WSJ’s Joel Schectman joins Ryan Knutson and Molly Ball to explore the dismantling of USAID and what it means for America’s future as a global leader. Plus, Trump's tariffs, a Gaza proposal and remaking the CIA. Further Listening: - Inside USAID as Elon Musk and DOGE Ripped It Apart - Trump’s Tariff Whiplash Further Reading: - How Trump Gutted America’s $40 Billion Aid Agency in Two Weeks - CIA Offers Buyout to Entire Workforce as Part of Trump Makeover - Democrats Have a New Leader but Haven’t Come to Grips With Failure Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What major events occurred during Trump's third week in office?
So it's the third week of Donald Trump's presidency. And again, it has been another week of what feels like nonstop news. We had tariffs. We had the dismantling of a $40 billion government agency, USAID. And we had Trump saying that the U.S. should take over Gaza.
Never a dull moment.
So what is it like being a reporter right now in Washington?
Chapter 2: What is it like to be a reporter in Washington during Trump's administration?
Well, it's very busy. A lot of people liken it to trying to drink from a fire hose. There's so much happening that it's difficult for any one person to keep track of it all.
How long do you think the Trump administration can keep up this pace?
There's a lot of speculation about that, and we don't know. On the one hand, they clearly want to make an early splash that they can then either dial back or modulate in some ways. On the other hand, they do want to take this approach to vast swaths of the government, so it could continue in this way for quite some time.
And as someone who covered the first Trump administration, that was pretty intense pretty much throughout.
All right, so there is, once again, a lot to talk about. From The Journal, this is Trump 2.0. I'm Ryan Knudson.
And I'm Molly Ball.
It's Friday, February 7th. Coming up, USAID, the CIA, tariffs, Gaza — We're going to try to turn that fire hose into a drinking fountain. Stay with us.
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Chapter 3: What is USAID and why is it being dismantled?
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All right, so let's start out today by talking about the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. This was a $40 billion agency with about 10,000 employees that basically just shut down in a matter of days. And our colleague Joel Schechtman has been writing about it. So we brought Joel in to help us understand what's going on. Hi, Joel. Hey, how's it going?
Hey, Joel. Thanks for being here.
All right. So, Joel, let's start with the very basics. What is USAID and why has the Trump administration decided to tear it apart?
You know, USAID... Its role is a little bit complicated. You know, people think of it, I think, primarily as far in terms of like aid that we're giving to other countries around the world. You know, there is a lot of that, like medical assistance or kind of training up doctors or helping with famines. And I think that that's a good part of what it does. But it's also an organization that
is intended to project American soft power, right? So a lot of what it does also is give out money to organizations that are involved in promoting democracy, for example, in other countries, and also encouraging free trade and encouraging organizations that promote the idea of free trade and access to markets. I think that when you look at it in that way,
It becomes a little bit clear why it's like so kind of like anathema to the Trump people, right? Because they really believe that, you know, power, be it soft power or hard power, that there's a bit of like a zero-sum game to it, where you use like all the leverage and power that you have as a big country in a direct effort to make even allies succumb to your will.
So at this point, most of the remaining employees at USAID are being put on administrative leave as of the end of today. The headquarters has been shuttered. Its website is down. Its ex-account no longer exists. I mean, is this agency effectively toast?
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Chapter 4: Can the Trump administration legally dismantle USAID?
Yeah, I was going to ask you about this, Malik, because, like, can the Trump administration just do this? I mean, given that this is an agency that was created by Congress, doesn't Congress need to be the one that authorizes its demise?
Well, that's the question a lot of people are asking. Yes, on paper, this is an independent agency that was created by Congress and therefore would require an act of Congress to eliminate. On the other hand, the attitude this administration has taken, as Joel has been describing, is sort of like try and stop us. And who's going to stop us? So, yes, there have been lawsuits filed.
We haven't heard much from the Republicans in Congress. Some of them have sort of tentatively suggested that maybe this is all going a little bit too far too fast. But there hasn't been action taken by Congress. And these lawsuits could take a while to get through the courts.
You know, we're going to see the administration, I think, put forward some of its more aggressive legal theories about executive power. The sort of big picture theory is this is the executive branch. The president's the head of the executive branch. It's ultimately up to the president to do what he wants to with the branch of government that he sort of embodies.
And so it might still exist as a matter of statute, but it doesn't functionally exist.
So do you think it's possible that this could be what we've seen with USAID, like a blueprint for how the Trump administration wants to approach the dismantling of other agencies that we know that they have set their sights on?
Specifically, I'm thinking of the Department of Education, which the Wall Street Journal has reported the Trump administration is already discussing how to effectively dismantle if not entirely get rid of, but severely shrink.
Yeah. And we're hearing about the potential for these kind of large-scale firings at the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency as well, other agencies are clearly in their sights. I think the other question that Joel sort of alluded to was, is there actually a constituency for these agencies, both among the public and
and among Congress that would lead to the administration getting pressure to put the brakes on, right? I mean, the government does stuff, right? It serves people all across the country. And we are already hearing from members of Congress that their phone lines are being flooded with constituents expressing some level of outrage, many of whom are directly affected by this. So that's it.
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Chapter 5: Could USAID's dismantling be a blueprint for other agencies?
You know, I think as Molly pointed out, like, once you do these things, once you break these things, no matter what happens after the fact, you kind of create the facts on the crowd, right? Because the thing is, like, it's not like these NGOs that are being supported around the world, you know, like... like in East Africa or something, are overflowing with money to begin with, right?
And so if you're able to cut off money to them for, you know, two or three months, right, while this all gets fought out, you know, most of those organizations are going to sort of go out of business, right? And those people who work there, those aid workers are going to have to find other things to do with themselves, right? And so even if you come back and
A few months later, there's some chance for them to kind of reapply in some new form to some new USAID. A lot of that ability, even to do so, even to write a proposal, to have an office, to have staff that could carry out the projects, a lot of that's going to be gone. And I think that once you break it, you can glue the pieces back together. But I think a lot of it's probably going to go away.
While you're here, Joel, I wanted to talk with you about the CIA, which is an agency you've covered closely over the years. There's a new Trump-appointed director running the agency, and this week an email went out to employees they're offering buyouts. Tell us about what the Trump administration is trying to do to the CIA right now.
I think the situation you have at CIA is very different from what we saw at USAID in terms of the intent here, right? And John Ratcliffe, the new CIA director, what he wants to see is a much harder-edge CIA, a CIA that is able to push back on China in very aggressive ways
Using covert action, kind of secret CIA missions to kind of influence events on the ground, and just much more aggressive spying.
And there's an opinion among Republicans and even some agency employees that during the Biden years and during Democratic administrations in general over the last generation, the agency had gotten like a little too soft, a little too liberal minded, and that they really need to kind of go back to like the real hard edge stuff that went on during the Cold War, the real like cloak and dagger spy craft, you know?
kind of clandestine missions where we undermine our enemies overseas. And so part of what they're trying to do with this buyout is kind of push out people and give people like a runway out, essentially, who aren't down with this new kind of like harder-edge, more aggressive CIA.
They're talking about using the CIA as a tool to maybe spy on the government of Mexico, for example, in order to give Trump a more powerful negotiating hand when they're talking about tariffs. And, you know, I think you could kind of see what they want to do as CIA is being sort of like the other side of the coin of what they did with USAID, right?
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Chapter 6: What are the implications for USAID workers and aid recipients?
Thanks, Joel.
All right, we're going to take a short break, and when we come back, Molly and I are going to talk about tariffs, Gaza, and the Democrats. So let's talk about tariffs. Trump announced late last week that he was going to impose a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico and 10% tariffs on Chinese imports.
That was supposed to go into effect on Tuesday, but then on Monday, Trump said he reached a deal with Canada and Mexico and that they would be delaying imposing those tariffs for 30 days. So, Molly, Trump obviously made tariffs a central piece of his campaign. What's your take on the way this played out?
Well, it's interesting because, you know, we talked before about how there's this school of thought that says that Trump doesn't really want to put on the tariffs. He just wants to use it as a negotiating tactic to get leverage for other parts of his agenda, some economic, some not. That seems to have pretty much played out with these Canada and Mexico tariffs specifically.
They were never imposed. The leaders of Canada and Mexico came rushing to the proverbial negotiating table to offer up various concessions, mostly related to border security. It's not clear how much they were even real concessions versus just announcements of things they were already doing, right? Like troop deployments to the border that
the Mexican and Canadian governments had already planned to do, spending for drug interdiction that they may have already been in the process of doing, things like that. So the main thing that Trump got out of this may have been a sort of PR win. But it is a 30-day extension. It's not a permanent suspension of the tariff threat. So this cycle is going to repeat itself.
We don't know how it's going to go in the next phase. And the tariff against China did go into effect. It's 10%. It's not as high as the other two countries. But that is going into effect, and there is some possibility that that could escalate as well.
Yeah, it seems like Trump was treating Canada and Mexico very differently than China. I mean, there doesn't seem to be the same degree of negotiations taking place right now. So where do you think the negotiations with China and the Chinese tariffs are headed?
Well, we could be headed for a trade war. The Chinese government has announced retaliatory measures. They're adding more tariffs on American goods, investigations into American businesses. So this is going to keep going back and forth in a tit for tat, and I don't think we know yet. where it's headed.
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