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Nicholas Enrich’s new memoir “Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID” tells the inside story of the second Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID.

Enrich worked at USAID for over a decade before he was pushed out of the agency in early 2025, when the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency summarily cut its staff and funding. His book is named after one of Musk’s social media posts from that period, when the South African billionaire wrote, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”

An estimated 14 million people are projected to die “unnecessarily” over the next five years due to DOGE’s unmitigated cuts, and nearly a million, mostly children, already have, says Enrich. Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has saved the lives of tens of millions around the world by treating and preventing serious health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, malaria and more in under-resourced countries.

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It has been three full years since a bloody civil war began between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the powerful Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group.

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A new book tells the inside story of the second Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Its author, Nicholas Enrich, worked at USAID for over a decade before he was pushed out of the agency in early 2025, when the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency summarily cut its staff and funding. An estimated 14 million people are projected to die "unnecessarily" over the next five years due to these cuts, and nearly a million, mostly children, already have, says Enrich. His new memoir, "Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID," is named after one of Musk's social media posts from that period, when the South African billionaire wrote, "We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper."

Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has saved the lives of tens of millions around the world by treating and preventing serious health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, malaria and more. By slashing the agency, the U.S. "pulled the rug out from under people around the world," says Enrich. "We broke promises to millions who were relying on USAID services, and left them hanging out to dry. We broke promises to governments and broke partnerships that will have lasting effects for years to come."

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Sudan marked four years since a bloody civil war began between its national army and the powerful Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group. The RSF revolted against the Sudanese Armed Forces after a 2021 military coup left it with diminished political power. The coup itself upended the civilian-led democratic revolution that ousted Sudan's longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Both the RSF and SAF have been accused of major war crimes since the conflict began, reportedly carrying out ethnic cleansing, systemic sexual violence and starvation tactics on the country's civilian population.

"This war is not just fought on the bodies of civilians by happenstance. It's not incidental to the fighting. It is precisely the point. This war is a war of succession between the SAF and the RSF, who want to inherit the military security state," says Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair, "and they're doing so in large part not just by fighting each other, but also by diminishing as much as possible the revolutionary fervor and the calls for civilian democratic rule in Sudan." Khair adds that the burgeoning U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, separated from Sudan by the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea, threatens to deepen the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, as supply chain disruptions make agricultural production even harder and opportunities for resource exploitation incentivize other countries to turn the conflict into even more of a "proxy war."

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The U.S. implemented a naval blockade on Iran earlier this week. Laleh Khalili, a professor of Gulf studies who researches the shipping and logistics industry and its impact on the global economy says it could lead the U.S. military to begin “firing on ships that it assumes are Iranian or carrying oil from Iran or other cargo to Iran.” Iran, in response, could “interpret this as a belligerent action,” ending the fragile ceasefire agreed to by both parties. “Iran is going to defend itself against this imperial imposition, and how it's going to do that remains to be seen.”

Meanwhile, explains Khalili, shipping disruptions in the Gulf have affected the supply chains of key resources including oil, aluminum, helium and fertilizer. "Transportation costs are going to be higher, so food prices are going to be higher; people's MRIs are going to be scheduled out by six months … semiconductor manufacturing is going to be affected," Khalili says. "The crisis is only going to get more horrific before it gets any better."

Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.

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Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.

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Maoz Inon's parents were killed in the October 7 attacks in 2023. Aziz Abu Sarah's brother died after being tortured in an Israeli prison. The two have closely worked together calling for peace in Israel and Palestine over the past two years. They just released a book titled “The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land.”

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The U.S. hosted the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in decades on Tuesday in Washington. Israel's demand that Hezbollah be disarmed is "anything but reasonable," says Daniel Levy, former Israeli peace negotiator. "What [Israel] is doing here is trying to put something that sounds reasonable on the table, but with the intention of embarrassing and humiliating the Lebanese government," which Levy says does not have the capacity to disarm Hezbollah.

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Democratic Congressmember Eric Swalwell of California and Republican Tony Gonzales of Texas resigned Tuesday. Both of them faced potential expulsion votes after they were accused of sexual misconduct involving former staffers.

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