Virginia Senator Mark Warner Assesses The Situation

Virginia, in particular the parts of Virginia closest to Washington D.C., have probably been hit the hardest by the Trump administration. Virginia is home to some 150,000 federal employees and countless contractors. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin for an assessment.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin And well, let’s begin with the big question, is the Republic going to survive here?

Mark Warner You know, I hope so. But it is amazing when I get questions out on the road that say, all right, what do we do if martial law’s declared? Or are there really gonna be elections in 2026? In past times, you would say, well, that’s just, that’s even a crazy premise. And unfortunately, in terms of the level of change and disruption, you gotta treat those questions seriously now. So I think we will get through, but boy, it could be a bumpy, bumpy road for the next few months.

Tom Temin And close as the majority for the Republicans is in the House and the Senate, Congress kind of looks paralyzed these days.

Mark Warner It does. I mean, I’ve been particularly disappointed. I really love my time on the Intelligence Committee. It’s always been truly bipartisan. We took Biden to task when he screwed up. We took Trump in the first term to task. So far, my Republican colleagues have been silent, even though we’ve seen this misuse of classified information. We’ve seen senior members of the community fired without without warning or need. So I got to believe a certain something’s going to break. And whether it comes from the top down on a national security issue, or whether it bubbles up from the grassroots where people are concerned about potential Medicaid cuts or some of the economic development projects we’ve worked on for years have all been put on hold because the new administration has frozen grants that were already awarded. So it’s a pretty screwy time.

Tom Temin And I want to talk about those federal employees in, especially but not exclusively, Northern Virginia. And you talk to any fed at this point, and it does seem, as you said at the outset, like we’re on totally new ground, kind of Martian terrain here. And the state has done some things for federal employees. Maryland has done a few things. D.C. Has tried. But there’s not a lot really Congress or those entities can do, especially because the contractor safety net is really not there as much as it was.

Mark Warner Absolutely. And this Congress could do more, if, as you said, we only need four votes in the Senate or three or four votes in the House to basically say, “no, Mr. President, just because you don’t like Program X or Y, if Congress has fully appropriated money, you can’t just pull it back with another executive order.” That if Congress doesn’t exert its will, then why even have a Congress? So it is, I think, existential for my constituents. It’s been traumatizing to say the least. The new [Office of Management and Budget] director, Russ Vought, has said in Project 2025 he wanted to traumatize the federal workforce. He’s done a pretty damn good job of that. But it’s not just the workers. I was down in Roanoke last week and a business guy was talking about his 26-year-old daughter who’d taken a job with the Defense Department and she didn’t know if she was gonna get RIFed or not. So it affects whole families. But we in Northern Virginia have taken it probably the hardest. Hampton Roads, down in Norfolk and Newport News, that area is literally like the third or fourth largest concentration of federal workers as well. We’ve got 51,000 workers and contractors. So this is the point of the spear. And I think as this continued chaotic approach to cutting programs, it’s going to spread across the country. But I feel a lot of compassion for our federal workforce who’ve done a good job and then arbitrarily been fired. I heard from two ladies at the [Food and Drug Administration] the other day, that they were both not new employees. I think they’d been both between 10 and 15 years there. They worked for the smoking cessation program, youth smoking cessation, and they don’t get any federal dollars at all. It’s all funded by the entities that are regulated by the FDA. And because they cut back kids smoking, they’ve been able to show they had saved the taxpayer about $35 billion. Yet they got fired with no notice, no kind of plan, and they very passionately asked, well, how do I go look for a job if I can’t afford childcare since I don’t have a job at this point? And these are two of literally thousands and thousands of stories that I hear all the time.

Tom Temin And those that will still have a federal job are worried about that reconciliation bill, which would cut the [Federal Employee Health Benefits Program] contribution by the government and also cap and simply give a voucher to federal employees. Presumably the difference then would be made up by the employee after the voucher. So it looks like FEHBP health care plans are going to cost more and annuity contributions will go up for everybody under some provisions in there. Are those just destined to become law, do you think?

Mark Warner And again, the rubber hits the road when this reconciliation plan gets to the floor of the House and the Senate. The truth is, no Democrat’s going to vote for it, because it also not only sticks it to federal workers on health care benefits and pensions, but it also, I think at the end of the day, will dramatically cut Medicaid, which will close hospitals across rural America. So it’ll, again, only take a couple of Republicans who say “this is just too much.” Getting back to the federal workforce, the vast majority of federal workers do this because they feel this is a public service calling. And there was a deal made, when you get signed up, you sign up for certain batch of benefits as well and know that if you work hard, unless there’s some major crisis, you’re gonna get what you were promised. The fact that all of these promises now seem to be going up in smoke, it just worries the heck out of me. Who’s going to want to go, what young person is going to want to work for the federal government if you don’t have any job security and you’re not even sure that the benefits that are promised on day one will be there two years later?

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). And then there’s some of the governmental business issues, which I know you’ve watched over the years. Procurement, very important to Northern Virginia and really throughout Virginia, in point of fact. And there’s this [Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)] rewrite, which doesn’t seem to be involving the FAR council. And a lot of contractors concerned that they’ll have any input in that. What’s your thought there, and what are you looking for?

Mark Warner This wouldn’t have been an area, handily, especially on [Defense Department] contracting. A smart [Department of Government Efficiency], not an Elon Musk with a bunch of tech bros coming in, but a smart DOGE might have come in and said with contracting, “hey, we need to give the contract officers more ability to write their contracts that are gonna be more fixed price.” There ought to be things like, I would have supported a reform if two contractors are suing each other after an award, to actually have the loser pay to try to cut down on extra litigation. We could have saved money. I think, frankly, the federal government could have probably gotten better value, but instead it appears that what they’re doing is moving towards a much more politicized system where an administration could pick winners and losers not based upon value to the taxpayer. That ought to scare the dickens out of all of us.

Tom Temin And of course, you mentioned your particular love right now of the intelligence work. The Intelligence Community seems to be in as much turmoil as the Pentagon seems to be right now, at a time when it’s more important than ever for the basic mission here of national security. Your thoughts?

Mark Warner When the Director of National Intelligence refuses to either acknowledge what kind of phone she was using on the chat, the Signal chat that had, I feel, classified information on it; when nobody gets held accountable, when we just heard the Secretary of Defense had another chat with his family members putting out this kind of classified information; and it just robs the community of the faith that they need that the leadership’s going to be straight with them. And when they came in and arbitrarily fired the head of the National Security Agency, General [Timothy] Haugh, a guy with enormous credibility, who served under Democrats and Republican presidents, that undermines credibility. And what I’m particularly worried about as well is not only our own IC community, which we have a lot of, as you know, here in the DMV, but the fact is, will any of our allies trust us with classified information if they feel like we’re not going to keep it secure? Some of the damage that’s being done, Tom, what’s so frustrating is even if the administration reverses course tomorrow, it has broken trust with our workforce, it’s broken trust with our allies and friends. Candidly, with the all-over-the-lot tariff policies, it’s broken faith with the business community. When people start to think you can’t count on the United States government to do what it says, you know you’ve got a problem.

Tom Temin Well, it’s going to be interesting when the next debt ceiling question comes up.

Mark Warner Yeah, that will be interesting to see that. The speculation is our Republican friends may try to put that into the reconciliation bill, but we’ll see.

Tom Temin All right, well listen, I want to tell you I’ve enjoyed our conversations over the years and it’s been great having you as a member of the Federal Drive. My successor, Terry Gerton, we’ll be calling out, but she’s going to be the next one that you speak to.

Mark Warner Well, Tom, thank you. I understand 46 years of journalism in your personal history. You’ve been, I think, a great advocate for federal workforce, for contractors, for the folks that you guys communicate with. There aren’t that many tools out there, and we wish you the best. I wish you best in retirement, and look forward to getting to know Terry.

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