S04E13 – Musk Destroys USAID

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Josh, Ryan, and Tom explore one of the initiatives of the Trump administration and DOGE – Elon Musks destruction of USAID. We examine what happened – that their expenditures were put on hold and the roughly 10,000 employees were told they were going to lose their jobs. Josh celebrates this. Tom points out some of the programs that USAID was funding appeared to have a left-leaning bias. Ryan supports cutting out wasteful spending, improving government efficiency, and even firing people who aren’t doing anything. But suggests that there are better ways to do this than destroying an entire government agency and potentially harming innocent people around the world. It takes us more than an hour and a half but we ultimately agree that the wholesale destruction of USAID without consideration of how it will affect some of the most vulnerable is a serious problem.