SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio complains of bloat in his agency.
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MARCO RUBIO: When I get a decision memo early on at the State Department, and they would hand me these memos, there were 40 boxes on this piece of paper. That means 40 people had to check off, yes, OK, before it even got to me. That's ridiculous.
SIMON: That's Secretary Rubio in May, and now he is acting by laying off more than a thousand people. His goal is to trim 15% of the staff at the State Department. Nicholas Burns has served all over the globe as a career foreign service officer, including as U.S. ambassador to NATO under President George W Bush, and to China under President Biden. Ambassador Burns joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
NICHOLAS BURNS: Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: What was your reaction to the news yesterday about what are being called mass layoffs and sweeping reorganization?
BURNS: Oh, I was deeply saddened for my colleagues, many of whom I know, who lost their jobs yesterday. It's a serious mistake. It's going to weaken the United States around the world. It's going to help our adversaries, like China, and it's really a mass firing, people being forced out. Ultimately, about 3,000 people could be losing their jobs this year. And I think what really - what matters, if Americans are asking, listen to this, why does this matter to me? Our diplomats are doing really vital work. They are counterterrorism experts. They are nuclear weapons specialists. They're among the government's top experts on China, on Russia, on Iran and North Korea. They're AI experts.
And, you know, I started in 1980. I served both Republican and Democratic administrations. One of the most important things is they're nonpartisan. All of us take an oath to the Constitution to be nonpartisan, to serve both parties. When I left China in January, I had a final staff meeting and I told my staff, it's your responsibility, ethically and legally, to be - to serve President Trump as effectively and loyally as you have served President Biden, and that's who we are. So it's a very painful moment, I think, for the country to see this loss of experience.
SIMON: I have to ask about the example that Secretary Rubio gave because you've seen a lot of memos in your day. Do you know what he was talking about, 40 boxes?
BURNS: Oh, you know, there are some memos that go up to the secretary of state for a decision, where lots of different people get to comment and clear on the memo. But, you know, he has the right to get the memos he wants. If he wants one memo from one person, he'll get it. So I didn't think that was a very serious reason to fire 3,000 people.
SIMON: Well, I...
BURNS: And you know...
SIMON: Go ahead, please, Ambassador, yeah.
BURNS: Oh, I just wanted to say he has also said that he's doing this to curb radical political ideologies. But the State Department people, the foreign service and civil service, are nonpartisan. And if it's a radical ideology to support human rights, well, they just abolished yesterday the major office focusing on human rights around the world. If it's radical political ideology to care about women's rights around the world, I don't buy it. I think they're just - these are excuses. I think the Trump administration has decided just to cut government down, but they're doing it in such a way - and I'm not against government reform. All government agencies have to be mindful of waste and abuse, and it does occur, obviously, but you've got to go about this in a smart way, and this is not a very smart way. It's weakening us.
SIMON: Ambassador, what about the argument that Americans openly elected an administration that campaigned on America trying to be less involved overseas, and Americans are just being tired of the expense of so many foreign commitments?
BURNS: Well, you know, the government civil servants are going to serve any administration effectively and loyally. But right now, President Trump finds himself in a situation - it's not his fault - where he has to deal with a major war in Europe that Putin is inflicting upon Ukraine, three major wars in the Middle East over the last year and, of course, this extraordinary competition that we have with China.
So we are involved in the world. And I think we learned forever in the 1930s, when isolationists tried keep us out of the fight against Hitler and the Imperial Japanese staff, that Americans can't, you know, pull the covers over their head and think that the world's just going to disappear. We have to be involved. We have to do it smartly. We learned our lessons, I think, in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can't cure everybody else's problems, but when our vital interests are at stake, and they're certainly at stake in China, certainly at stake in supporting Ukraine against Russia, we need smart, experienced diplomats, trained diplomats.
And some of the people we lost yesterday, Scott, you know, they're 20-, 30-, 40-year veterans of our government. They love our country. They want to serve it. They've spent their whole adult life doing that. And so when you fire them, and if 3,000 people are eventually fired and forced out of office, we're going to be weaker. And I can tell you the Chinese - and I lived in China, representing the United States there over the last three years - they are building up their diplomacy in the Pacific Islands and Africa and Latin America, while we are retreating.
SIMON: But I have to ask, Ambassador Burns, in the minute we have left because, as I understand, one of the rationales of the actions by Secretary Rubio was that he thinks fewer diplomats will make for a more expeditious U.S. response, that there won't be so many boxes to check and that the United States can be more effective this way.
BURNS: I don't agree. I think the problem in the State Department that every secretary of state in the past 20 years has recognized we have too few people. I saw that in my job in China. I saw it when I was undersecretary of state. We didn't have enough diplomats to go into Iraq and Afghanistan 20 years ago. And if you - Scott, if you combine yesterday's action, this mass firing with the destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development, we have weakened ourselves in a very tangible way at a time when we can't afford to do that. So I hope there'll be some reconsideration. I hope Republican members of Congress will speak up because so much is at stake, that we have a strong diplomacy to go and - to serve alongside our great military.
SIMON: That's former U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.
BURNS: Thank you so much, Scott.
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