February 18, 2025 • 22 mins
Angela Rye unpacks the real world effects of the federal funding freeze and the ending of many government contracts. We’ll hear from two Americans directly affected who used to work to provide services at home and abroad.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Hello everybody,
Welcome home, y'all. This is Angela Raie with Native Lamppod.
Every Tuesday, I do a solo podcast, and that is
(00:20):
what we're doing today.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I wish I were coming to you on better terms,
but as you all know, there is so so much
going on throughout the world and of course on these
shores of these United States, and so what we're talking
about today is I know many of you all were
recalled just a few weeks ago we talked about the
federal funding freeze. We know that there was a temporary
(00:42):
pause of agency grants, loans and other financial assistance programs,
as issued in a January twenty seventh memo from OMB
from the acting director at the time. Since then, the
man who wrote the OMB portion of the memo in
Project twenty five has been sworn in. His name is
Russell Balt. He is now the director of O and
(01:05):
B and he has not stopped on these temporary pausings
of grants, loans and federal funds, including firing and laying
off federal workers who work every single day with our
taxpayer dollars right to make life much easier for us
here on these shores and those abroad. And so I
(01:26):
wanted to just dive into the many ways in which
folks have been hurt so far. You guys, we are
twenty eight days into this administration and it feels like
a month of Sundays. It feels like it is a
NonStop flow of trauma, of tragedy, and we are still
looking for the triumph, but we're gonna hold on to hope.
(01:47):
So today we're gonna talk to three people who are
either government employees, have been funded through government by contracts,
or from grants. And I want you all to hear
these very human stories so that you understand what is
at stake. I think what we have gotten accustomed to
(02:07):
is hearing stories on the gram, seeing people do an
instructional on TikTok, and we divorce ourselves from the empathy
and the compassion needed as humans to really ensure policy change.
So today I want you to hear from folks who
are directly impacted. First, I'm going to bring into this
conversation Miss User, who is in the DMV area. She
(02:30):
is the former Operations Assistant at International Organization for Migration
under the United States Refugee Admissions Program also known as
us RAP, which is an inter agency entity that was
supported by HHS, State and so many others in its
work with United Nations. So we're going to bring in
(02:51):
misuser first and let's have this conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Thank you so much for being here. I am so
sorry about what you've ex experience. I want our listeners
and the folks who are tuned into YouTube today just
to hear from you about what your experience was. When
did you learn of the funding for your program being cut?
How many people were impacted, and how are you feeling now.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I think I actually kind of knew when Trump got
elected that there was a possibility that my program was
going to be downsized, But I don't think any of
us imagined for him to completely cut it. I think
we all knew downsizing was coming across all US funding
because that is what happened last time, but we none
of us expected him to come in and just stop
(03:38):
the funding. So and I think it makes it worse
because it's like he's not stopping the funding for my program,
only he just he paused, everything humanitarian world is in
shambles right now. The only way to find a job
is for me to switch careers. And I think for
me that's really challenging because it's like, I don't do
this for the money. I love the work I do.
(03:59):
I love working with people. I love working with the refugees.
So to have this person come in and just take
it away. I've spent so long just trying to get
into this field and getting into the federal workforce or
international development or humanitan world. It's already hard as it is,
so for somebody to make it in, especially somebody like
(04:19):
me who's like Muslim, black and I'm a woman, it's
just it's like really saddening, and I'm also really angry
at the same time because I feel like it's just
been taken away from under me.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And can you take a step back and talk a
little bit about you said it was hard for you
to break into this work. Give us an example of
your day to day or one of the highlights from
the type of work you were doing before the funding
stream was cut off by the Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I think just working with the refugees and also my colleagues,
the office that I work in is very, very diverse,
which I love. So usually, like in other spaces that
I've worked in, I'm usually either the only black girl,
usually the only Muslim, or sometimes even the only girl.
So this was the one place where I felt like
all parts of me were accepted. And it's like I
(05:07):
work with people who enjoy the work they're doing. I'm
meeting new people every day. But also I think hearing
these refugee stories kind of helps me connect. I love
connecting with me and it helps me connect with them
because my parents immigrated here, so it's like I understand
the challenges of coming to a new world and having
to relearn everything and like being torn away from your family.
(05:28):
And I think having this funding taken away, I think
it breaks my heart because it's like these families are
now being torn apart, and it's just like we can't
do anything. We're not allowed to like answer the phones,
we can't answer emails. And at the same time as
I'm worrying for these refugees, I have to worry about
finding a job right and it's like I think I
(05:48):
struggle every day because it's like the workforce right.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Now is terrible, so it's on a snap just for
a moment. You're talking about receiving emails that you're not
able to respond to. Can you give us an example
of something that's come up where it's breaking your heart
to not be able to respond to the need of
a refugee family.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
I think getting calls on the hotline. For the first
couple of days, we were receiving calls on the hot line.
And we do work with multiple agencies, and one of
the agencies, a lot of the agentries we work with,
our resettlement agencies, and the people that we work with,
they're all they were all fired within they order. When
in Friday Monday all of them are gone.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
How many so.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
There we work with about seven agencies and they think
about one thousand to two thousand people got fired there.
That was Monday. And I think I started to worry
because I'm like, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get cut.
It's just a matter of time of win. And you know,
I knew cuts were gonna come, but I didn't expect
all of us to get cut. Yeah, my company alone
(06:51):
fired three thousand people and we don't get we don't
really get severance. A lot of us don't get severance,
and because we work for the international organization, we all
so don'tet unemployment. So it's like once we got let go,
money stopped coming in, and obviously you need money to survive.
And it's already hard enough to see. And I think
(07:12):
every day I'm walking into apply for jobs, I'm also
seeing people say I got for a load, I got
let go, And it's so challenging because the workforce is
already terrible. So now I'm going against not only the
people who've let go under US RAP, but the people
who let go of USAID, Department of Education, people, government
workers who were on probation. And I think it just
really breaks my heart because it's like I'm questioning where
(07:35):
are our leaders? Because I see everybody coming together, all
of us are coming together, we're trying to help each other,
But where are.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Leaders When you're saying where are your leaders? What are
you asking leadership to do? And where are you looking
for leadership in this moment.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
To step up to do something?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
But who I called? Who are who do you want
to do that?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Like?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Who are the people that Congress? Congress? Congress?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
They need to step it up because this isn't just
affect us in the US, this affects people globally. The
companies that we work with have people all over there
in the world. So these people are being let go
all around the world. And as an American, I think
a part of me feels guilty because eventually I will
find a job and I will be okay. But that's
not the same thing for other people who might live
(08:19):
in Ghana or Sudan or Palestine or anywhere around the world.
And it's like these fundings they do save people's lives.
They provide medicine for people, they give educate access to education.
And I'm a big education advocate because I know I
wouldn't be here without my education, and so I think
it's really heartbreaking to see these people struggling and not
(08:42):
having access to their medicine. A lot of them potentially
could die. And I just feel like Congress is not
doing enough. They're not standing up, They're not doing anything,
and I just don't understand why.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, I thank you so much for your time and
for your story. I agree with you. We do need
Congress to step it up, but we also need to
make sure that we got the same heat for folks
on both sides of the aisle. The Republicans are in
the majority, and they are just being a rubber stamp
for everything that Trump administration is doing. So I'm hopeful
(09:15):
that there will be change and that somebody in the
Trump administration will comply with the corridor. But thank you
so much, mister, use your fair time, thank you for
having me, making me absolutely I want you all to
(09:35):
hear some of these stories some of us are reading
about different people, how they're being impacted, their families, who
they're responsible for financially, the kinds of work they did
within the federal government. We have our tentacles, the American people.
The American government has its tentacles in so many different
spaces across the globe. And I don't even really, I
(09:59):
don't know if we realize yet just how impactful these cuts,
these funding freezes really are. And so I want to
bring another person in who is a government contractor. His
name is Justin Rogers.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
He is.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
A former project associate with RTI International, and that work
they were doing fell within USA. I D and you
all have mostly probably heard about everything that was happening
at us AID and how expansive those cuts have been.
The lives that have been already lost in this short
time frame from cutting off the fundings figot, you know,
(10:37):
in places like the Philippines and others. So we're going
to bring in Justin now to talk about his story. Hi, Justin,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Haianzel? Good?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Thank you so much for being here. I know that
it takes courage. We're asking you all to step forward
and talk about what is happening in your world. When
did you learn about your fund's being cut off? And
what is the impact at your company and for you personally.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So our work started being impacted day one, honestly, January,
Martin Luther King day in the day after that, we
started receiving stock work orders, we started receiving notice that
we were not going to be able to pay certain
costs from a subcontractor. And then recently a few days ago,
(11:27):
I got a termination notice on one of my projects.
And so on Friday, we've been having these ongoing leadership
meetings in our leadership at first said we might reduce
hours that staff work, some of you will be for
load and come back. They were just looking at all
kinds of different options, and so on Friday, I received
the news that I was one of the three hundred
(11:47):
people for my department to be for load.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Were you surprised that you were for load?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I wasn't surprised at all. I had seen it coming
and hearing. I think what surprised me the most how
faster king and when they said this was going to
be an aggressive one hundred days. It has been a
month of Sundays already and it hasn't been one hundred days.
So I can only imagine what they might be getting
to by day one hundred and what law or book
(12:19):
they're back there unraveling. I was very surprised that how
fast it came. I think it moved very quick. I
didn't expect it to come this quick. I thought to myself, Okay,
you have a good two maybe three months before things
start working its way through the judiciary system. But Trump
Trump worked fast and his administration they worked very quick.
(12:40):
But I was not surprised that my work was going
to come to it. And I felt like with Project
twenty twenty five being out there and the rhetoric that's
been out there about international development in the field I
work in, I saw shifts coming. And I know Republicans
are very big on localization, which is problematic in and
of its off because you can't have local organizations competing
(13:04):
when they don't even have the resources to compete. So again,
I definitely do see this trend coming.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
When you describe the work that you were doing, how
would you describe it? What was the nature of the
work you all did with USAID?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
The nature of the work was very It was very
much business like. So although I worked for a nonprofit,
USAID was our client and they were paying us to
go implement a project, So we had to abide by
their regulations, their stipulations, and we had different types of
contracts that we would work with them. Certain things on
a project we could build USA for, we couldn't build
(13:42):
them for. I will say we had a very decent
relationship to company with a client. We had a good
relationship because we we get tons of USA funded projects
via our organization versus other competitors.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But when you think about the type of work that
you were doing, if you were to describe your impact
at your organization, what is the nature of the work, like,
what do you all do for USAID or did you
do for USAID?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Okay, right, so we do the whole vertical of what
it takes to implement a project. So I worked closely
in the operations and logistics. I worked on procurement, and
so if we were looking for a new subcontractors to
carry out capacity building or dissemination or stakeholder engagement in
a certain country, we would go with a local partner.
(14:30):
We go through the procurement process, we on board them,
and then they would kind of carry out some of
that work and they'd check in with the technical team
and country. And so our team was split. I worked
on the home office side in a project management unit,
and then you have the technical side who worked in
the field or in the country in these projects. And
so people who worked on the technical side more so
(14:51):
had more expertise. But I think to answer your question,
I felt very wholesome, and I would say everyone that
we did we put to other large scale projects.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
We changed curriculums, suggestin what I'm trying to do here,
and I know is hard. I can tell like I
love this conversation with you because I can tell your
very logistics focus. There are people at home that one
don't know what USAID does and two when you're talking
about technical assistance and stakeholder engagement. What does that look
(15:23):
like for you know, a project surrounding HIV AIDS in
South Africa, or like, what are the types of projects
that you all were working on. One thing that I
hear that is really significant about what you said kind
of shifting shifting through a little bit is you all
would find local businesses that could do the work for
(15:44):
you all on the ground, and that's ensuring that you're
supporting economic development in certain regions. But give me an
example of something that is going to be hit really
hard because you all are no longer funded and able
to see a project through to fruition. Like, what is
an example of one of those projects.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So there's a project in Senegal that I actually worked
closely on and it was an international education and we
worked in health, international education, we worked in governance, we
helped girls, we helped the disabled, We did every sort
of scope of work here. And so with this project
in Senegal, we were working with the ministry and we
were working on bringing bilinguisms, so French and then whichever
(16:26):
was the most locally spoken second spoken language in Senegal,
and those were going to be the leading languages in curriculum.
And we were piloting in five regions at first in Senegal,
and we were going to expand to the whole country,
and so we were working with organizations site the Gates
Foundation to change this curriculum. We're working with teachers on
the ground, principles ministers, and we're working with the education department.
(16:51):
So it was this holistic development of not just coming
in and building the water pipe, but actually telling people,
you know, this is where you get the this is
how you form the plastic, this is how you drove
for the water, and really helping people foster community amongst
one another.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I love that. I think it's so important and I
was asking you even when we before we started today.
There are certain things when we work in environments where
we're in the weeds on it, and we do it
all the time on the podcast. For throwing out acronyms,
I say today OPM or omb and people don't know
what that is, and so we have to bring them
into our world so they understand this. You know, the
(17:28):
far reaching impact of and the devastation that will come
because of these cuts. So justin I'm so grateful for
your time. I hope that you will continue to spread
the word on this and that you find philanthropic entities
like you talked about the Gates Foundation that will continue
this work because it is so important. We just you know,
(17:48):
we're up against an entity and administration that talks about
America first, but they don't understand what it means to
be a global partner and a global citizen. So if
you would for a minute, what would you say to
folks who may be in the comments and say, hey,
I don't care about this stuff about anybody's clean water overseas.
We don't even have clean water here. What do you
(18:10):
say to them?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I studied this in school, and so immediately I'll say
realism as a realist, cool, you don't care about it
as an American? The Chinese do, the Russians do, our
competitors do. So then what then America is not this
leading military superpower that it paints itself to be and
that it wants to be. So, I mean, we don't
(18:35):
have clean water in Michigan. They still have that issue
up there, and so I hear people's problems with that.
But I think when you set up a hegemony and
you set up a national state like America, you have
to sort of be involved just like you said, you
got to have a little tentacles everywhere because everything comes
back to you, and you are sad to say, controlling
(18:58):
that master role. And again if America does not control it.
Just like I read an article or they were contemplating
if America was going to leave the World Bank, America
left the World Bank, China was just coming by their shares.
And so now you have kind of China moving onto
the global stage. And I don't think that's what America wants.
So I think a lot of these things will be reevaluated.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I really appreciate your time justin thank you so much
for being here. Thank you, thank you. Wow. So again,
I think it is so important. Initially I really wanted
you all to hear from folks who only work for
the FEDS. But I think what is so significant about
what we've heard so far is that this has this
(19:42):
broad sweeping impact. It has this broad sweeping impact. If
you work for the FEDS, work for a contractor that
has federal grants, you work for a small business that
has a small business loan, you work for an intergovernmental
agency on the state, local level, you are impacted by this.
(20:03):
So I think one of the things that we can
note is that sometimes changes happen and we are hit
regardless of who's in charge. We know that programs are eliminated,
they're cut, they're revamped, they're redone. But I think that
the way that the Donald Trump administration, Elon Musk administration,
(20:23):
the Department of Government Efficiency has moved is with reckless
abandon without doing any real due diligence, and it's causing
so much more harm than good. And so I think
it is important for us to take note of the
number of people who have been impacted by these cuts.
I am hopeful that we will continue to press on
(20:46):
to fight. As we heard from Misuser earlier, Congress, we're
calling on you, right. We need to be calling our
members of Congress at two zero two two two four
three one two one. Let them know how a program
being cut impacts you. Let let them know that you've
lost your job. Go onto these different committee websites, whether
it's financial services or education, or the budget or appropriations
(21:09):
or Government Oversight and government Reform, all of these different
sites to the judiciary, complain, send in your whistleblow or complaint,
and let folks know how you've been impacted and how
they must help you. That is our most reasonable service.
So I don't know if we have any questions today,
but if not, we will go ahead and in early
(21:31):
and we're going to keep this going. We want to
keep these conversations moving. We want to hear from folks
who have been impacted directly or indirectly by the federal
funding freeze, by these layoffs, by the mass firings and
the force resignation. So thank you all so very much
for your time. I am going to tell you, as
we always do on our main show that drops every
(21:51):
Thursday on YouTube and on iHeart wherever you get your podcasts,
Welcome home, y'all. I'll see you soon. Native Lampard is
(22:14):
a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Hello everybody,
Welcome home, y'all. This is Angela Raie with Native Lamppod.
Every Tuesday, I do a solo podcast, and that is
(00:20):
what we're doing today.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I wish I were coming to you on better terms,
but as you all know, there is so so much
going on throughout the world and of course on these
shores of these United States, and so what we're talking
about today is I know many of you all were
recalled just a few weeks ago we talked about the
federal funding freeze. We know that there was a temporary
(00:42):
pause of agency grants, loans and other financial assistance programs,
as issued in a January twenty seventh memo from OMB
from the acting director at the time. Since then, the
man who wrote the OMB portion of the memo in
Project twenty five has been sworn in. His name is
Russell Balt. He is now the director of O and
(01:05):
B and he has not stopped on these temporary pausings
of grants, loans and federal funds, including firing and laying
off federal workers who work every single day with our
taxpayer dollars right to make life much easier for us
here on these shores and those abroad. And so I
(01:26):
wanted to just dive into the many ways in which
folks have been hurt so far. You guys, we are
twenty eight days into this administration and it feels like
a month of Sundays. It feels like it is a
NonStop flow of trauma, of tragedy, and we are still
looking for the triumph, but we're gonna hold on to hope.
(01:47):
So today we're gonna talk to three people who are
either government employees, have been funded through government by contracts,
or from grants. And I want you all to hear
these very human stories so that you understand what is
at stake. I think what we have gotten accustomed to
(02:07):
is hearing stories on the gram, seeing people do an
instructional on TikTok, and we divorce ourselves from the empathy
and the compassion needed as humans to really ensure policy change.
So today I want you to hear from folks who
are directly impacted. First, I'm going to bring into this
conversation Miss User, who is in the DMV area. She
(02:30):
is the former Operations Assistant at International Organization for Migration
under the United States Refugee Admissions Program also known as
us RAP, which is an inter agency entity that was
supported by HHS, State and so many others in its
work with United Nations. So we're going to bring in
(02:51):
misuser first and let's have this conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Thank you so much for being here. I am so
sorry about what you've ex experience. I want our listeners
and the folks who are tuned into YouTube today just
to hear from you about what your experience was. When
did you learn of the funding for your program being cut?
How many people were impacted, and how are you feeling now.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I think I actually kind of knew when Trump got
elected that there was a possibility that my program was
going to be downsized, But I don't think any of
us imagined for him to completely cut it. I think
we all knew downsizing was coming across all US funding
because that is what happened last time, but we none
of us expected him to come in and just stop
(03:38):
the funding. So and I think it makes it worse
because it's like he's not stopping the funding for my program,
only he just he paused, everything humanitarian world is in
shambles right now. The only way to find a job
is for me to switch careers. And I think for
me that's really challenging because it's like, I don't do
this for the money. I love the work I do.
(03:59):
I love working with people. I love working with the refugees.
So to have this person come in and just take
it away. I've spent so long just trying to get
into this field and getting into the federal workforce or
international development or humanitan world. It's already hard as it is,
so for somebody to make it in, especially somebody like
(04:19):
me who's like Muslim, black and I'm a woman, it's
just it's like really saddening, and I'm also really angry
at the same time because I feel like it's just
been taken away from under me.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And can you take a step back and talk a
little bit about you said it was hard for you
to break into this work. Give us an example of
your day to day or one of the highlights from
the type of work you were doing before the funding
stream was cut off by the Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I think just working with the refugees and also my colleagues,
the office that I work in is very, very diverse,
which I love. So usually, like in other spaces that
I've worked in, I'm usually either the only black girl,
usually the only Muslim, or sometimes even the only girl.
So this was the one place where I felt like
all parts of me were accepted. And it's like I
(05:07):
work with people who enjoy the work they're doing. I'm
meeting new people every day. But also I think hearing
these refugee stories kind of helps me connect. I love
connecting with me and it helps me connect with them
because my parents immigrated here, so it's like I understand
the challenges of coming to a new world and having
to relearn everything and like being torn away from your family.
(05:28):
And I think having this funding taken away, I think
it breaks my heart because it's like these families are
now being torn apart, and it's just like we can't
do anything. We're not allowed to like answer the phones,
we can't answer emails. And at the same time as
I'm worrying for these refugees, I have to worry about
finding a job right and it's like I think I
(05:48):
struggle every day because it's like the workforce right.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Now is terrible, so it's on a snap just for
a moment. You're talking about receiving emails that you're not
able to respond to. Can you give us an example
of something that's come up where it's breaking your heart
to not be able to respond to the need of
a refugee family.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
I think getting calls on the hotline. For the first
couple of days, we were receiving calls on the hot line.
And we do work with multiple agencies, and one of
the agencies, a lot of the agentries we work with,
our resettlement agencies, and the people that we work with,
they're all they were all fired within they order. When
in Friday Monday all of them are gone.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
How many so.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
There we work with about seven agencies and they think
about one thousand to two thousand people got fired there.
That was Monday. And I think I started to worry
because I'm like, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get cut.
It's just a matter of time of win. And you know,
I knew cuts were gonna come, but I didn't expect
all of us to get cut. Yeah, my company alone
(06:51):
fired three thousand people and we don't get we don't
really get severance. A lot of us don't get severance,
and because we work for the international organization, we all
so don'tet unemployment. So it's like once we got let go,
money stopped coming in, and obviously you need money to survive.
And it's already hard enough to see. And I think
(07:12):
every day I'm walking into apply for jobs, I'm also
seeing people say I got for a load, I got
let go, And it's so challenging because the workforce is
already terrible. So now I'm going against not only the
people who've let go under US RAP, but the people
who let go of USAID, Department of Education, people, government
workers who were on probation. And I think it just
really breaks my heart because it's like I'm questioning where
(07:35):
are our leaders? Because I see everybody coming together, all
of us are coming together, we're trying to help each other,
But where are.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Leaders When you're saying where are your leaders? What are
you asking leadership to do? And where are you looking
for leadership in this moment.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
To step up to do something?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
But who I called? Who are who do you want
to do that?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Like?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Who are the people that Congress? Congress? Congress?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
They need to step it up because this isn't just
affect us in the US, this affects people globally. The
companies that we work with have people all over there
in the world. So these people are being let go
all around the world. And as an American, I think
a part of me feels guilty because eventually I will
find a job and I will be okay. But that's
not the same thing for other people who might live
(08:19):
in Ghana or Sudan or Palestine or anywhere around the world.
And it's like these fundings they do save people's lives.
They provide medicine for people, they give educate access to education.
And I'm a big education advocate because I know I
wouldn't be here without my education, and so I think
it's really heartbreaking to see these people struggling and not
(08:42):
having access to their medicine. A lot of them potentially
could die. And I just feel like Congress is not
doing enough. They're not standing up, They're not doing anything,
and I just don't understand why.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, I thank you so much for your time and
for your story. I agree with you. We do need
Congress to step it up, but we also need to
make sure that we got the same heat for folks
on both sides of the aisle. The Republicans are in
the majority, and they are just being a rubber stamp
for everything that Trump administration is doing. So I'm hopeful
(09:15):
that there will be change and that somebody in the
Trump administration will comply with the corridor. But thank you
so much, mister, use your fair time, thank you for
having me, making me absolutely I want you all to
(09:35):
hear some of these stories some of us are reading
about different people, how they're being impacted, their families, who
they're responsible for financially, the kinds of work they did
within the federal government. We have our tentacles, the American people.
The American government has its tentacles in so many different
spaces across the globe. And I don't even really, I
(09:59):
don't know if we realize yet just how impactful these cuts,
these funding freezes really are. And so I want to
bring another person in who is a government contractor. His
name is Justin Rogers.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
He is.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
A former project associate with RTI International, and that work
they were doing fell within USA. I D and you
all have mostly probably heard about everything that was happening
at us AID and how expansive those cuts have been.
The lives that have been already lost in this short
time frame from cutting off the fundings figot, you know,
(10:37):
in places like the Philippines and others. So we're going
to bring in Justin now to talk about his story. Hi, Justin,
how are you?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Haianzel? Good?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Well?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Thank you so much for being here. I know that
it takes courage. We're asking you all to step forward
and talk about what is happening in your world. When
did you learn about your fund's being cut off? And
what is the impact at your company and for you personally.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So our work started being impacted day one, honestly, January,
Martin Luther King day in the day after that, we
started receiving stock work orders, we started receiving notice that
we were not going to be able to pay certain
costs from a subcontractor. And then recently a few days ago,
(11:27):
I got a termination notice on one of my projects.
And so on Friday, we've been having these ongoing leadership
meetings in our leadership at first said we might reduce
hours that staff work, some of you will be for
load and come back. They were just looking at all
kinds of different options, and so on Friday, I received
the news that I was one of the three hundred
(11:47):
people for my department to be for load.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Were you surprised that you were for load?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I wasn't surprised at all. I had seen it coming
and hearing. I think what surprised me the most how
faster king and when they said this was going to
be an aggressive one hundred days. It has been a
month of Sundays already and it hasn't been one hundred days.
So I can only imagine what they might be getting
to by day one hundred and what law or book
(12:19):
they're back there unraveling. I was very surprised that how
fast it came. I think it moved very quick. I
didn't expect it to come this quick. I thought to myself, Okay,
you have a good two maybe three months before things
start working its way through the judiciary system. But Trump
Trump worked fast and his administration they worked very quick.
(12:40):
But I was not surprised that my work was going
to come to it. And I felt like with Project
twenty twenty five being out there and the rhetoric that's
been out there about international development in the field I
work in, I saw shifts coming. And I know Republicans
are very big on localization, which is problematic in and
of its off because you can't have local organizations competing
(13:04):
when they don't even have the resources to compete. So again,
I definitely do see this trend coming.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
When you describe the work that you were doing, how
would you describe it? What was the nature of the
work you all did with USAID?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
The nature of the work was very It was very
much business like. So although I worked for a nonprofit,
USAID was our client and they were paying us to
go implement a project, So we had to abide by
their regulations, their stipulations, and we had different types of
contracts that we would work with them. Certain things on
a project we could build USA for, we couldn't build
(13:42):
them for. I will say we had a very decent
relationship to company with a client. We had a good
relationship because we we get tons of USA funded projects
via our organization versus other competitors.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But when you think about the type of work that
you were doing, if you were to describe your impact
at your organization, what is the nature of the work, like,
what do you all do for USAID or did you
do for USAID?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Okay, right, so we do the whole vertical of what
it takes to implement a project. So I worked closely
in the operations and logistics. I worked on procurement, and
so if we were looking for a new subcontractors to
carry out capacity building or dissemination or stakeholder engagement in
a certain country, we would go with a local partner.
(14:30):
We go through the procurement process, we on board them,
and then they would kind of carry out some of
that work and they'd check in with the technical team
and country. And so our team was split. I worked
on the home office side in a project management unit,
and then you have the technical side who worked in
the field or in the country in these projects. And
so people who worked on the technical side more so
(14:51):
had more expertise. But I think to answer your question,
I felt very wholesome, and I would say everyone that
we did we put to other large scale projects.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
We changed curriculums, suggestin what I'm trying to do here,
and I know is hard. I can tell like I
love this conversation with you because I can tell your
very logistics focus. There are people at home that one
don't know what USAID does and two when you're talking
about technical assistance and stakeholder engagement. What does that look
(15:23):
like for you know, a project surrounding HIV AIDS in
South Africa, or like, what are the types of projects
that you all were working on. One thing that I
hear that is really significant about what you said kind
of shifting shifting through a little bit is you all
would find local businesses that could do the work for
(15:44):
you all on the ground, and that's ensuring that you're
supporting economic development in certain regions. But give me an
example of something that is going to be hit really
hard because you all are no longer funded and able
to see a project through to fruition. Like, what is
an example of one of those projects.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So there's a project in Senegal that I actually worked
closely on and it was an international education and we
worked in health, international education, we worked in governance, we
helped girls, we helped the disabled, We did every sort
of scope of work here. And so with this project
in Senegal, we were working with the ministry and we
were working on bringing bilinguisms, so French and then whichever
(16:26):
was the most locally spoken second spoken language in Senegal,
and those were going to be the leading languages in curriculum.
And we were piloting in five regions at first in Senegal,
and we were going to expand to the whole country,
and so we were working with organizations site the Gates
Foundation to change this curriculum. We're working with teachers on
the ground, principles ministers, and we're working with the education department.
(16:51):
So it was this holistic development of not just coming
in and building the water pipe, but actually telling people,
you know, this is where you get the this is
how you form the plastic, this is how you drove
for the water, and really helping people foster community amongst
one another.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I love that. I think it's so important and I
was asking you even when we before we started today.
There are certain things when we work in environments where
we're in the weeds on it, and we do it
all the time on the podcast. For throwing out acronyms,
I say today OPM or omb and people don't know
what that is, and so we have to bring them
into our world so they understand this. You know, the
(17:28):
far reaching impact of and the devastation that will come
because of these cuts. So justin I'm so grateful for
your time. I hope that you will continue to spread
the word on this and that you find philanthropic entities
like you talked about the Gates Foundation that will continue
this work because it is so important. We just you know,
(17:48):
we're up against an entity and administration that talks about
America first, but they don't understand what it means to
be a global partner and a global citizen. So if
you would for a minute, what would you say to
folks who may be in the comments and say, hey,
I don't care about this stuff about anybody's clean water overseas.
We don't even have clean water here. What do you
(18:10):
say to them?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I studied this in school, and so immediately I'll say
realism as a realist, cool, you don't care about it
as an American? The Chinese do, the Russians do, our
competitors do. So then what then America is not this
leading military superpower that it paints itself to be and
that it wants to be. So, I mean, we don't
(18:35):
have clean water in Michigan. They still have that issue
up there, and so I hear people's problems with that.
But I think when you set up a hegemony and
you set up a national state like America, you have
to sort of be involved just like you said, you
got to have a little tentacles everywhere because everything comes
back to you, and you are sad to say, controlling
(18:58):
that master role. And again if America does not control it.
Just like I read an article or they were contemplating
if America was going to leave the World Bank, America
left the World Bank, China was just coming by their shares.
And so now you have kind of China moving onto
the global stage. And I don't think that's what America wants.
So I think a lot of these things will be reevaluated.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I really appreciate your time justin thank you so much
for being here. Thank you, thank you. Wow. So again,
I think it is so important. Initially I really wanted
you all to hear from folks who only work for
the FEDS. But I think what is so significant about
what we've heard so far is that this has this
(19:42):
broad sweeping impact. It has this broad sweeping impact. If
you work for the FEDS, work for a contractor that
has federal grants, you work for a small business that
has a small business loan, you work for an intergovernmental
agency on the state, local level, you are impacted by this.
(20:03):
So I think one of the things that we can
note is that sometimes changes happen and we are hit
regardless of who's in charge. We know that programs are eliminated,
they're cut, they're revamped, they're redone. But I think that
the way that the Donald Trump administration, Elon Musk administration,
(20:23):
the Department of Government Efficiency has moved is with reckless
abandon without doing any real due diligence, and it's causing
so much more harm than good. And so I think
it is important for us to take note of the
number of people who have been impacted by these cuts.
I am hopeful that we will continue to press on
(20:46):
to fight. As we heard from Misuser earlier, Congress, we're
calling on you, right. We need to be calling our
members of Congress at two zero two two two four
three one two one. Let them know how a program
being cut impacts you. Let let them know that you've
lost your job. Go onto these different committee websites, whether
it's financial services or education, or the budget or appropriations
(21:09):
or Government Oversight and government Reform, all of these different
sites to the judiciary, complain, send in your whistleblow or complaint,
and let folks know how you've been impacted and how
they must help you. That is our most reasonable service.
So I don't know if we have any questions today,
but if not, we will go ahead and in early
(21:31):
and we're going to keep this going. We want to
keep these conversations moving. We want to hear from folks
who have been impacted directly or indirectly by the federal
funding freeze, by these layoffs, by the mass firings and
the force resignation. So thank you all so very much
for your time. I am going to tell you, as
we always do on our main show that drops every
(21:51):
Thursday on YouTube and on iHeart wherever you get your podcasts,
Welcome home, y'all. I'll see you soon. Native Lampard is
(22:14):
a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Tiffany Cross
Andrew Gillum
Angela Rye
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