They Saved Taxpayers Billions. Trump Fired Them Anyway.
The Opinions13 Mars 2025

They Saved Taxpayers Billions. Trump Fired Them Anyway.

Inspectors general are our government watchdogs. They root out corruption and check for fraud and inefficiencies — all things President Trump has claimed to want to do. And yet, when he took office, he fired more than a dozen inspectors general without warning.

In this episode of The Opinions, we spoke to the reporter and filmmaker Francesca Trianni about her interviews with seven of these inspectors, their relationship to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and why they’re worried about the future of American democracy.

To see the videos of the Inspectors General, go to nytimes.com.

Thoughts? Email us at theopinions@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Opinions” at nytimes.com/column/the-opinions.

This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Vishakha Darbha. Edited by Kaari Pitkin and Alison Bruzek. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. The show’s production team also includes Derek Arthur and Jillian Weinberger. Original music by Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The Director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Avsnitt(275)

Is the ICE Crackdown Finally Backfiring on Trump?

Is the ICE Crackdown Finally Backfiring on Trump?

President Trump’s call to de-escalate tensions in Minneapolis was short lived, but anger over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti continues to grow. At this week’s round table, the Opinion nati...

31 Jan 39min

Esther Perel on Why A.I. Intimacy Feels Safe but Isn’t Real

Esther Perel on Why A.I. Intimacy Feels Safe but Isn’t Real

To love is to be human. Or is it? As human-chatbot relationships become more common, the Times Opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman talks to the psychotherapist Esther Perel about what really defin...

28 Jan 30min

Tom Friedman: Minneapolis, Alex Pretti and a Democracy at Risk

Tom Friedman: Minneapolis, Alex Pretti and a Democracy at Risk

The Times Opinion columnist Thomas L. Friedman grew up in Minnesota and spent much of his career traveling to the Middle East. In the aftermath of the shooting death of Alex Pretti, and as the Trump a...

27 Jan 27min

ICE Is Splitting America in Two

ICE Is Splitting America in Two

President Trump’s vision of executive power is reshaping America and the world. For “The Opinions,” Aaron Retica, an editor in Opinion, sits down with the Opinion writers and lawyers Emily Bazelon and...

24 Jan 41min

Hello, Greenland. Goodbye, Checks and Balances.

Hello, Greenland. Goodbye, Checks and Balances.

President Trump has changed America — and the world — in ways both large and small in the first year of his second term. In a live event recorded at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles on Tuesday, t...

22 Jan 40min

Will 2026 Be the Year Voters Pull the Emergency Brake?

Will 2026 Be the Year Voters Pull the Emergency Brake?

The midterms are coming, and President Trump is already sounding the alarm. For this week’s round table, the columnists David French and Jamelle Bouie and the Opinion national politics writer Michelle...

17 Jan 40min

A Venezuelan Economist on What Trump Gets Wrong About Venezuela

A Venezuelan Economist on What Trump Gets Wrong About Venezuela

Nicolás Maduro may be out, but Venezuela’s Chavista regime still holds power. Meanwhile, the opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner María Corina Machado is fighting to remain relevant. She’s schedul...

14 Jan 21min

The Internet May Look Different After You Listen to This

The Internet May Look Different After You Listen to This

A.I. slop is taking over the internet. As the line between human-made and machine-made art blurs — and real and fake images collapse into one another — how should we think about culture now? On “The O...

13 Jan 34min

Populärt inom Politik & nyheter

svenska-fall
aftonbladet-krim
p3-krim
rss-krimstad
blenda-2
flashback-forever
politiken
rss-vad-fan-hande
rss-krimreportrarna
rss-sanning-konsekvens
aftonbladet-daily
motiv
spar
grans
rss-frandfors-horna
svd-ledarredaktionen
rss-flodet
dagens-eko
olyckan-inifran
krimmagasinet