Lawfare Daily: An Insider’s Account of the Trump Administration’s Dismantling of USAID
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s podcast, Lawfare Associate Editor for Communications Anna Hickey talks to Nicholas Enrich, former acting assistant administrator of Global Health at USAID, about his book, “Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID.” Enrich details the agency's dismantling during the early months of the Trump administration and whether those doing the dismantling understood the consequences of their actions. He also discusses the impact on global health programs, the role of political appointees and DOGE, and the consequences for international aid and U.S. global health security.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Lauren Voss, senior editor at Lawfare. You probably know me best for my obsession with domestic military deployments. |
| 0:10.0 | At Lawfare, we're dedicated to tackling the hard national security questions. The ones without easy answers. |
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| 1:02.3 | everyone. Thanks for listening and for caring about things that matter. |
| 1:27.7 | Hi. I was kind of like nervous but optimistic and waiting for some sort of supplemental guidance that would describe what was actually meant by this because they couldn't possibly mean what it said because that would result in potentially millions of people losing their lives and us pulling the rug out from promises we had made around the world to keep people |
| 1:32.5 | safe. It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Anna Hickey, Associate Editor of Communications at Lawfare |
| 1:39.1 | with Nicholas Enrich, former acting assistant administrator of global health at USAID, and author of Into the Woodchipper, |
| 1:47.3 | a whistleblower's account of how the Trump administration shredded USAID. |
| 1:51.9 | In my mind, when the dust settles on the Trump presidency, this is going to end up being its legacy. |
| 1:58.9 | This is one of the most consequential policy decisions that the Trump administration will have |
| 2:04.4 | ended up making, and they didn't even know what it was that they were closing out. |
| 2:08.6 | Today, we're talking about his experience within the agency, as Elon Musk's newly created |
| 2:13.9 | Department of Government Efficiency dismantled it and the global impacts of the end of |
| 2:18.7 | United States Agency for International Development. Before we dive into what happened with the agency |
... |
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