Brittany Brown
Appearances
Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I'm Brittany Brown. I was at USAID for four years, starting the second week of the Biden administration. And I stayed through January 20th at noon of this year. So about 10 days ago, what happened was they put a stop work order on all U.S. foreign assistance. And that impacted about $60 billion of assistance.
Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I think we've seen now in the last three days that it really is an attempt to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID. What is really important about this versus just like a pause on assistance is they didn't just stop new money from going out the door. The thing that's like really scary to me is the guy who is in charge of holding together the humanitarian portion of the
Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
ceasefire with Israel and Gaza, he cannot access his email or computer. He's the one who's supposed to be like actually making sure the humanitarian portion of that is working and he can't get into his email. The woman who is running the humanitarian response in Sudan, where we just declared a genocide, she can't access her email or get into her systems.
Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
to try and move money, to try and move commodities so that we actually can support the people who are now without any international support. These are all people that I know. I spent the first seven months of the first Trump administration at the Trump White House as Trump's senior Africa person. And I saw firsthand that things were rarely what they said they were.
Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And that is why I feel so panicked about what they're saying versus what is happening. I think this is a test to see, is Congress actually going to stand up for their right and for something that the Constitution protects? USAID is a really safe organization to test this with. It is difficult to explain to the average American why spending $60 billion overseas makes sense.
Pod Save America
Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It's not like the people in Wisconsin are concerned about what is happening necessarily in Somaliland or in Eswatini. Like, they're thinking about Wisconsin.