Hello everyone, welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Cetus. Today is Monday the 3rd of February.

This is episode 1092. I'm your host Stelios and I'm joined by Josh.

Hello, we didn't plan this by the way. We're not dressed very similarly on purpose. Yeah,

we just sort of turned up this way. Next time our ties should be black to remind people of

Pulp Fiction. Maybe even reservoir dogs as well. Yeah. Ezekiel 2517. Right. So we are going to

talk about the plans to shut down USAID. A very large problem in Michigan, I think in fact it will

break Michigan, and how 2025 is off to a weird start?

Mm-hmm.

We have no announcements to make, so whenever you want, let us start.

I'll have a think about it, you know, I'll put my feet up.

Take your time, take your time. Yeah, we're in no rush.

Time's no issue, is it?

Yeah.

No, of course.

So, one of my favorite developments of the Trump presidency is the discussion around the US Agency for International Development or US Aid.

And in Trump's very first day, he had this executive order re-evaluating and

realigning United States foreign aid. And in it, he had a 90-day pause on all of the things

that come under this sort of purview, I suppose. And I liked how they framed it in, and I can actually scroll down and

show you it rather than just read it myself, but I'll do that anyway.

The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests,

and in many cases antithetical to American values, true.

They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly

...