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Tax Act. Let's

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get them over

1:25

with. USAID supports

1:28

massive numbers of

1:30

people around the world.

1:32

Hello and welcome to

1:35

Why Is This Happening with

1:37

Me, your host Chris Hayes.

1:39

There is so much going

1:41

on and so quickly that

1:43

we've been sort of struggling

1:46

to keep up on the

1:48

show and I thought that

1:50

the podcast might be a

1:52

useful place to take a little more

1:54

time with some of the developments that

1:57

we've been dealing with in the first

1:59

month. of the new Trump administration, which

2:01

has been, you know, people use the

2:03

metaphor of a Blitzkrieg probably excessively, but

2:05

the whole point of a Blitzkrieg is

2:08

to sort of take your forces and

2:10

push through very rapidly in one spot

2:12

so as to break through the lines

2:14

of defenses. And this is kind of

2:17

like that. It is an attempt at

2:19

essentially using speed of aggression more than

2:21

thought out tactics, more than even overwhelming

2:23

force. It's really a sort of speed

2:26

game. to try to act with a

2:28

relatively small group of people as rapidly

2:30

as possible to overwhelm the institutional order,

2:32

of the administrative state, of the federal

2:35

civil service, etc. The place where that

2:37

is being deployed most viciously acutely, and

2:39

I think with the highest human cost

2:41

up to this point when I'm talking

2:43

to you on February 14th, which is

2:46

when I'm recording this, and it's important

2:48

for me to put a time stamp,

2:50

because God knows what happens between now

2:52

and when you hear this. But when

2:55

I'm talking to you now, I think

2:57

the place that's been the highest level

2:59

of material harm to human beings has

3:01

been at USAID. There's a ton of

3:04

misinformation floating around around USAID and I

3:06

just wanted to talk to someone who

3:08

had spent some time there, knew the

3:10

agency about you know, what is USAID?

3:12

What was it like before? How partisan

3:15

was it? You know, how much did

3:17

changes happen from administration to administration? Is

3:19

it filled with like, you know, impertinent

3:21

and insubordinate lives who won't do what

3:24

a new administration says? And so Jeremy

3:26

Kanandike, who's a friend of the show,

3:28

he's been on a lot, he's president

3:30

and refugees international, a massive global NGO.

3:33

He's a former senior official at USAID

3:35

in the Obama and Biden administrations and

3:37

he joins us today. Jeremy, good to

3:39

have you. Thanks so much Chris. Good

3:42

to be here. Okay, can we do

3:44

a little, can we start with a

3:46

little USAID 101 for people that? You

3:48

know, I guess I knew about it.

3:50

I've known people that worked, you know,

3:53

with and around them. I guess I'm

3:55

sort of learning more as it's being

3:57

dismantled. What is it? Yeah, you ever

3:59

is kind of gaining a new appreciation

4:02

for all the great things USAID does

4:04

once we learn that they're being canceled.

4:06

So USAID is the government's principal foreign

4:08

development and humanitarian assistance agency. It was

4:11

created initially in 1961 during the Cold

4:13

War by President Kennedy. he issued an

4:15

executive order saying we need to systematize

4:17

how we do and how we provide

4:20

foreign aid abroad following the great successes

4:22

of the Marshall Plan, seeing the important

4:24

role that aid could play and the

4:26

need to institutionalize that. And so it,

4:28

you know, it goes on through the

4:31

Cold War, it has a major kind

4:33

of moment after the end of the

4:35

Cold War, where Congress and the Clinton

4:37

administration look at this agency and say,

4:40

okay, Cold War is over, do we

4:42

still need this thing, or should we

4:44

reshape it? They do shrink it somewhat,

4:46

but they also in 1998 in that

4:49

law institutionalize it permanently in law, so

4:51

Congress establishes it as a federal standing

4:53

independent federal agency in law in 1998,

4:55

but also shrinks it somewhat, and you

4:57

know, there's this feeling that well Cold

5:00

War, peace dividend, we don't need this

5:02

thing as much anymore. And then 9-11

5:04

happens. The US goes to war in

5:06

Iraq, the US goes to war in

5:09

Afghanistan, and there is this sort of

5:11

bipartisan recognition at that point that whatever

5:13

you think of the wisdom of how

5:15

those wars were conducted, that it was

5:18

a major strategic disadvantage to have a

5:20

weak development agency, which it was at

5:22

that time. It was weakened by staff

5:24

cuts and by lack of political support.

5:27

And so interestingly, you actually have George

5:29

Bush from about 2005, 2006 onward, lead

5:31

a push to really strengthen it and

5:33

build it up with a lot of

5:35

democratic support because, you know, Bush sees,

5:38

gosh, there are some things the military

5:40

is just not good at that the

5:42

government needs to be able to do.

5:44

He sees that on an HIV front.

5:47

He establishes what is now called the

5:49

PEPFAR. program, the President's Emergency Plan for

5:51

AIDS Relief, to combat the global scourge

5:53

of HIV, one of the most successful

5:56

government programs ever, and has saved 25

5:58

million lives over 20 years. USAID is

6:00

one of the main, kind of the

6:02

main vehicles for that. And we need

6:04

to be able to rebuild countries after

6:07

war, support democratic transitions, provide humanitarian assistance.

6:09

So he really invests in rebuilding it.

6:11

And so for about 15 years, we

6:13

had a lot of bipartisan support for

6:16

what USAID did until now. One thing

6:18

I think is important to highlight here

6:20

in this through line is it it

6:22

does really good humanitarian stuff I mean

6:25

truly excellent things But its logic has

6:27

always been a projection of American soft

6:29

power. It's not like Kennedy starts it

6:31

in 1961 out of the kindness of

6:34

his heart. We are in competition throughout

6:36

the global South with the Soviet world,

6:38

right? I mean, that's the logic of

6:40

it from the beginning There is always

6:42

this kind of interplay within the work

6:45

of USAID between how much of it

6:47

is just pure kind of US hard

6:49

interests and how much of it is

6:51

doing good in the world. And you

6:54

know, the beauty of USAID. is that

6:56

often those things can align. And I

6:58

think what differentiates US humanitarian and development

7:00

assistance from say how China engages in

7:03

development cooperation is. China is fundamentally extractive.

7:05

You know, they will provide development financing,

7:07

but they do that because they want

7:09

something from the country. We do it

7:11

much more in a kind of partnership

7:14

mode without those kind of political strings

7:16

attached, and that's actually something that Trump.

7:18

has said he doesn't like. He thinks

7:20

we should frankly be more, he doesn't

7:23

put it this way. But functionally what

7:25

he's describing that he wants to see

7:27

would look a lot more like how

7:29

China engages in the world. Yeah, I

7:32

think generally he likes the Chinese model.

7:34

He does. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you

7:36

know what I mean? Like pure sort

7:38

of power politics, one party control, purely

7:41

transactional. Like that is kind of his

7:43

worldview instead of aspiration. Yeah. And that

7:45

is, that's extended here as well. Were

7:47

you. I've got to say, I covered

7:49

the campaign pretty closely. I think it's

7:52

fair to say for my job. And

7:54

I also covered Musk. And I know

7:56

full well that if you ask Americans,

7:58

should we cut foreign aid? They say

8:01

yes. If you ask them how much

8:03

of the budget is, they say a

8:05

certain number, like 25% or something ludicrous.

8:07

It's like 1%. So I know that.

8:10

Foreign aid is preserved a little bit

8:12

by a bipartisan consensus that might be

8:14

untethered from democratic volition. The democratic volition

8:16

such as it is is totally untethered

8:18

from the reality. And I covered the

8:21

campaign and I know there's a kind

8:23

of American for America First train. I

8:25

will admit that I did not think

8:27

Elon Musk personally dismantling USAID in the

8:30

first week was at all on the

8:32

horizon. Did you? I would admit I

8:34

did not see that coming either. No,

8:36

the speculation right up until January 20

8:39

and even for a couple days after

8:41

because it really, you know, where it

8:43

really dropped was January 24 when they

8:45

issued this global order to stop all

8:48

aid programs all over the world. Nobody

8:50

saw that coming. We were expecting a

8:52

review, you know, fully expecting that there

8:54

would be an attempt to substantially cut

8:56

for an aid spending. But, you know,

8:59

the kind of question was, well, who

9:01

are they going to put in charge

9:03

of the agency? to be someone who

9:05

fundamentally believes in the mission of the

9:08

agency even if they are going to

9:10

approach that in a very different way

9:12

than the prior administration. This whole thing

9:14

that, you know, if you had said

9:17

that Elon Musk is going to use

9:19

his Twitter account to run a disinformation

9:21

campaign to cover for the total destruction

9:23

of US foreign assistance, you know, it

9:25

would have just sounded like some sort

9:28

of conspiracy theory. But that's exactly what's

9:30

happened. But that's exactly what's happened. Yeah,

9:32

he has been running a fire hose

9:34

of disinformation to basically create a pretext

9:37

in the public mind and in certainly

9:39

in the mind. of Republicans in Congress

9:41

or at least trying to kind of

9:43

intimidate Republicans in Congress into getting out

9:46

of the way while they go about

9:48

then destroying the agency. Now they've taken

9:50

the letters off the building they have

9:52

they want to fire 90% they're saying

9:55

they're going to incorporate it back into

9:57

state right all these things have happened.

9:59

Yeah. Again I want to talk a

10:01

little bit about what's been happening because

10:03

I imagine you're connected to people there

10:06

and have a pretty good sense of

10:08

this. None of this is legal. I

10:10

mean, I really, I feel so dumb

10:12

and naive, like blowing the whistle and

10:15

being like, you can't do this. But

10:17

Congress created this agency as an independent

10:19

agency by statute. That's right. It cannot

10:21

be unilaterally dismantled by executive order. Well,

10:24

we're about to learn if that's true,

10:26

right? I mean, this is what I

10:28

think is so critical for people to

10:30

understand, even if you don't. care about

10:32

foreign aid at all, even if you

10:35

very only disagree that we should provide

10:37

foreign aid. This is a test case

10:39

for what they could do to any

10:41

part of the federal government, because what

10:44

they have done here is use this

10:46

campaign, this real fire hose of disinformation,

10:48

and we can talk about some of

10:50

the specific lies, but what is really

10:53

striking is if you look at almost

10:55

any example. that they have put out

10:57

there to justify characterizing the agency as

10:59

criminal, characterizing the, you know, these like

11:02

slanderous allegations about the staff and so

11:04

on. They're all bullshit. You know, they're

11:06

all bullshit. The whole Gaza condoms thing

11:08

is the perfect example of that. They

11:10

spent a week talking about $50 million

11:13

of condoms that they had stopped from

11:15

going to Gaza. So I'm a, you

11:17

know, I have a background in relief

11:19

response and public health and the first

11:22

thing that popped into my mind was

11:24

I wonder how many condoms that would

11:26

actually buy. So I reached out to

11:28

a few folks and the US pays

11:31

about four to five cents per condom

11:33

when they both purchased condoms. So by

11:35

that, that's at least a billion condoms.

11:37

There was no world in which they

11:39

found a billion condoms that were about

11:42

to go to Gaza. And sure enough

11:44

a week later, Elon Musk gets challenged

11:46

on it in the Oval Office and

11:48

says, well, you know, you can't believe

11:51

everything I say, basically. Yeah, he says,

11:53

I'm going to get... I'm going to

11:55

get some things wrong. Yeah, I'm not

11:57

going about a thousand. Yeah, you should

12:00

check what I'm saying. But that's the

12:02

whole, that's the game, right? Like they

12:04

are trying to use that to create

12:06

an atmosphere that then gives them kind

12:09

of a permission structure to ignore the

12:11

law. And so ignoring the, you can,

12:13

you can destroy an agency really fast

12:15

if you can ignore the law. And

12:17

that's what they're piloting here. We'll be

12:20

right back after we take this quick

12:22

break. Hey

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greenlight.com/podcast. There

14:02

are people around the world who work

14:04

for USAID. Yeah, talk to me a

14:07

little bit about who is who works

14:09

for USAID like who are these people?

14:11

Yeah, yeah. Well, so I ran the

14:13

disaster response office there near Bob administration

14:16

and this is the office that probably

14:18

the most visible part of what USAID

14:20

does. After an earthquake we would send

14:22

out the search and rescue teams. So

14:25

we would deploy the search and rescue

14:27

teams to Haiti after the Haiti earthquake

14:29

or you know we would send the

14:31

military out after the super typhoon and

14:33

in the Philippines in 2013. We oversaw

14:36

the response to and led the response

14:38

to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa

14:40

in 2014-2015. You know those are when

14:42

USAID is in the headlines it's usually

14:45

that office. It's usually that office. And

14:47

so in that office you have You

14:49

have a lot of former military because

14:51

we deal a lot with the military,

14:54

we do a lot of logistics in

14:56

that office, and so we would get,

14:58

interestingly, a lot of guys who would

15:00

have interacted with USAID while they were

15:03

in the military and liked what they

15:05

saw and decided they wanted to come

15:07

work there. We had a volcanologist on

15:09

staff because part of what we did

15:12

was monitoring volcano eruptions. It was really

15:14

cool. Like a volcano getting volcanologists, right.

15:16

I think that's the first time that

15:18

word has ever. organically popped up in

15:21

a conversation I've had. I try to

15:23

make it organically pop up whenever I

15:25

can, to be honest. But it's, you

15:27

know, it's like really cool. So you

15:30

have technical experts in all of these

15:32

different areas of humanitarian response, whether that's

15:34

nutrition, health care, you know, violence against

15:36

women, feeding programs, water programs, amazing technical

15:38

experts on all of these things. You

15:41

have logisticians, you have program officers who

15:43

kind of keep the money flowing and

15:45

oversee the programs. you have response teams

15:47

that deploy out after an emergency, you

15:50

know, a really amazing infrastructure there. If

15:52

you zoom over to the other part

15:54

of the agency that I know quite

15:56

well the Global Health Bureau, which is

15:59

the other part that I've worked most

16:01

closely with when I was leading to

16:03

COVID response there in the first couple

16:05

years of the Biden administration. So you

16:08

have amazing... experts in predictive health analytics.

16:10

You have amazing experts in every disease

16:12

you can think of. Virologists, you know,

16:14

experts in TB, huge office to combat

16:17

HIV. and go over to the Education

16:19

Office. You have similar capability in education.

16:21

There's a really cool unit called the

16:23

Office of Transition Initiatives that focuses on

16:26

political transitions and supporting democratic movements and

16:28

supporting civil society. So, you know, all

16:30

of these different kind of functions of

16:32

the agency, big agriculture section as well,

16:35

where they blend technical expertise. with the

16:37

ability to make grants and basically put

16:39

out money, grants and contracts, to advance

16:41

programs around those areas. And that's the

16:43

kind of core of what USAID does,

16:46

is those kind of targeted programs with

16:48

partner organizations, whether that's an NGO or

16:50

sometimes a for-profit contractor that will then

16:52

implement the agriculture program or the disaster

16:55

relief program or the HIV program under

16:57

the oversight of those experts at USAID.

16:59

You said something at the beginning of

17:01

this answer that I just want to

17:04

linger on a second. We're to spend

17:06

some time on the show on it

17:08

tonight, but about a lot of former

17:10

military folks. And one of the things

17:13

that seems worthwhile to note here. I

17:15

think about a third of all federal

17:17

workers or veterans, there are active programs

17:19

and indeed, like, essentially affirmative action for

17:22

lack of a better word. There are,

17:24

you know, woven into the hiring practices,

17:26

a affirmative advantage to being a veteran

17:28

when you're hired for federal programs, and

17:31

also. Tons of veterans when they get

17:33

out of the service want to keep

17:35

serving their country like the you know

17:37

I think in the ones that I've

17:40

met who work in you know foreign

17:42

aid You know they like the thrill

17:44

of the logistics and being abroad and

17:46

like all this stuff is they're good

17:48

at it and it's speaking to a

17:51

part of them that's mission driven where

17:53

they can take those skills and they

17:55

can transfer them and one of the

17:57

things I think is not quite hitting

18:00

home is that like Musk and Trump

18:02

think they're firing the deep state lives,

18:04

but they're basically mass firing veterans right

18:06

now, like mass firing and mass firing

18:09

veterans. Yeah, I mean, as you say,

18:11

almost by definition, given how much there

18:13

is a veterans preference in hiring across

18:15

the government. And you know, there is

18:18

that veterans preference. I'll also say the

18:20

veterans that I had. on my teams

18:22

at USAID were fabulous. Totally, let me

18:24

just say, I use a word affirmative

18:27

action because I don't think it has

18:29

any negative connotations. Like I actually think

18:31

it's good. 100%. Yeah, and they were

18:33

great. And we had a unit actually,

18:36

and this was often how they would

18:38

get their start with USAID. We had

18:40

a civil liaison unit because we would

18:42

need to deploy the military or kind

18:45

of with the military so frequently. And

18:47

they are such different languages between humanitarian

18:49

response and military operation. So we had

18:51

a whole team of people whose job

18:53

was to basically make that work, who

18:56

were mostly former military, and they would

18:58

do trainings for the military, so the

19:00

military kind of knew our systems and

19:02

we knew theirs and we could deploy

19:05

smoothly together. And then they would, you

19:07

know, they would then go from there

19:09

to a lot of different roles in

19:11

the organization, and they were often the

19:14

ones leading and working on frontline disaster

19:16

response. So you've got these people both

19:18

in Washington and around the world doing

19:20

this. There's grant making happening. When Congress

19:23

gives USA Idea budget, does it give

19:25

it just a top line for the

19:27

agency or does it mark, does it

19:29

give it stuff underneath that top line

19:32

for different programs? This is one of

19:34

my favorite recent misconceptions about the agency

19:36

and you heard, you know, Stephen Miller

19:38

this last weekend said USA Idea is

19:41

just a giant Marxist slash fund or

19:43

something to that effect, which to anyone

19:45

working in the agency is whole, like

19:47

every word of that. is genuinely hilarious.

19:50

But the slush fun piece is the

19:52

funniest part because the whole experience of

19:54

working at USAID is working under intense

19:56

congressional scrutiny. Yes, exactly. USAID is one

19:58

of the most, if not the most,

20:01

heavily scrutinized federal agencies, and the budget

20:03

of USAID is written by Congress. I

20:05

think it's really important people understand this.

20:07

It's not like they give a check

20:10

to USAID and go say, go figure

20:12

out how to spend this. Yeah, enjoy,

20:14

go to town. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

20:16

that is what Elon seems to think.

20:19

I think he doesn't understand anything about

20:21

how the government actually works, and I

20:23

think he believes while they just have

20:25

all this money, and they give it

20:28

to their friends. And maybe that kind

20:30

of tells us something about how his

20:32

mind works, but the way it actually

20:34

happens. USA gives a budget proposal to

20:37

the office of management proposal. Congress then

20:39

basically throws that out most of the

20:41

time and says we're going to write

20:43

what we want to write Congress writes

20:46

the budget they heavily earmark USAID the

20:48

earmark in the sense of giving specific

20:50

funding directives of you have to spend

20:52

this much on education you have to

20:55

spend this much on health you have

20:57

to spend this much on humanitarian and

20:59

so on and so on so then

21:01

USA gets that back and then before

21:03

USAID can spend that they have to

21:06

go back to Congress again and say

21:08

okay then within that amount you told

21:10

us to spend on education. Here are

21:12

the details of how we're going to

21:15

program that money. Really? Oh yeah. So

21:17

even the section top line is not

21:19

enough. Oh Chris, it is like it's

21:21

more flexible on the humanitarian stuff, which

21:24

it has to be because that's a

21:26

contingency account. Right. And there's just a

21:28

ton of communication in real time with

21:30

congressional staff about how we're spending that.

21:33

But when I was working on COVID,

21:35

so the American Rescue plan money that

21:37

we got. Which was also basically emergency

21:39

money because we're trying to fight a

21:42

pandemic. We still after we got that

21:44

money We had to go back to

21:46

Congress and say okay. Here is a

21:48

congressional notification this 500 million dollars We're

21:51

planning to spend across these countries on

21:53

these purposes and before we could actually

21:55

go forward with that Congress had to

21:57

sign off four congressional committees, two appropriations

22:00

in the House and the foreign relations

22:02

and the foreign affairs in the House

22:04

and Senate. So you have to have

22:06

four congressional committees with a majority and

22:08

a minority, like the ranking in the

22:11

majority leader in each of those committees,

22:13

sign off on pretty much every dollar

22:15

that USAID spends. It's just insane. That

22:17

this thing that is... controlled, rightly, I

22:20

mean it's the US Constitution, it's article

22:22

one, they control the purse strings, then

22:24

a president's gonna come, like, think about

22:26

it the other way around, what if

22:29

a president came in and said, I

22:31

want you, I'm gonna double your budget

22:33

unilaterally, like, couldn't do that, what if

22:35

the president came in and said, I

22:38

don't think we need a DOD, I'm

22:40

getting rid of DHS, DHS is new,

22:42

it's not in the constitution, we made

22:44

it after 9-11, I think it's ridiculous.

22:47

I'm getting rid of DHS. Like, yeah,

22:49

these are the stakes with USAID, right?

22:51

Like this? Yes, right. If they can

22:53

do this, if they can just say,

22:56

okay, well, yeah, Congress approved, like, they

22:58

wrote this budget, they directed USAID to

23:00

spend this amount, these amounts of money

23:02

on these things, they directed USAID to

23:05

exist, to have these functions, we don't

23:07

like that, the president's policy says that

23:09

he doesn't like that, and this is

23:11

what they are doing right now, and

23:13

this. They are saying, well, the president

23:16

was elected. This is contradictory to the

23:18

president's policy. Therefore, we're not going to

23:20

do it. And that is not, to

23:22

put it mildly, that is not how

23:25

the Constitution works. And if they get

23:27

away with it here, then that is

23:29

a template that they are going to

23:31

definitely export elsewhere. So this money, in

23:34

terms of what, you know, talked a

23:36

little bit about the structure of the

23:38

agency, the people there, you know, there's

23:40

been amazing reporting on. Things in the

23:43

field. I mean people that are in

23:45

the middle of clinical trials in which

23:47

they have devices inside their bodies Yeah,

23:49

in Sub-Saharan Africa who can people showing

23:52

up to their clinics a woman who

23:54

was on in Southeast Asia I forget

23:56

which country who was on a essentially

23:58

at a clinic where she was receiving

24:01

oxygen That clinic closed she died subsequently,

24:03

you know, what is the humanitarian? What's

24:05

the sort of? ground-level effect of this

24:07

and I should say a federal judge

24:09

has reversed has temporarily stayed that funding

24:12

freeze basically saying like it's not clear

24:14

to me this is at all lawful.

24:16

But again, federal judges have done that

24:18

before and it's very unclear the level

24:21

of compliance. that's coming from the Doge

24:23

home is hanging out and in the

24:25

back end of the payment systems, whether

24:27

that money starts flowing again. Yeah, exactly.

24:30

So human impact, you've mentioned a few

24:32

of them, you know, that case of

24:34

a, it was a refugee in Thailand

24:36

who was not able to get her

24:39

routine medical treatment and passed because her

24:41

clinic closed. So important to understand first,

24:43

this is already killing people. Like this

24:45

is no kidding killing people. The numbers

24:48

are not yet huge, but if it

24:50

continues, they will become huge because USAID

24:52

supports massive numbers of people around the

24:54

world. So to put some of that

24:57

into perspective, 20 million people around the

24:59

world are on anti-retroviral treatment supported by

25:01

the US government to keep their HIV

25:03

infection suppressed. Your HIV infection can rebound

25:06

in under a month if you are

25:08

disrupted from treatment. And so that is

25:10

potentially 20 million people. who could be

25:12

at risk of HIV rebound, at great

25:14

risk to their own health, but also

25:17

at risk of then spreading the virus.

25:19

Because when you are suppressed, you also

25:21

mostly can't spread it. So that wouldn't

25:23

just risk those people, it risks huge

25:26

numbers of other people who could be

25:28

infected as a result of letting that

25:30

transmission get back out of control again.

25:32

There was an HIV vaccine trial that

25:35

was about to start in eight different

25:37

countries across Africa that was supported by

25:39

USAID. That had to be... put on

25:41

hold and potentially canceled if they do

25:44

move forward with canceling all this funding.

25:46

Think of the transformative potential of an

25:48

HIV vaccine. Mindboggling to think of the

25:50

benefit that could do, now that opportunity

25:53

could be lost. On the humanitarian side,

25:55

the US is the biggest humanitarian donor

25:57

in the world, provides about half of

25:59

global food aid in the world. A

26:02

lot of that is bought from US

26:04

farmers. A lot of that is now...

26:06

stopped in the pipeline and not moving.

26:08

The food is not getting distributed. There

26:11

have been stop work orders sent to

26:13

the World Food Program and to many

26:15

of those NGOs. And there was a

26:17

waiver issued. There was a waiver issued

26:19

by Secretary Rubio for humanitarian life-saving programs

26:22

and for HIV programs. But the problem

26:24

is, for that waiver to be more

26:26

than words on paper, you have to

26:28

have a machine underneath a mechanism underneath

26:31

it to actually do the doing. And

26:33

so that's what they're wrecking. Right. So

26:35

if the whole agency is dead, if

26:37

all the logistical structure of the agency

26:40

to deliver anything is dead, and then

26:42

you individually give waivers to specific programs.

26:44

they can't rely on the rest of

26:46

the structure of the organization to do

26:49

it. Right, right. And a couple examples

26:51

of just how careless and clumsy this

26:53

is, even with respect to their own

26:55

interests, when they were doing some of

26:58

the initial stop work orders for the

27:00

first phase of this freeze, they were

27:02

doing it alphabetically and they got to

27:04

one of the major contractors, a group

27:07

called Credence, so they were in the

27:09

C's. Well, Credence was the organization that

27:11

was employing a lot of the contractors,

27:13

who were then doing the doing. So

27:16

suddenly they couldn't send the letters out

27:18

anymore because they just fired, accidentally fired

27:20

the people sending out the letters by

27:22

canceling that contract. I mean, they very

27:24

nearly, and they realize this just in

27:27

time, apparently, but there's a system called

27:29

Phoenix, which is the financial management system

27:31

for USAID, they nearly canceled the Phoenix

27:33

contract, not realizing that they were about

27:36

to do that. And that would have

27:38

just completely ended any ability to do

27:40

financial management of any foreign aid. So

27:42

like. You have these guys just walking

27:45

around in dark rooms swinging sludge hammers

27:47

and having no idea what they're hitting

27:49

because they don't fundamentally care. They just

27:51

think it all needs to be burned

27:54

down. No, they want to do demo.

27:56

I mean, I had a guy, I

27:58

was talking, yeah, they're doing demo. You

28:00

can give that job to the least

28:03

skilled guy on the crew. And that's

28:05

what they're doing. Basically, you said violence

28:07

against women. Like, I don't think. Most

28:09

Americans. Think of the U.S. funding programs

28:12

to protect or end violence against women,

28:14

survivors of violence against women, as some

28:16

coastal academic utray wokeness. I think most

28:18

Americans think that preventing sex trafficking, stopping

28:21

women from being victims of sexual assault,

28:23

and domestic violence is like a core

28:25

thing. It's not some. Maybe fashionable slightly,

28:27

you know, out-the-edge thing. But my understanding

28:29

is like, those are some of the

28:32

programs that are getting hunted. Yeah. And

28:34

words having to do with them are

28:36

getting pulled from programs. Totally. Yeah, absolutely.

28:38

You know, gender is a word they

28:41

hate, right? I hate the word gender.

28:43

Well, you have a whole sector of

28:45

activity called gender-based violence. Exactly. I've worked

28:47

a lot on those programs. I was

28:50

an aid worker in West Africa for

28:52

a few years in the early 2000.

28:54

of widespread sexual abuse by some aid

28:56

workers who were using their ability, kind

28:59

of their control over aid resources, to

29:01

demand sexual favors of recipients. It was

29:03

a huge scandal in the age sector

29:05

20 years ago, and it spawned the

29:08

creation of tons of new programming and

29:10

tons of new safeguards to prevent that,

29:12

and we kind of collectively call that

29:14

gender-based violence or GBV programming. I wonder

29:17

where that will go because you can't

29:19

talk about gender and they are doing

29:21

what seemed to be like keyword searches

29:23

to determine what they're going to what

29:26

they're going to kill off. But what

29:28

these programs do is they save women's

29:30

lives, they save them and try to

29:32

avert harm against them, you know, help

29:34

them to avoid some of the risks

29:37

and to provide them services when they

29:39

are harmed. That is not a partisan

29:41

thing. I don't think it's something that

29:43

middle America would be at all offended

29:46

by, but you know this is the

29:48

risk when they're going as closely as

29:50

they are operating as closely as they

29:52

are. More of our conversation after this

29:55

quick break. Hey

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Infinity at greenlight.com/podcast. Talk a little bit

31:43

about the people that work in the

31:45

field. I mean, we've heard some like

31:48

genuine horror stories. People basically. called back

31:50

at a moment's notice from places that

31:52

are relatively unstable, Democratic Republic of Congo

31:54

being one example, one particular horror story

31:57

there of sort of, you know, trying

31:59

to get out and being essentially abandoned.

32:01

But it just seems like these are

32:03

folks that are, again, they're not making

32:05

it, these are not people that are

32:08

like, if you're working as a USAID

32:10

worker in the Democratic Republic of Congo,

32:12

you're not doing it for the salary.

32:14

hardcore for the mission. Like anyone that's

32:16

out there doing this work does it

32:19

because they believe in it and now

32:21

they're being just messed with at an

32:23

unreal level. And this is one of

32:25

the most just offensive elements of all

32:27

of this is the slander and the

32:30

mistreatment that's been directed at USAID personnel.

32:32

When I was overseeing the Ebola response

32:34

and you remember think back to the

32:36

fear that we felt even in this

32:39

country in 2014 when we got an

32:41

Ebola case here. you know the whole

32:43

country went crazy for a couple of

32:45

months fearful over that and meanwhile I

32:47

was directing my team members to go

32:50

right to Liberia and they were not

32:52

resisting that they were you know they're

32:54

I'm not going to say there was

32:56

not fear there was absolutely fear on

32:58

the team but they also they went

33:01

in because they really believed in it

33:03

and we put a lot of safeguards

33:05

in place and all of that but

33:07

they were not hesitant to go and

33:09

do the mission. And so I think

33:12

that that is the first thing to

33:14

understand is that the people who work

33:16

at USAID, and particularly those who were

33:18

serving overseas, are extraordinarily mission-driven. They are

33:21

doing this out of a really deep

33:23

belief and a really deep commitment to

33:25

their programs. And it is intensely painful

33:27

for them right now, both the impact

33:29

on their own lives, but also to

33:32

watch the things they've built. that they

33:34

know save lives be destroyed. They're being

33:36

treated incredibly badly right now. There was

33:38

a point a couple weeks ago when

33:40

all of the overseas contractors, which are

33:43

basically people who are not federal employees,

33:45

but they are contracted directly by USAID.

33:47

And a lot of the workforce are

33:49

on that kind of a model because

33:51

it's an easier, kind of quicker, contingency

33:54

way to hire people. They just all

33:56

had their email turned off. So there

33:58

were people stranded overseas who were, you

34:00

know, the day before had working badges,

34:03

working diplomatic passports, and were under embassy

34:05

security protection. All of that routes through

34:07

your email identity. Suddenly their email didn't

34:09

work. They were cut off from that.

34:11

So they. they didn't have a way

34:14

to communicate with the embassy. I mean,

34:16

I saw photos of the apps. So

34:18

if you're a US official overseas in

34:20

a dangerous place, you will have an

34:22

app on your phone. That's basically your

34:25

rescue app that if you, you go

34:27

into that, you, you send an alert

34:29

through that, the embassy will know you're

34:31

in trouble, they will deploy a team,

34:33

you know, to come and try and

34:36

track you down. That stopped working because

34:38

that is synced to people's email. I

34:40

mean, people were terrified. They really felt

34:42

stranded and abandoned by their government. And

34:45

this is the reality. And again, I

34:47

don't think that Pete Morocco, the guy

34:49

running this at the State Department, cares.

34:51

Well, the guy who's in the capital

34:53

on January 6th, that guy? That guy?

34:56

That Pete Morocco? Allegedly, yes. Allegedly. But

34:58

that guy. Yeah, that guy. And I

35:00

mean, that's an important element of all

35:02

this. Like for as much as Rubio

35:04

is trying to maintain publicly that they're

35:07

doing this in a real review. behind

35:09

the scenes, you've got Pete Morocco just

35:11

destroying everything he can as quickly as

35:13

he can, just like you said earlier,

35:15

because they need to speed run this

35:18

in order to get away with it.

35:20

There's also, so we've talked about the

35:22

kind of constitutional implications, the humanitarian implications,

35:24

the implications for the agency. There's international

35:27

implications here too, like I've seen a

35:29

few photos floating around of like China

35:31

aid vehicles, which is like their version

35:33

of USAID in spaces. There's been. actual

35:35

reporting saying they've been reaching out. saying

35:38

we'll take over some of this work

35:40

in some places. What are some of

35:42

the international implications of this? Yeah. So

35:44

you see all that. You see China

35:46

saying that they're gonna fill some of

35:49

these vacuums. We'll see if they actually

35:51

do. Whether or not they do, though,

35:53

they've already gotten the public diplomacy benefit

35:55

of making us look unreliable and bad

35:57

and making themselves look like the rescuing

36:00

heroes. Russia is cheering this on from

36:02

the sidelines at a very high level

36:04

of their government. Iran is cheering this

36:06

on from the sidelines. So, you know,

36:09

governments that are widely seen as adversaries

36:11

of the United States are thrilled at

36:13

this right now because they, you know,

36:15

they recognize the. the benefit to US

36:17

national security and to US interests when

36:20

we can use AID to protect US

36:22

values abroad. And that is really that

36:24

convergence of interest and values is what

36:26

makes USAID so powerful. And that's really

36:28

not something that any of those adversary

36:31

nations have. When China, and the great

36:33

example of this that I like to

36:35

give from my own history with this.

36:37

So when I was leading COVID response

36:39

efforts at USAID, China would go to

36:42

countries. with their vaccine diplomacy approach, which

36:44

was basically extractive. And they would go

36:46

to a country and say, okay, we

36:48

will sell you our vaccines, we're gonna

36:50

sell them at a high markup, and

36:53

in order for the privilege of buying

36:55

our expensive vaccines, you have to give

36:57

us political and economic concessions. So they

36:59

would often require breaking off ties with

37:02

Taiwan and things like that. And countries

37:04

would take that deal if it was

37:06

the only deal on the table. When

37:08

we got into that game, which we

37:10

were a little slow to because, you

37:13

know, when we came in under Biden,

37:15

there was nothing, you know, there'd been

37:17

no infrastructure laid by the Trump administration.

37:19

They explicitly didn't want to do that.

37:21

When we could then go to those

37:24

countries and offer a better deal that

37:26

was fundamentally a deal based on solidarity

37:28

and partnership and fighting the pandemic, we

37:30

offered better vaccines for free in higher

37:32

volumes. And we were not being extractive

37:35

about political concessions because we really approached

37:37

his partnership. And so it strengthened their

37:39

relationships with the US and also. They

37:41

didn't have to make these concessions to

37:44

China anymore. We lose the ability to

37:46

do that kind of thing. And we

37:48

lose the ability to counter China in

37:50

that way when we destroy an agency

37:52

like this. What is this going to

37:55

do to, yeah, what is it reputationally

37:57

do too? I mean, that's an interest

37:59

issue, right? Like, but there's a reputation,

38:01

I mean, you know, again, I have

38:03

to sort of take a step back

38:06

and like, just say, just note for

38:08

the record for the record that I

38:10

understand the left critique for the essentially

38:12

a kind of iron fist inside a

38:14

velvet glove that this is the sort

38:17

of soft side of American hegemony and

38:19

dominance that yeah we'll throw some grain

38:21

at you you know that we bought

38:23

from our farmers anyway right because we

38:26

want to fundamentally control you and we

38:28

want to maintain and like US global

38:30

dominance hegemony is a very real thing

38:32

which is incredibly morally fraud and complicated.

38:34

So I just want to like note

38:37

that as I'm like, I'm not taking

38:39

the side of this project or sort

38:41

of explaining it descriptively. And I think

38:43

you are taking, I mean, I think

38:45

you think it's good and I just

38:48

want to flag my own sort of

38:50

positionality on this, but there's a reputational

38:52

cost too. I mean, I just like,

38:54

what's that woman, what's the family of

38:56

the woman who died when she got

38:59

taken off my oxygen gun thing? I

39:01

mean, I saw videos of people showing

39:03

people showing up the HIV, showing up

39:05

the HIV clinic showing up the HIV

39:08

clinic, the HIV clinic, the HIV clinic

39:10

that's closed. 20 million people whose HIV

39:12

medicine was being supported and not aren't

39:14

going to be like, well, I'm just

39:16

glad for when they gave it to

39:19

me. Right. I mean, right. It makes

39:21

the US look fundamentally callous and unreliable.

39:23

Yeah. And again, that's not a terrible

39:25

description of Donald Trump. But that is

39:27

how it makes us look. And that's

39:30

not good for our long-term relationships with

39:32

these countries. It is not good for

39:34

people to people diplomacy and relationships. You

39:36

know, I mean to your point on

39:38

the... on the left critique, one of

39:41

the experiences of working at USAID is

39:43

getting mischaracterized by both sides, right? Because,

39:45

you know, from the perspective that you

39:47

just articulated, well, you know, we're not

39:50

actually doing this to genuinely help people

39:52

or just doing it to project American

39:54

power. And that's false. I mean, the

39:56

people who work at USAID are doing

39:58

it to help people genuinely. Yes, no,

40:01

that I know enough. And I know

40:03

that's for sure. And I know that,

40:05

but what's so amazing, and really, when

40:07

I worked there, what really, where I

40:09

felt a lot of pride, was being

40:12

able to help people in service of

40:14

your country. Like, that's an amazing feeling.

40:16

And it's really unique, you know, it's

40:18

a feeling, and I love the NGO

40:20

sector, I'm in the NGO sector, obligation

40:23

and patriotism that you are serving your

40:25

country and and that's what the right

40:27

wing critique gets wrong too because you

40:29

hear and you hear Rubio say this

40:32

recently oh they just think they're a

40:34

big NGO literally no one working USAID

40:36

thinks they're working for an NGO there

40:38

is a palpable constant feeling and kind

40:40

of ethos that you are working on

40:43

behalf of your government you are a

40:45

geo that's right yeah and I think

40:47

also that there is some kind of

40:49

consistency in this worldview you know between

40:51

going after USAID and, you know, pulling

40:54

out of the World Health Organization, showing

40:56

up in Europe to sort of tell

40:58

them they're all idiots, calling Vladimir Putin

41:00

to say that you're going to talk,

41:02

sit down with him in Saudi Arabia,

41:05

to carve up Ukraine, and then sort

41:07

of admiring China and Putin's like, you

41:09

know, and their pluck, which is, which

41:11

really is an attempt to completely undo.

41:14

basically the post-World War II set of

41:16

international institutions in order, which again has

41:18

a very mixed record, but my feeling

41:20

is it's probably on the whole better

41:22

than whatever Donald Trump is envisioning for

41:25

it to come afterwards. It's the old

41:27

truism that you never knocked down a

41:29

wall if you don't know why it

41:31

was put up in the first place.

41:33

Yeah, right. And that's what we're doing

41:36

in the international system right now. Yeah.

41:38

Or what we risk doing. People love

41:40

to dump on the U.N. Look, I...

41:42

We could spend a three hour podcast

41:44

on my complaints with the UN system.

41:47

And Chris, any time you want to

41:49

do that, I'm game. Well, let me

41:51

just say one thing that has been

41:53

ironic about all this, as I know

41:55

many federal work. and I'm watching the

41:58

19-year-olds at Doge, you know, strip the

42:00

wires off of it, no one can

42:02

give you a more detailed chapter and

42:04

verse about their frustrations with federal bureaucracy

42:07

than federal bureaucrats. Like, like, like, so

42:09

you try to keep in mind that

42:11

like... It is one, I even talked

42:13

to someone who used to work in

42:15

like digital spaces was like, kind of

42:18

wish I could do what the Doge

42:20

guys are doing. Some of the code

42:22

that I saw. Like, so, you know,

42:24

we can't be precious or non-clearite about

42:26

the status quo. Like, and everyone closest

42:29

to it can tell you, but what

42:31

they can tell you is from the

42:33

position of granular proximate knowledge of the

42:35

deficiencies of sclerosis and bureaucracy as opposed

42:37

to a Northeastern freshman. with a few

42:40

years of coding on Roosevelt. Right. Like

42:42

when I was in the last time

42:44

working on COVID, it felt at certain

42:46

times like half of my job was

42:49

just a game of hopscotch trying to

42:51

make sure we didn't fail to hit

42:53

a single square that we needed to

42:55

tap in order to legally spend money.

42:57

Right. And the day-to-day work of a

43:00

lot of people USA ideas is that.

43:02

and it's really unfortunate like it's literally

43:04

the opposite problem it's literally the opposite

43:06

problem and if Doge had come to

43:08

USAID and said boy this bureaucracy fucking

43:11

sucks let's help you clear this out

43:13

they would have had everyone eating out

43:15

of their hand because it is painful

43:17

and this to me is the irony

43:19

of all this well one of the

43:22

many ironies of all this is like

43:24

I don't think there is really a

43:26

kind of a preemptive hostility towards an

43:28

incoming administration. When I left office or

43:31

left government the first time, left ID

43:33

the first time, one of my team

43:35

members said to me, and I don't

43:37

know what her political leanings were, because

43:39

I never asked, but she said, yeah,

43:42

you know, often we find that the

43:44

management under Republicans is a little better.

43:46

And I don't think she was saying

43:48

that to tweak me personally. But what

43:50

she meant was like, you know, often

43:53

you'd have Republicans come in from the

43:55

business sector and they would have like

43:57

pretty good management skills. and they would

43:59

run the agency well. Even if they

44:01

were running it, you know, and things

44:04

that I might disagree with policy-wise, they

44:06

were running it effectively from a management

44:08

perspective, and, and there was, you know,

44:10

there's a degree of hopefulness that they

44:13

might bring some of that, and instead,

44:15

you know, what we, what we see

44:17

this time is, I suppose Elon is

44:19

bringing management techniques that he brought to

44:21

Twitter that were highly destructive, and that's

44:24

what they're bringing it. I think it's

44:26

heartbreaking on some level about this is

44:28

we really do need good faith. administrative

44:30

reform of the US government because there

44:32

is a lot of sclerosis. Like the

44:35

diagnosis is not completely wrong. I would

44:37

associate myself a lot with what Jennifer

44:39

Palca has been writing recently and saying

44:41

about this. She did an episode with

44:43

Ezra Klein last year, last year, talking

44:46

about the Health Care.gov debacle, but she

44:48

could have been, you changed the words,

44:50

she could have been describing almost verbatim

44:52

the experience that I had trying to

44:55

push COVID work through at USAID because

44:57

you run into all the same structural

44:59

problems. We do need to fix that.

45:01

And instead, what's happening is they're kind

45:03

of taking an opportunity to really fix

45:06

things and just turning that into code

45:08

for destruction, which will make it harder

45:10

to ever get some of these things

45:12

fixed. Yeah, that is exactly right. And

45:14

it's useful and good to say that

45:17

because one of the things that ends

45:19

up happening because of the sort of

45:21

forces of negative polarization, because they're constantly

45:23

trying to destroy things, you get negatively

45:25

polarized into defending the status quo, you

45:28

know what I mean? 100%. You know,

45:30

you end up in this position where

45:32

like in other contexts, it's like, well,

45:34

prosecutors would never bring up case on

45:37

the merits. It's like, oh, I don't

45:39

believe that obviously, like, or, you know,

45:41

God, there's nothing in the federal government

45:43

that, you know, like, like, that's right.

45:45

Yeah, and we need, we need the

45:48

ability to institute good faith change in

45:50

the government. And frankly, we need the

45:52

ability to hold people accountable for performance.

45:54

It's very hard to do that in

45:56

the federal workforce right now. to say

45:59

that most of the federal workforce are

46:01

not performing well. I think they, you

46:03

know, in my experience, they are. But

46:05

when you have someone who isn't, it's

46:07

very hard to do something about that

46:10

because of the protections against exactly what's

46:12

happening right now. But this is what's

46:14

so insane about this, right? So let's

46:16

say what's so insane about this, right?

46:19

So let's say there's an issue, and

46:21

I think there's an issue, and I've

46:23

covered the federal bureaucracy in different ways.

46:25

The federal civil services is some of

46:27

the highest quality and highest talent. No

46:30

question. Both in the world and also

46:32

certainly in the US. Like when you

46:34

compare them to municipal, you know, offices

46:36

forever. They're excellent. They're excellent in the

46:38

main. Of course, there are also civil

46:41

service protections. Those are important. It is

46:43

also the case that sometimes low performers,

46:45

people not doing well, can be hard

46:47

to get rid of. Yeah. This is

46:49

a. you know you hear this in

46:52

a bunch of places. What's so crazy

46:54

in the same way that like what

46:56

you were saying before about you know

46:58

the spending like there's too many strings

47:00

to spend money and they're they're doing

47:03

the opposite they're destroying the agency and

47:05

making it not spend any. What they're

47:07

doing on federal staffing right now is

47:09

just clear-cutting 100% with it obviously is

47:12

the case that if they're just saying

47:14

whoever's in their one-year probation period is

47:16

gone you don't know if maybe you

47:18

fired you fired the best people around

47:20

who are going to come and replace

47:23

the people who are not that good.

47:25

Obviously no one knows anything about the

47:27

skills, abilities, talent, merit, whatsoever. It is

47:29

purely a clear cut. There's a presumption

47:31

underpinning that, that most federal workers are

47:34

probably bad at their jobs and are

47:36

redundant. Exactly. And so, you know, if

47:38

you just get rid of a bunch

47:40

of them, it'll all come out in

47:42

the wash and it won't make much

47:45

of a difference. I should have said

47:47

earlier and I want to just make

47:49

this clear. some of the bureaucratic sclerosis

47:51

in the US government, which is very

47:54

real. That is not primarily coming from

47:56

the agencies. That is primarily coming from

47:58

how the agencies have to comply with

48:00

congressional requirements. So a lot of the

48:02

day-to-day paper pushing is because Congress has

48:05

created all of these financial management requirements

48:07

and monitoring and evaluation requirements and process

48:09

management requirements and all of these there

48:11

bills upon bills upon bills upon bills.

48:13

there's a former USA administrator under George

48:16

W. Bush named Andrew Nazios who is

48:18

kind of legendary within the agency and

48:20

we are different political parties but I

48:22

absolutely love the guy. He wrote a

48:24

great paper a few years ago called

48:27

The Clash of the Counter-Bureaucracy and he

48:29

talks about this whole system that exists

48:31

within USAID to do all of that

48:33

monitoring and administrative oversight and all that

48:36

and he kind of calls that the

48:38

counter-bureauacy. The basic idea is that is

48:40

the kind of the... the set of

48:42

hurdles that the workers of the agency

48:44

have to navigate through in order to

48:47

do the mission of the agency and

48:49

he starts that paper with a wonderful

48:51

letter from I think it's Lord Nelson

48:53

written back to the UK where he

48:55

says well look you're asking me to

48:58

account for every boot and every bullet

49:00

and every every bit of food so

49:02

do you want me to do this

49:04

accounting exercise or do you want me

49:06

to win the war and that is

49:09

that is the feeling of being a

49:11

federal worker And what's so crazy about

49:13

that, and again, we come back around

49:15

to where we started, is that is

49:18

all about Article I legislative branch flexing

49:20

its powers, micromanaging, doing all this stuff,

49:22

which again, the Constitution gives a right

49:24

to do. I mean, you know, it

49:26

is their money, and it's all of

49:29

our money, but they are the ones

49:31

that appropriated it. To go through that,

49:33

to know about that, to know the

49:35

layers of congressional approval, and then watch

49:37

someone come in with zero congressional approval.

49:40

No one has... Not one word. They

49:42

didn't consult with the chairs. Nothing. The

49:44

ranking, nothing. And literally quote, delete the

49:46

agency. Yeah. It's just, it's a shocking

49:48

constitutional abdication. Yeah, yeah. And this is

49:51

what is in addition to the horror

49:53

that is resulting around the world because

49:55

of those actions. damage that's doing to

49:57

tens of millions of human lives around

50:00

the world, which is very chilling by

50:02

the way that they are willing to

50:04

cause that level of damage as casually

50:06

as they are. It's sociopathic. It really

50:08

is. But let's even set that to

50:11

the side for a moment and just

50:13

look at what this means for for

50:15

our system of government if the lesson

50:17

here. is that as long as Elon

50:19

Musk tells enough lies at a high

50:22

enough volume, at a frequent enough clip,

50:24

and you had this great graphic on

50:26

your, I forget if it was Twitter

50:28

or Blue Sky, of just the kind

50:30

of a scatter plot, the frequency of

50:33

Elon Musk tweets. Yep. And it just

50:35

gets like almost completely covered over time.

50:37

Yep. 24 hours a day. Right. So

50:39

that is very intentionally trying to create

50:42

this perception that The agency is compromised,

50:44

it's corrupt, and therefore he should be

50:46

allowed to do whatever he wants. And

50:48

it is working so far with respect

50:50

to a lot of Republicans in Congress,

50:53

from talking to Republican friends on the

50:55

Hill. I don't think he's persuading most

50:57

of them on the merits. There are

50:59

a few who are kind of fringe

51:01

who are persuaded by him, but most

51:04

of them, you know, they know what

51:06

USAID does. They have traveled to USAID

51:08

programs. Many of them have praised USAID

51:10

over the years. They know the reality,

51:12

but they don't dare speak that reality

51:15

for fear of getting crosswise with this

51:17

torrent of disinformation or being targeted by

51:19

it. And so they are then basically

51:21

abdicating some of their constitutional responsibilities. And

51:24

ultimately, these are not self-enforcing. So if

51:26

Congress doesn't choose to enforce its prerogatives,

51:28

the executive will fill that vacuum. That

51:30

is what they're trying to do right

51:32

now. And the game plan is to

51:35

do as quickly as possible so that

51:37

they can leave a smoking carcass of

51:39

the agency. And by the time the

51:41

courts or Congress catch up, it doesn't

51:43

matter because it's too late. The staff

51:46

are fired. All the implementing organizations have

51:48

gone bankrupt. All the programs are shut.

51:50

and there's nothing left to salvage. One

51:52

final question for you, I don't know

51:54

if you know Mark Aruba at all,

51:57

but you know, there's someone who's on

51:59

tape talking about USAID, we've got the

52:01

tape of him and defending it in,

52:03

you know, presidential primaries. He's like, I

52:05

guess he's just totally, you know, it's

52:08

this kind of Stalinist thing where you

52:10

just, this is the party line now.

52:12

I am very curious how much he

52:14

even has a kind of day-to-day handle

52:17

on what's being done under. under his

52:19

ostensible oversight. You know, running a federal

52:21

agency is a huge and all-consuming task,

52:23

and I don't say this to kind

52:25

of defend what he's been responsible for,

52:28

but he's brand new. He doesn't have

52:30

much of a team around him yet.

52:32

The way that a leader exerts control

52:34

over the building is by getting their

52:36

own team of their own people around

52:39

them. He doesn't have that yet. Pete

52:41

Morocco, the guy who is doing most

52:43

of this, is not one of his

52:45

people, and has cover from the White

52:47

House. He's connected to the Trump family.

52:50

He's a loyalist, which Rubio is not,

52:52

or he's not perceived as anyway. And

52:54

so Morocco is kind of acting as

52:56

an authority under him, unto himself in

52:59

the department right now. And Rubio is

53:01

constantly playing catch-up. And there was a

53:03

really striking some notes from a meeting

53:05

that he did with USA Mission staff

53:07

in one of the missions in Central

53:10

America during a recent trip there, where

53:12

they were really traumatized, but was happening

53:14

to their agency, and he didn't. he

53:16

didn't fully defend it and he kind

53:18

of portrayed himself in those notes as

53:21

almost a bystander to it. Like I

53:23

didn't know this was the plan before

53:25

I came in and he was making

53:27

commitments to them about you know well

53:29

we're not going to pull your kids

53:32

out of school and things like that

53:34

that were directly contradictory to what Pete

53:36

Morocco was actually ordering at that very

53:38

moment. So you know I don't know

53:41

when and how that comes to a

53:43

head. I will say Pete Morocco got

53:45

bounced out of four jobs in the

53:47

first Trump administration because he was so

53:49

toxic to the people around him. So

53:52

abusive, even the Trump-appointed leadership of USAID

53:54

in the first term, could... put up

53:56

with him. So I don't know how

53:58

long he will last and you know

54:00

he probably doesn't either which is maybe

54:03

why he's trying to do as much

54:05

damage as quickly as he can. Jeremy

54:07

Kanondike is the president at Refugees International.

54:09

He's a former senior official at USAID

54:11

in both the Obama and Biden administrations.

54:14

Jeremy that was great. Thank you so

54:16

much. My pleasure. Thanks Chris. Once

54:23

again great, thanks to Jeremy Kanondike and we'd

54:26

love to hear from you about what you

54:28

thought of the conversation, particularly if you've worked

54:30

in NGOs or in foreign aid or at

54:32

USAID. You can email us with pod@gmail.com, get

54:35

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54:46

Be sure to hear new episodes every Tuesday.

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