Title: Future of USAID Under Trump

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we turn to our health and climate story of the week, which we do on Tuesdays with an international lens today, because since Saturday, as many of you know, the Trump administration has been moving to dismantle USAID, the US Agency for International Development. Hears 12 seconds of Trump speaking to reporters on Sunday.

Donald Trump: It's been run by a bunch of radical lunatics and we're getting them out. USAID run by radical lunatics and we're getting them out, and then we'll make a decision.

Brian Lehrer: The agency provides aid for numerous initiatives abroad. Under President Joe Biden, the agency also worked to counter climate change globally and used those efforts as a way to counter poverty and battle hunger. On Monday, USAID workers were blocked from entering the main office in Washington, DC.

AP reports that two USAID security officials have also been put on leave for denying access to confidential documents to workers of the Department for Government Efficiency, DOGE, that is Elon Musk's team and some contractors who work with USAID have had their contracts terminated. Beyond that, the new freeze on almost all foreign aid through USAID is reportedly causing thousands of layoffs at private not-for-profit aid agencies, suspending health care, including HIV treatments, vaccines, and more in the developing world as the new government here assesses the programs while they are suspended rather than as they are continuing.

Joining us now to explain what the agency does, who is being impacted, and why it's being targeted is Elissa Miolene, reporter covering the USAID and US Government at Devex, an independent news organization covering global development. Hi, Elissa. Welcome to WNYC.

Elissa Miolene: Hey, Brian, thanks for having me here.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, I want to open up the phones right away on this to help us report this story. Anybody listening right now who works for a private not-for-profit that's funded by USAID, funded by the federal government in part, help us report this story. What are you hearing from your managers and colleagues? Have you or people you know lost their jobs because of the funding freeze? Have people you've been working with in other countries not been able to access their health care if it's been US-funded in recent days?

Help us report this story. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Also, immigrants from anywhere, if the country that you came from originally has USAID programs there and you're aware of these, what are you hearing from people back where you came from? Are important health programs being cut off? Is anything else being cut off that's trickling down to you listening here in this country? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Help us report this story if you can with a phone call or a text.

Elissa, you want to do a little one-on-one first for people who aren't familiar? What does USAID actually do, particularly when it comes to promoting health and combating climate change?

Elissa Miolene: Sure. USAID was set up in the early 1960s to really administer humanitarian aid programs all over the world. This is about 10,000 people, 2/3 of them work overseas, and there are bases across 60 countries. The way that USAID works is it's primarily through its partners. Those are international aid agencies, local organizations, international development contractors, and they support millions of people across the world. In terms of climate, in terms of health, the programs are expansive.

There is everything from organizations getting money for HIV/AIDS medication, retroviral drugs, to mitigation for climate change, as you mentioned. The programs are across the democracy space, climate, gender, you name it across the world. Just a note on the finances, last year USAID obligated about $40 billion to its program. That's less than 1% of the federal budget. It's actually closer to half a percent.

Brian Lehrer: On what it is that they object to so much about USAID, I did see that USAID was targeted in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which many speculate is a type of Trump playbook for his new term. I read the chapter on USAID and Project 2025 yesterday to prepare for this to see is this what they're implementing now? Project 2025 doesn't call for abolishing the agency like Trump and Musk apparently do, but they do call for ending climate DEI and reproductive rights programs.

They say that those things were way expanded under President Biden and that it's making the agency lose its focus on actual development that's in the interest of the United States or even in the interest of the health of the people there. For example, they say climate change, moving towards sustainability in very poor countries, what they need is a lot of energy right away to help increase their prosperity. There's the Project 2025 take, or a beginning of an introduction to it on USAID. Is that what you think is going on here with Trump and Musk?

Elissa Miolene: I think there's definitely, like you said, Brian, a lot in Project 2025 that's beginning to ring true. You mentioned climate, gender also, we've seen particularly hard slashes in terms of the gender teams. I think that there's a lot here that folks if you've read Project 2025, might have been expecting, but there's a lot that they haven't that people were surprised about. You mentioned at the top of the call, the over freeze. I think that was something that took people by surprise. The stop-work orders.

This is something that I think went beyond the pale and far beyond what people thought was going to happen. Over the weekend, you did see Elon Musk tweeting about sending USAID into the wood chipper, calling it a criminal organization. You did play the clip from President Trump about the radical lunatics.

There are a lot of moves to consolidate the agency, to strip senior staff, and to really reframe, "Okay, what is USAID doing and how can we reabsorb it into State, or how can certain bureaus or teams be cut out entirely?" I think we're still in the process of figuring out, "Okay, what does this actually mean? What does a reabsorption to State, or what does this reconfiguration or review process that Secretary of State Marco Rubio just sent a letter to Congress members about yesterday?" We're definitely expecting a much smaller USAID with oversight from the State Department, and that's been happening over the past two weeks.

Brian Lehrer: What they have kept, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, is what they call emergency food aid. They're not literally taking food out of poor people's mouths, but in the Project 2025 report, it says USAID's response to man-made food insecurity is to provide more billions of dollars in aid, a recipe that will keep scores of poor countries underdeveloped and dependent on foreign aid for years to come. Can you fact-check that a bit for us or interpret it?

Elissa Miolene: Yes. I think that we need to be a little careful with the waivers and the exceptions because I'm speaking with a lot of organizations who have not yet received waivers, even though they do seem to count for those waiver programs. I think the emergency food aid is one of those things where people are having a difficult time interpreting it. What is life-saving? What is not? There's also a bit of the supply chain aspect to look at here. Does this include for emergency food aid the folks that distribute things like ready-to-use therapeutic drugs which help children that are either on the brink or now starving?

There's a lot of just questions that are swirling about what does qualify for emergency food aid? What does qualify for life-saving assistance? Who's viewing these waivers now that folks have been let go en masse? We're reporting thousands of staff have been either placed on administrative leave, locked out of the systems with no notice, and that kind of thing. I think even the exceptions, it's a little confusing what actually qualifies and what actually will be able to go forward even with those pieces.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call from Jake in Brooklyn who says he's a laid-off USAID contractor. Jake, you're on WNYC. We appreciate you calling in.

Jake: Yes, right. I've never called in before. It's a very difficult time for a lot of people. I'm, although just laid off, one of the most least impacted because it's the people who we have been helping that are the most impacted. I'm concerned about this. I've been working in the international development sector for about 10 or 15 years and the work of USAID is multifaceted.

Some of it that I've been working on is really what's called rule of law or democratic governance, which is basically supporting the establishment of rule of law and the environment in which American companies can safely operate and also to encourage people who are allied in terms of what I think has been a general consensus of what America wants, which is the democracy and fairness.

Even if USAID comes back, I think that somehow this has been so politicized and that while in the past you would have seen a contraction from some of the gender issues and some of the family planning issues, I think it's pretty clear that anything that says rule of law or democratic governance is probably on the chopping block and won't be coming back. That's really a shame that it's become so distorted in that way.

Brian Lehrer: It used to be, Jake, that the US government thought that any developing country that does develop in a democratic way rather than an authoritarian way would be more likely to be an ally of the United States than say, an ally of China in global politics. Was that your understanding in the work that you did? I understand you are saying the Trump administration does not see it that way.

Jake: I would imagine that much like environmental justice and women's rights, I think rule of law probably rubs our new president in the wrong way. I don't think that completely explains or even politically justifies the way that he is destroying a network of partners and relationships which have been carefully built up by both Republican and Democratic administrations to make America safer in the world. As you say, most of my work was in Myanmar, also known as Burma, at a time when it was democratizing.

It was very much aimed at offsetting potential influence by China. I was about to go to Central Asia to work on a project there, very close to Afghanistan, very close to Pakistan. These are ways that we can make it a safer world for us all without having troops on the ground. It's really an example of ill-intentioned people making America less safe and less well-regarded to the world.

Brian Lehrer: I'm sorry to hear about your layoff and I appreciate you calling in and lending us your perspective through your experience. Let's go right to another caller. Marcy in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Marcy.

Marcy: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: I'm okay. What you got?

Marcy: I am currently on staff, but resigned from USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. My title is Team Lead for Gender, Age, and Social Inclusion. What that basically means is that I lead a team of really brilliant and committed professionals to serve the most marginalized communities in crisis locations around the world. We work in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Gaza, in Afghanistan, wherever there is a war or a natural disaster.

Every single time that there are disruptions like that, the people who are most adversely affected are women and girls, persons with disabilities, older adults, adolescents, LGBTQI+ people, and it was my job to make that we alleviated suffering for those people by making sure that all of the USAID's assistance reached them effectively. My heart is both breaking for my colleagues who are honest and empathetic, compassionate people who really see their life's work as making the world a better place and have the job where that's really what they get to do every day.

My heart breaks just as much if not more for the communities that one day were receiving our health assistance, our food assistance, our protection from gender-based violence, and the next day stopped.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think with the priorities of the Trump administration as you understand them, that those particular programs will not be reinstated through whatever format they come up with, whether it's eliminating USAID as an independent agency and folding it into the State Department, or just reviewing all the programs, eliminating ones they don't like, and keeping it under USAID by that name? Do you think they're not as interested in protecting women from gender-based violence and that those programs will shrink?

Marcy: I think that they made it pretty clear in the first Trump administration that while there were some priorities within what I just listed that they wanted to maintain, the funding definitely needed to shrink and they wanted to remove as much as possible the technical expertise and ways of working that experts know work. For example, it is impossible to protect women from gender-based violence in Ukraine, in Gaza, in some of the toughest places without the UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, or WHO, the World Health Organization.

We have a very complex architecture of aid that gets the appropriate medications and the appropriate technical assistance in place. Every time a crisis happens, this architecture begins rolling. What happened in the first Trump administration was that our support to UNFPA stopped. That has happened again now. What I fear now is that we're going even further. I don't feel optimistic that these programs are going to be allowed to continue in any respect and that the people most of all who really know how to lead this work are being released out into the world.

They need to find jobs to be able to feed themselves and their families and pay their rent. We're losing thousands of people who are the only ones who can do this work.

Brian Lehrer: Marcy, we appreciate your call. Thank you very much for describing your experience at USAID as we continue forward for a few more minutes with Elissa Miolene, reporter covering USAID, and the US government at the news organization Devex, which covers global development. Elissa, any reaction to those two callers, first of all, as you were listening to them with their USAID-related experience?

Elissa Miolene: Yes. They definitely mirrored exactly what I'm hearing from folks here in DC and across the world. I think the first caller did mention something that continues to come up in my reporting and in our reporting at Devex, which is the national security implications. Talking about organizations in, for example, southern Lebanon that had medical clinics. Those clinics are now suspended, and not able to work because they were funded by US dollars.

Now groups are coming in and saying, "See, you can't trust America." That's what I'm hearing from folks on the ground who are working in these places. That's number one. Number two, the second caller just mentioned in terms of the number of staff and the senior staff being let go. It's definitely happening. We're again talking the thousands. Yesterday I was at the USAID headquarters building and there were hundreds of people there, former, current USAID staff, there were a dozen Congress members.

All trying to make this point about the senior staff being let go, those in the middle being let go, those on the institutional support contractors, or the contracted agency staff have been basically eliminated completely. It's a full carve out and just speaks to again, what Devex is hearing here in DC and across the world.

Brian Lehrer: What percentage of the US government's budget is USAID or foreign aid?

Elissa Miolene: The typical figure that's been floating around is less than 1%. I do think that it's closer to, if you look at the obligated funds for last year, between 1% and 0.5%.

Brian Lehrer: A tiny percentage of the US budget, which probably means that these attacks on USAID are more ideological, more culture war than they are financial.

Elissa Miolene: Yes, that would be my take at this stage.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a text from a listener who writes, "Can you ask your guest about the link between defunding USAID and appeasing dictators like Putin and Orban?" This actually relates to the first caller's point that all this development of democracy and rule of law in developing countries work that USAID has done may not be where Trump wants to see them go. He may be more interested in having dictators there who are in his alliance group of dictators around the world.

Listener writes, "I have heard this as a major motivator for Musk appeasing Putin and Orban and people like that, but I see very little reporting on it. Why Musk and Trump are so fixated on this relatively small operation is generally ignored. Even worse, you hear that it's only to create chaos, which doesn't sound right." What would you say to that, listener?

Elissa Miolene: The first point is one that I've heard too. Again, talking about yesterday and what I was hearing from Congress members, they definitely drilled home this point about Musk's business operations in China and how it relates to his own electric vehicle operations, et cetera. I don't know if I can comment too much on that point because I think it's being still sorted out. Related to the second point about just why the fixation, I will say that this has been something--

USAID has faced criticism for some time. Republicans in Congress have long tried to give the State Department more control of USAID policies and funds. Like you said, Brian, it has been caught up in politics in some ways, I think increasingly so. Before, USAID and foreign assistance was seen, I think, really across DC as something that people could really get behind on both sides of the aisle, referred to often here in the Capitol as our soft power, the way in which Americans use their foreign assistance for goodwill, help, et cetera, but also to curry favor with allies.

Brian Lehrer: It's not to say that the Trump and Musk and Rubio team say that they don't want to try to do that with spending abroad. Correct me if I'm wrong, because here's a text that says, "Can't we assume that a $40 billion program without any oversight has lots of waste, some fraud in many areas which can be cut?" Here's a clip of the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, enumerating a few specific reasons that she says the Trump administration is targeting USAID spending. Listen.

Karoline Leavitt: Here's the reason why Elon Musk and others have been taking a look, because if you look at the waste and abuse that has run through USAID over the past several years, these are some of the insane priorities that that organization has been spending money on. $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces. 70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland, 47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, 32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.

I don't know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don't want my dollars going towards this crap, and I know the American people don't either. That's exactly what Elon Musk has been tasked by President Trump to do, to get the fraud, waste, and abuse out of our federal government.

Brian Lehrer: White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. We've just got about 30 seconds in the segment, Elissa, but can you fact-check some of that for us? Is there really a $32,000 expenditure for a transgender comic book in Peru or some of the other things that she mentioned that could be used as political leverage to stir opposition?

Elissa Miolene: I haven't fact-checked those particular claims, so I can't speak to that. What I will say, though, Brian, is that it is interesting. We broke earlier this week, or I guess it was last week now, that the staff who are part of the Legislative Affairs team, those are the links between USAID and Congress, most of those folks have been let go or locked out of system. It is interesting to just look at like, "Okay, what does congressional oversight mean, and how do we check these types of programs? How do we check what USAID is spending money on?"

It's congressional oversight, but those staff have now been let go. I guess it just raises a question in terms of like, "All right, how do we check these things aside from just a full scale, 'Okay, slash the entire budget,' if the folks that are put in place to serve as that link between Congress and USAID are now gone?"

Brian Lehrer: Elissa Miolene, reporter covering USAID and the US Government at Devex, an independent news organization covering global development. Thanks so much for joining us.

Elissa Miolene: Thanks, Brian.

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