?I think it affects it a lot, and it gets back to my point: not just the message but the messenger. I saw this not just with Direct File, but with the Advanced Child Tax Credit, which was intended to help kids who were living in poverty, but also families overall. What we found initially in the data was that, among families that didn't have to file taxes because they made too little, many of them were unwilling to take advantage of Direct File and the Advanced Child Tax Credit because they couldn't believe the government was doing something to just help them. I spent a lot of time with priests, pastors, and other community leaders in many of the communities where people were under-filing to try and get them to talk about this program and why it was something that they should apply for.One of the challenges we suffer from right now in America, overall, is a lack of trust in institutions. You have to really go local and try to rebuild that trust.That also speaks to taking a pilot approach that goes slower in some cases. Some of the criticism we got was, “Why don't you just fill out this form for us and then just send it to us, so that Direct File is just me pressing a button so I can pay my taxes?”Part of the challenge for us in doing that is a technology challenge: we are not there technologically. But the other problem is a trust problem. If I were to just fill out your taxes for you and send them to you, I think people, at this stage, would distrust the government and distrust the technology.Direct File had to be on a journey with people, showing people, “If I put in this information, it accurately sends me back my check.” As people develop more trust, we can also add more features to it that I think people will trust. But the key has to be: how do you earn that trust over time?We can't expect that if we put out a product that looks like something the Estonian government or Australia would put out, that people would trust it at this point. We have to realize that we are on a journey to regain the trust of the American people.The government can and will work for them, and Direct File was a part of that. We started to demonstrate that with that product because the people who used it in these communities became the spokespeople for it in a better way than I ever could be, than the Secretary or the President could be.Everyone knows that they need to pay their taxes because it's part of their responsibility living in this country. The things that make people the most upset is the fact that there are people who don't pay their taxes. We committed that we were going to go after them.The second frustration was: “Why do you make it so hard for me to pay my taxes? Why can't I get through to you on the phone line? Why do I have to pay somebody else to do my taxes?” Our goal was to solve those two problems by investing money and going after the people who just decided they weren't going to pay, but also by making it as easy as possible for you to pay your taxes and for most people, to get that tax refund as quickly as possible.But doing that was about going on a journey with people, about regaining their trust in an institution that mattered to them a great deal because 90 something-percent of the money that funds our government comes in through the IRS.Kyla: You have a piece out in Foreign Affairs called “Make Moscow Pay,” and what I found most interesting about that essay is that you said Europe needs to step it up because the United States won't. Talk through the role of Treasury in financial sanctions, and your reasons for writing this piece.People often think about the Treasury Department as doing a few things. One is working with Wall Street; another one is collecting your taxes. Most people don't think about the fact that the Treasury Department is a major part of the National Security Committee, because we have these tools called financial sections.They use the power of the dollar to try and change the behavior of foreign actors who are taking steps that aren't consistent with our national security interests. A great example of this is what we did with regard to Russia — saying that we're going to cut off Russian banks from the US financial system, which means that you can't transact in US dollars.The problem for any bank that can transact in dollars is that the backbone of most of the financial world is built on the US dollar. It increases their cost, it makes it more difficult for them to transact, and makes it harder for them to be part of the global economy, nearly impossible.And that's what we've done in lots of cases when it comes to Russia. We have financial sanction programs that touch all over the world, from Venezuela to Afghanistan. The US government, since 9/11, has used sanctions as one of its primary tools of impacting foreign policy. Some of them have gone well, some of them I think haven't gone as well, and there's a need for us to think through how we use those policies.Santi: What makes sanctions an effective tool? Positions on sanctions don't line up neatly on partisan lines. Sanctions have a mixed track record, and you'll have Republicans who say sanctions have failed, and you'll have Democrats say sanctions have been an effective tool, and vice versa.The way I think about sanctions is that they are intended to bring change, and the only way that they work is that they're part of an overarching foreign policy strategy. That type of behavior change was what we saw when Iran came to the table and wanted to negotiate a way to reduce sanctions in exchange for limits on their nuclear program. That's the type of behavior change we're trying to accomplish with sanctions, but you can't do it with sanctions alone. You need a foreign policy strategy. We didn't do it by the United States confronting Iran; we got our allies and partners to work together with us. When I came into office in 2021, Secretary Yellen asked me to do a review of our sanctions policies — what's worked, what hasn't — because it had been 20 years since the 9/11 attacks.And the most important lesson I learned was that the sanctions programs that were the most effective were the ones we did on a multilateral basis — so we did it with our friends and allies. Part of the reason for this is that while the dollar is the most dominant currency around the world, oftentimes if you can't do something in dollars, you do it in a euro, or you do it in a Japanese yen, or pound sterling.The benefit of having allies all over the world is that the dominant, convertible currencies in the world are controlled by allies and partners. When we acted together with them, we were more effective in curtailing the economic activity of our adversary, and our pressure is more likely to lead to them changing their behavior.We had to be very cautious about collateral damage. You might be targeting an individual, but by targeting that individual, you might make it harder for a company they're affiliated with to continue doing business, or for a country that they're in to get access to banking services. Let's say that you're a huge bank in America, and you're worried about sanctions risk in a small country where you do little business. Why not pull out, rather than having to put in place a huge compliance program? One of the challenges that we have is that the people who make the decisions about whether to extend sanctions don't necessarily spend a lot of time thinking about some of these economic consequences of the sanctions approach.Whenever I was around the table and we were making a decision about using weapons, there was a process that was very elaborate that ended up with something going to the president. You'd often think about kinetic force very seriously, because you were going to have to get the president to make a decision. We didn't always take that kind of rigor when it came to thinking about using our sanctions policy, but the impact on the lives of people in these countries was just as significant for their access to not only money, but to food and to the resources they needed to live.Santi: What do you make of the effectiveness of the initial sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine? I've heard mixed reviews from folks inside and outside the Biden administration.Sanctions, again, to my point, are only a tool. They've had to be part of a larger strategy, and I think those sanctions were quite effective. I think the saving grace for the Russians has been the fact that China has largely been able and willing to give them access to the things they need to continue to perpetuate.There was a choice for Ukraine, but when you think about Russia's economy today vs. Russia's economy before the sanctions were put in place, it's vastly different. Inflation in Russia still runs far higher than inflation anywhere else in the world. If you were a Russian citizen, you would feel the impacts of sanctions.The challenge, of course, is that it hasn't changed Vladimir Putin's behavior or the behavior of the Kremlin, largely because they've had access to the goods and supplies they need from China, Iran, and North Korea. But over time, it means Russia's economy is becoming less competitive. They have less access to resources; they're going to struggle.I think everyone hoped that sanctions would immediately change the calculus of the Kremlin, but we've never seen that to be the case. When sanctions are effective, they take time, because the economic consequences continue to compound over time, and they have to be part of a larger strategy for the behavior of the individual. That's why I wrote the article, because while the Kremlin and Russia are under pressure, their view is that ultimately the West is going to get tired of supporting Ukraine, financially and politically, because the economic consequences for us — while not as significant as for Moscow or for Kiev — have been quite significant, when you think about the cost of living issues in Europe.I think it's important to write this now, when it appears that Russia is stalling on negotiations, because ultimately, US financial support is waning. We just know that the Trump administration is not willing to put more money into Ukraine, so Europe is going to have to do more, at a time when their economic situation is quite complicated as well.They've got a lot to do to build up their economy and their military-industrial base. Asking them to also increase their support for Ukraine at the same time is going to be quite difficult. So using this money that Russia owes to Ukraine — because they owe them compensation at this moment — can be quite influential in helping support the Ukrainians, but also changing Russia's calculus with regard to the ability of Ukraine to sustain itself.Kyla: On CNBC about a month ago, you said if we ever have a recession over the next couple of months or so, it would be a self-inflicted one. Do you still resonate with that idea? To build on the point I was making, the economy has done quite well over the course of the first few months of the year, largely because of the strength of the consumer, where our balance sheets are still quite strong. Companies in America have done well. The biggest headwind the US economy faces has been self-inflicted by the tariffs the president has put on. Part of what I still do is talk to CEOs of companies, big and small. Small businesses feel the impact of this even more than the big businesses. What they tell me is that it's not just the tariffs and the fact that they are making it more expensive for them to get the goods that they need, but it's the uncertainty created by the off-again, on-again, nature of those tariffs that makes it impossible for them to plan for what supplies they're going to get the next quarter. How are they going to fulfill their orders? What employees are they going to need? It's having a real impact on the performance of these companies, but also their ability to hire people and plan for the future.If you go to the grocery store, you're going to start seeing — and you're starting to see already — price increases. The thing that Americans care most about is, the cost of living is just too high. You're at the grocery store, as you're shopping for your kids for the summer, you're going to see costs go up because of a self-imposed tax we've put in place. So I still do think that if we do find ourselves in a recession, it's going to be because of the tariffs we've put in place.Even if we don't enter a technical recession, what we're seeing now is that those tariffs are going to raise the cost for people when they go out to buy things. It's going to raise the cost of building homes, which is going to make it harder for people to get houses, which is ultimately going to have an impact on the economy that isn't what I think the president or anyone wants at this point.Kyla: Is there anything else we haven't asked about? I think the place where we continue, as a country, to struggle is that, given the federal system we have, many of these problems aren't just in Washington — they're in state and local governments as well. When you think about the challenges to building more housing in this country, you can't just solve it by doing things at the federal level. You have to get state and local governments unified in taking a proactive approach. Part of this has to be not just financial or regulatory from the federal government, but we have to do more things that force state and local governments to get out of the way of people being able to build more housing. I think that the conversations that you've had on your show, and the conversations we're having in government, need to move past our regular policy conversations of: “Should we do more on LIHTC? Should we try to fix NEPA?” Those, to me, are table stakes, and we're in the middle of what I'd say is a generational crisis when it comes to housing. We have to be willing to treat it like a crisis, rather than what I think we've done so far, which is take incremental steps at different levels to try and solve this. That's one thing that I wanted to make sure that I said, because I think it's the most important thing that we can do at the moment.Kyla: Absolutely. During your time there, the Treasury was doing so much with zoning reform, with financial incentives. What I really liked about our last conversation was how much you talked about how important it is that workers can live close to work. Are you optimistic that we will be able to address the problem, or do you think we are sinking into quicksand?I'd say a little bit of both, and the thing that I'm doing now is getting hyperlocal. One of the projects I'm working on in my post-administration life is I'm working with 15 churches in D.C., where they have vacant land and want to use it to build affordable housing as quickly as possible.I'm learning that even when you have the land donated for free and you're willing to work as quickly as possible, it's still quite hard because you have regulations and financial issues that often get in the way of building things. Part of what we have to do now is just launch as many natural experiments as possible to see what works.What I've learned already from this lived experience is that even cities that are trying to get out of the way and make it easier to build housing struggle because of what you all know to be true, which is that the local politics of this is quite complicated. Oftentimes, the way that you get them over the line is by creating incentives or disincentives.In the past, I talked a lot about incentives in terms of “giving people money to do things.” I'm now in favor of “not giving money to people who don't do things” — if you don't take steps to fix your zoning, some of the federal money that you regularly get is not coming to your jurisdiction. I'm going to reallocate that money to places that are doing this activity. I think we have to take those types of radical steps.It's similar to what we did with the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, where if you didn't spend your money, we could take your money back and reallocate it to people who were giving away emergency rental assistance money.That motivates people a lot — when they feel like something's going to be taken away from them. I'm of the view that we have to find more radical things that we can do to get housing built. If we don't, costs will continue to rise faster than people's incomes.Santi: Wally, I have to ask after that point you just made: did you read the paper by my colleague Chris Elmendorf on using LIHTC funds? The idea is to re-allocate those federal funds away from big, expensive cities and into other places in a state, if the cities don't commit to basic zoning reforms.I completely agree with him, and I think I would go even further than just LIHTC money. I would reallocate non-housing money as well, because from my standpoint, if you think about the most important issue for a family, it's being able to find housing that is affordable near their place of work and where their kids go to school. I said that on purpose. I didn't say “affordable housing.” I said “housing that is affordable,” because affordable housing is, in lots of ways, targeted towards a population of people who need it the most. But for even people who are middle income in this country, it crowds out their ability to pay for other things when housing costs continue to creep higher.The only way we solve that problem is if you get rid of restrictive zoning covenants and fix permitting. The natural thing that every city and state is thinking about right now is throwing more money at the problem. There's going to need to be money here, just in light of some of the headwinds, but it's going to be more costly and less effective if we don't fix the underlying issues that are making it hard to build housing where we want it.Right now in California, we're having a huge debate over what we do with infill housing in urban areas. A simple solution — you don't have to do another environmental review if one was already done in this area— is taking months to work through the California legislature, which demonstrates that we're going too slow. California's seeing an exodus of people. I just talked to a CEO who said, “I'm moving my business because the people who work for me can't afford to live in California anymore.” This is the kind of problem that you can solve. State legislatures, Congress, and executives have to get together and take some radical steps to make it easier to build housing.I appreciate what you said about what we were doing at Treasury, but from my standpoint, I wish we had done more earlier to focus on this issue. We had a lot going on, but fundamentally, the most important thing on housing is taking a step to try and build housing today, which is going to have an impact on the economy 10, 20, 30 years from now. We just have to start doing that as soon as possible.Thanks to Emma Hilbert for her transcript and audio edits. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

NTD News Today
Trump Admin Seeks to Cut Federal Contracts With Harvard; 4 People Seriously Injured in Liverpool Crash

NTD News Today

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2025 46:53


The Trump administration will request federal agencies to cut off their contracts with Harvard University in response to what it says is the school's handling of anti-Semitism and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. There are 30 federal contracts worth about $100 million, according to the General Services Administration (GSA). A letter to the agencies is scheduled to be sent on May 27, a GSA spokesperson told The Epoch Times.Four people were "very, very ill in hospital" after sustaining injuries when a car ploughed into a crowd of Liverpool fans during a Premier League title parade, the city's mayor said on Tuesday, adding he hoped they would "pull through."FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said the bureau is looking at launching investigations into possible public corruption cases. Bongino says he and FBI Director Kash Patel made the decision to either reopen or allocate additional resources to the cases shortly after swearing in.

Aquademia: The Seafood and Sustainability Podcast
Career Pathways: How Curiosity, Baseball, and a Broken Shoulder Shaped a CEO

Aquademia: The Seafood and Sustainability Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2025 59:40


Get in touch with MarinTrust: https://www.marin-trust.comCheck out our website!: https://www.globalseafood.org/podcastFollow us on social media!Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | InstagramShare your sustainability tips with us podcast@globalseafood.org!If you want to be more involved in the work that we do, become a member of the Global Seafood Alliance: https://www.globalseafood.org/membership/ The views expressed by external guests on Aquademia are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Aquademia or the Global Seafood Alliance. Listeners are advised to independently verify information and consult experts for any specific advice or decisions.

The Daily Beans
Marjorie Taser Greene (feat. John Fugelsang)

The Daily Beans

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2025 59:51


Friday, April 18th, 2025Today, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejects Trump's bid to vacate Judge Xinis' order to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia; Marco Rubio kills the State Department's anti propaganda shop; Palantir's plans to help ICE deport people have been leaked; Musk and DOGE are now setting their sights on the GSA; a judge rules that Google Is a Monopolist in online advertising technology; the Trump administration is suing Maine over participation of transgender athletes in girls' sports; the Supreme Court agrees to hear Trump's birthright citizenship case after arguments end for the term; multiple patients have been hospitalized after an active shooter was reported at Florida State University's campus in Tallahassee; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.Thank You, Fast Growing TreesGet 15% off your first purchase.  FastGrowingTrees.com/dailybeans.POLITICAL VOICES NETWORK PRESENTS:  Not The White House Correspondents' Dinner Live PPV April 26, 2025 9pm | MeetHook.liveGuest: John FugelsangTell Me Everything — John FugelsangThe John Fugelsang PodcastSiriusXM ProgressJohn Fugelsang (@johnfugelsang.bsky.social) — BlueskyPre-order Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John FugelsangStories:Florida State shooting live updates: 2 dead, sheriff's deputy's son in custody | NBC NewsMarjorie Taylor Greene Town Hall Turns Chaotic as Protesters Get Tased | Rolling StoneHow a Judge Tells a President to F**k Off - by Allison GillLeaked: Palantir's Plan to Help ICE Deport People | 404 MediaMarco Rubio Kills State Department Anti-Propaganda Shop, Promises ‘Twitter Files' Sequel | WIREDSupreme Court keeps hold on Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship but sets May arguments | AP NewsTrump administration sues Maine over participation of transgender athletes in girls sports | AP NewsGoogle Is Illegally Monopolizing Online Advertising Tech, Judge Rules | The New York TimesGood Trouble:Find Your Representative | House.gov and demand that Ryan White Care Act funding is maintained for all parts (A-F).Ryan White Care Act | HRSA.govFind Upcoming Actions - 50501 MovementFederal workers - feel free to email me at fedoath@pm.me and let me know what you're going to do, or just vent. I'm always here to listen. From The Good NewsWE, WHO WALKED BENEATH THE STARS | AmazonIllinois Eaglefloridabar.org/uploads/2024/12/2025_06-DEC-Chapter-4-RRTFB-12-30-24.pdf(Maybe rule 4-8.4 (d) applies)Planned Parenthood*Screening for Colorectal CancerDana is in Los Angeles Opening for Gina Yashere - Sat: April 19Reminder - you can see the pod pics if you become a Patron. The good news pics are at the bottom of the show notes of each Patreon episode! That's just one of the perks of subscribing! Federal workers - feel free to email me at fedoath@pm.me and let me know what you're going to do, or just vent. I'm always here to listen.Share your Good News or Good Trouble:https://www.dailybeanspod.com/good/ Check out other MSW Media podcastshttps://mswmedia.com/shows/Subscribe for free to MuellerSheWrote on Substackhttps://muellershewrote.substack.comFollow AG and Dana on Social MediaDr. Allison Gill Substack|Muellershewrote, BlueSky|@muellershewrote , Threads|@muellershewrote, TikTok|@muellershewrote, IG|muellershewrote, Twitter|@MuellerSheWrote,Dana GoldbergTwitter|@DGComedy, IG|dgcomedy, facebook|dgcomedy, IG|dgcomedy, danagoldberg.com, BlueSky|@dgcomedyHave some good news; a confession; or a correction to share?Good News & Confessions - The Daily Beanshttps://www.dailybeanspod.com/confessional/ Listener Survey:http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=BffJOlI7qQcF&ver=shortFollow the Podcast on Apple:The Daily Beans on Apple PodcastsWant to support the show and get it ad-free and early?Supercasthttps://dailybeans.supercast.com/Patreon https://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr subscribe on Apple Podcasts with our affiliate linkThe Daily Beans on Apple Podcasts

The Lawfare Podcast
Lawfare Daily: Hillary Hartley and David Eaves on 18F, Its Origin, Legacy, and Lesson

The Lawfare Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2025 42:10


Hillary Hartley, the former Chief Digital Officer of Ontario and former Co-Founder and Deputy Executive Director at 18F, and David Eaves, Associate Professor of Digital Government and Co-Deputy Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Contributing Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the recent closure of 18F, a digital unit within the GSA focused on updating and enhancing government technological systems and public-facing digital services. Hillary and David also published a recent Lawfare article on this topic, “Learning from the Legacy of 18F.”To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.