Vice President Vance said in an interview that Trump adviser Elon Musk, who has “mistakes” with the firing of the Federal Workers Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), added that he believes there are “many good people” who work for the government.
“Elon himself says that sometimes you do something, make a mistake, then you turn the mistake back on. I'm accepting the mistake,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News. Published on friday.
“I also think we need to quickly correct these mistakes. But I also know the fact that there are a lot of good people who work in the government. Many people doing very good jobs,” the Vice President added. “And we try to save as many governments as possible, while eliminating what doesn't work.”
Since taking office on January 20, the Trump administration has focused on overhauling the federal government, using its advisory board, Doge, to cut federal spending, reduce the size of the federal workforce, and thousands of employees have been fired.
Doge's work is filled with pushbacks from various groups where Capitol Hill lawmakers, ground activists and various groups file lawsuits.
Recent polls also suggest that Americans are relatively unhappy with Kuji's efforts. A Quinnipiac University poll released this week found that 60% of US adults do not support the treatment of a federally employed worker advisory board. Approximately 36% said they supported the effort.
Vance, like Musk, on Friday, insisted that “some people are clearly collecting checks and not doing their job.”
“How many people are they now? With a strong federal workforce of 3 million, I don't know if it's thousands or much bigger than that,” he told NBC.
The Vice President emphasized that while employees enjoy taxpayer-funded roles and when they don't work, it's a “problem,” there are still people who are valuable contributors to the federal workforce.
“It doesn't distract or undermine the fact that you have many great civil servants who do important jobs. But I think most of those great civil servants would say we want to be empowered to do our work,” Vance said.
Over the past few weeks, Vance has faced pushbacks from Procrane protesters near his home and met with booing while appearing at Washington's newly reformed Kennedy Center.
“I thought Kennedy Center was interesting,” Vance said. “I thought it was a bit annoying around my house. I think it's like you just do bad things and bad things. …Depending on your perspective, depending on the characteristics and bugs of this new life, I'm looking at it a bit.”
