Marcy Hirsch Robinson
Appearances
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
And this in no way indicates that Musk wants to do to the Treasury Department what Doge has done with USAID and is looking to do with other agencies.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
One of the concerns with Doge being in the Treasury system is whether or not Doge will attempt to interfere with the system directly, something the Treasury Department has said won't happen. A coalition of labor unions filed a lawsuit trying to stop Doge from accessing this portal. And today, a judge signed off on a temporary agreement to limit the sharing of sensitive Treasury data.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
So what is the external reaction to Musk and Doge?
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
The following Monday, dozens of senior officials with USAID were put on leave.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Democratic lawmakers have also raised concerns that Musk's many business interests, from Tesla to SpaceX, create a conflict of interest. Trump has said if there is a conflict, he wouldn't let Musk get near it. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt added that Musk will self-determine if there is a conflict of interest with Doge.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Many of my colleagues had expressed to me that they were feeling very anxious because they understood that any moment they would receive a stop work order themselves.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
And is this a vision that is also held by the Republican Party?
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
And the next day, they did. At noon on Tuesday, January 28th, hundreds of USAID contractors were laid off.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
But along the path of carrying out Doge's mission are people like Marcy, whose work is being upended.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
I have been among those criticizing USAID in the past, right? It is a sprawling government bureaucracy. There's no question that there has been room for improvements to make the work more efficient. But obviously, this is not the process by which to make those kinds of needed changes.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
It's maddening to me that the lies that are being told about USAID are being allowed to stand by members of Congress who know better. We are a group of people who are driven to make the world a better place. We are public servants. We have given everything to do this work. And we feel just utterly abandoned in this moment.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
What do you say to other people on the federal payroll?
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
I would say that they should get themselves ready in every way that they possibly can because it's clear that the gloves are off and the regular rules of business do not apply.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is preparing an executive order that would fire thousands of workers at the Department of Health and Human Services. The order could come as soon as next week. That's all for today, Thursday, February 6th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
No one had any advance notice that this was coming. Everyone was crying. They were in shock. There was an announcement made sort of floor by floor of the office telling everyone who is an institutional support contractor that they needed to turn over their laptops and their phones. And as they followed that instruction, there was no person receiving their equipment. And so...
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Additional reporting in this episode by Rebecca Ballhouse, Annie Linsky, Joel Schechtman, and Alexander Ward. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
With a belief that one day they would be given back their phone and computer to be able to restart their work, they were putting Post-it notes with their names on the laptops and taking photos of themselves with the numbers of their computers on the bottom to be able to get back to this device.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
These contractors were sent home, and their health benefits were cut off. Later, there was an order to take down the decorative pictures and art of the agency's work from the walls of its D.C. office. Many USAID employees spent the weekend worrying. And then Monday rolls around.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
I like to say that I am a stubborn optimist. I generally believe in the good of humans, and it feels like my responsibility as a privileged American to be able to contribute to people around the world in their darkest moments.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
And the same happened to everyone with my kind of contract. Except we didn't even receive an email telling us to turn in our equipment. It's just our email, our screens just sort of went blank and we don't have access to anything any longer. How were you feeling at that time? Terrified, horrified, incredulous. It didn't seem possible that one person could do this.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
And we were grasping at any bits of information that we had about who was in charge and where these decisions were coming from.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
What Marcy and thousands of other USAID employees were experiencing... was part of a campaign promise from President Trump, a promise to profoundly reshape the federal government. And that job is being handled by a Trump ally, the world's richest person, Elon Musk, the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Thursday, February 6th. Coming up on the show, how Doge gutted a federal agency. USAID, or the United States Agency for International Development, was founded in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. Congress made it an independent agency in 1998. Its mission is to provide foreign assistance and humanitarian aid around the world.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Last year, it had a budget of about $40 billion and employed about 10,000 people. Marcy, like much of USAID's staff, was a contractor. She was team lead for gender, age, and social inclusion at the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
So basically, if we have a food distribution program that is working in Ukraine, my team's responsibility is making sure that people with disabilities, like people in wheelchairs or who have mobility constraints, for whom it is challenging to be able to pick up food and transport it back to their homes, it's our job to make sure that the food is distributed in a way that those people can still access.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
or older adults who might not be able to leave their homes, and that women and girls who are at increased risk of gender-based violence are able to access the protections that they need. Do you like your job? I am obsessed with my job. It's who I am. It's hard for me to separate me, the professional, from the rest of myself.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
But after Trump won the election, Marcy worried that her work to help women and other marginalized groups could be vulnerable to cuts.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
For the last three years, Marcy's been working for USAID, the U.S. agency that distributes foreign assistance around the world. When did you get the sense that the new administration was looking to take sort of major actions against USAID?
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
I knew that gender, diversity, equity, and inclusion were all going to become buzzwords that were going to be used in a very negative sense. Whereas the way that I use those words and the way that technical experts in
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
USAID use those words is just simply to make sure that when USAID has a food program a water program a health program that everyone who needs it can access it that women as well as men can access it that old people and young people that persons of different ethnic and religious backgrounds can all access the program that makes the work effective and cost efficient
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
For years, Trump allies have taken issue with foreign aid generally and USAID specifically. Many Republican critics have long said that USAID wastes money and promotes a liberal agenda. Marcy saw the writing on the wall. She decided to resign, and her last day was set to be later this month. But the speed at which the Trump administration acted surprised her.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
USAID's programs were quickly shut down and almost all foreign aid put on pause. Marcy says recipients of USAID funding were scrambling for answers.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Marcy Hirsch Robinson has worked as a humanitarian aid worker for more than 20 years. In that time, she's lived and worked in over 30 countries, like Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ukraine.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
I was receiving frantic messages from partners saying that they didn't understand what was happening and could I provide guidance, but we were not permitted to communicate at all externally with those partners. So I couldn't respond back to them to tell them how they should act. But they were extremely concerned because as you can imagine, the work that we do has life or death implications.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
How so? When you just shut off the valves of humanitarian assistance, imagine what is shutting off is a line of children waiting for tuberculosis vaccines. And so suddenly the entire line of children has to go home because the vaccines can't be given any longer. Imagine a hospital neonatal ward full of newborn babies that need urgent care
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
and doctors, midwives, and nurses having to walk off the jobs because they're not permitted to work any longer. Malnourished children in Sudan and in Gaza no longer being able to access the life-saving foods that can keep them from the brink of death. This was what we were faced with.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
This set off a scramble among aid agencies to seek exceptions to the stop work orders. The U.S. government has granted a few exceptions to allow emergency assistance through. Trump administration officials have said their goal is to ensure that foreign aid benefits the U.S. and American taxpayers.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
So it became startlingly obvious on Friday, January 24th. that this was not business as usual and that this transition from one administration to the next was unlike anything that any of my colleagues who've been in government for their entire careers had seen before.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
What does this feel like? It's hard to put into words how it feels because the implications of this are so vast that it's hard for me to wrap my brain fully around it. I feel... ill for my close colleagues who in this moment of losing their livelihoods were not thinking of themselves and how they will pay rent and how they will buy groceries for themselves and their families.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
They were thinking about our program beneficiaries and they were thinking about the children who need malaria treatments and were not able to do anything. We're just powerless.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
USAID workers like Marcy have been trying to figure out who to raise their concerns to and where these directives were coming from.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Prior to this past weekend, it had seemed to me that the decisions being made about USAID were coming from the political appointees working within USAID and the State Department. It wasn't until the weekend that we first learned that Elon Musk and Doge were involved in this.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
What Doge and Elon Musk are doing goes well beyond USAID. We'll get to that after the break.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
On the day he was sworn in as president, Trump signed an executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. And Elon Musk is heading up the effort.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
That's our colleague Brian Schwartz, who covers economic policy.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Doge's first target was USAID. Musk called the agency evil and a criminal organization and said it was time for it to die.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
And that's because on Friday, that was when we were told about stop work orders that had been issued affecting 100% of USAID programs. It was not made clear to us what that was or exactly how that would be implemented. We were just told that immediately all work had to stop.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Since Congress created USAID, the president and Doge can't just get rid of it. So they came up with a workaround. Instead of USAID being an independent agency, the plan is to move it under the State Department.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would work with Congress regarding USAID's future. USAID is just the beginning. Doge's mandate is broad, and Musk's team has been looking at other ways to shrink the federal government. Recently, an email was sent to some federal employees with an offer to take a buyout and resign.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
More than 40,000 federal workers have taken the offer so far, according to people familiar with the matter. Doge members have also been trying to get access to as much data about government spending as they can, including in one particularly controversial case with the Treasury Department.
The Journal.
Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart
The Treasury's payment system is one of the main financial arteries of the U.S. government. The government uses it to pay its bills, stuff like Social Security payments and tax refunds. And in it is a lot of sensitive information about people, like Social Security numbers.