Jen Rubin interviews Nancy Clair, Ed.D, a lifelong worker at USAID. Together, they discuss the essential work of USAID programs, the Trump-Musk attacks on the agency, and the real human cost of funding cuts.
See Nancy’s written piece The Human Faces of the USAID Shutdown here.
It was almost unbearable to listen to this interview -- until the ending message of "it's a sad world if humans aren't helping humans". We have to figure out a way to honor your life's work of helping humans. Thank you for your 50 years with USAID.
The ramifications of what this administration is doing around the globe are absolutely devastating. Incalculable lives of not only US but all nationalities are suddenly reversed and thrown into chaos. How can ONE MAN? ONE MAN? and his minions get away with this spreading pure evil in every nook and cranny of our beloved planet? Surely we can figure out a way to end this tyranny. It is ALL OF US over this ONE MAN, the devil personified.
It's not one man, this started way back with the Koch brothers and has been in the works for quite a long time. Trump isn't smart enough to pull this off. I do think he's under Putin's thumb.
As always, Jen, you bring us information and viewpoints vital to our understanding of what trump is destroying and how critical it is that we resist. He and his sycophants are unable to fathom an imperative like the one Nancy shared at the end. With their utter lack of humanity they are making the world infinitely less safe for all of us.
The worldwide damage that this criminal administration has perpetrated on the world is going to haunt us for many years. Like Dr. Sinclair said, no one will ever trust us again. It is really terrifying. Meanwhile Xi and Putin are celebrating and the Dear Leader is too ignorant to even realize it.
Nancy thank you for helping us “see” the real consequences of the heartless and foolish actions ending America’s aid work around the world. When JFK established USAID he recognized the work it would do as a source of strength. Trump is making America weaker.
This interview spoke to my experience. I was a Peace Corps volunteer 40 years ago in Sierra Leone, West Africa. The book of my nearest Peace Corps neighbor in Sierrra Leone was just published (Before Before: A story of discovery and loss in Sierra Leone), reminding me of the tragic impacts of corrupt leaders on the lives of their people and why I need to be active in my country at this time.
Unlike Nancy, I did not stay for my full term because I did not have real work to do, and as Betsy reminds me, economic conditions in Sierra Leone were beginning to become desperate, with the value of the local currency dropping tenfold between the time she started her service and I started mine one year later. Inflation! I came back to this country to work in education reform. Six years after I left, a most gruesome civil war started in the Sierra Leone, fueled by foreign influence and corruption around the country’s diamond fields.
It can feel as if the world is falling apart now. This interview of Heather Cox Richardson with Antony Blinken on his last day in office provides perspective and addresses the importance of volunteerism and American strengths in this area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv-eLBelHI0
We have lots of work to do to change the course our country in now on. Those of us with experience in the kinds of countries USAID has supported can step up, as those whose lives have been disrupted, as Nancy describes, recover.
Thanking my friend for her book to help Americans better understand the bigger world our country is part of: https://www.betsysmall.com/
This was a wonderful interview. Hard to listen to, for sure, but chock full of informations and insights. My son works for USAID. He is on paid administrative leave and, given his credentials (he has two master's degrees, speaks three languages, has experience in Central America and Africa), he will land on his feet somewhere. . . .though it may not be in this country. He and Dr. Sinclair are among the thousands of competent and dedicated USAID diplomats whose talents we are losing. I am heartbroken about what the Musk/Trump regime are doing to our country.