EP 969 USAID and Much Global Good Works and Goodwill, Destroyed by DOGE

 Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders on day one of his second term in 2025. One of those executive orders was the beginning of the end for the agency known as USAID.  It was started in 1961 by President Kennedy in order to advance human survival around the world, stabilize economies in the developing world and make the path to peaceful democracy smoother.  It was, and for all these intervening years remained, a noble cause credited with saving the lives of tens of millions around the world by treating and preventing serious health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria and more.  And while not a focus of Project 2025, somehow it became a target for dissolution by President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE team.  Decades long dedicated staff, with expertise in this field, were summarily fired with the new Administration caring little of past success and future necessity.  Nicholas Enrich, a former civil servant who worked at USAID through four administrations, focusing on Global Health initiatives, had seen enough before he, too, was dismissed and had written some powerful memos that became part of the public record.  He documents what happened and why he continued the fight in his new book, “Into the Woodchipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID.”

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