Nicholas Enrich worked for the United States Agency for International Development under four administrations and was dismissed after leaking memos detailing plans to shut it down.
He writes about the end of USAID — and his role in the response to a 2025 Ebola outbreak — in his new book, Into the Woodchipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID.
Simon & Schuster
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Simon & Schuster
In March 2025, Nicholas Enrich was the top U.S. official for global health when two major events were happening at the same time: The Trump administration was dismantling USAID, and an Ebola outbreak was spreading in Uganda.
It was Enrich's job to manage the U.S. response. He says he was stymied at every turn.
"I was told by one of the political appointees, who was the head of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, that Ebola is a scam," Enrich says.
A year later, as the worst Ebola outbreak in more than a decade spreads in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Enrich has published a timely book with a title drawn from Elon Musk's plans for the premier U.S. foreign aid agency: Into the Woodchipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID.
Simon & Schuster
It's written from the perspective of a civil servant who served at the premier U.S. foreign aid agency under four administrations –- until he was put on leave and then dismissed after leaking memos about plans to dismantle the agency.
In an interview with NPR , Enrich talked about his view of the agency and his perspective on the current Ebola outbreak in a world where USAID no longer exists.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Let's start with a controversial question. The administration gave various rationales to justify the sunsetting of USAID –- accusations of political bias, waste, fraud and abuse. Did you agree with any of their points?
Okay, I'm gonna say yes, but before I talk about them, it's important to recognize that the agency was not destroyed because it was wasteful or because it didn't work or because they wanted to realign aid with the American First priorities. It was destroyed by a bunch of people who did not understand what the agency did, who were completely uninformed and unqualified about our programs, and who were there tearing down the agency that they didn't get for the sole purpose of soothing the ego of a billionaire.
That's a very stark explanation.
One of the reasons I wrote this book was to make sure that it's very, very clear why the agency was destroyed and why it wasn't. That said, I think that there are ways that aid could have been more efficient and could have been less likely to foster dependency in ways that it had.
But you know, I also want to make the point that USAID actually was considered one of the most efficient agencies within the government [operating] on less than 1% of the federal budget. We, among many other things, saved the lives of 92 million people over the last 20 years alone, which is a staggering impact for a relatively shoestring budget. So it's not that we weren't efficient, it's just that, of course, there were ways that we could have become more so.
You were put on leave immediately after leaking the memos. Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in your final months there?
I do feel like I was quite naive. I was a civil servant for my whole career, and I was no activist or advocate. So it did not come naturally to me to stop and say: "Wait a minute. This is not an opportunity for me to figure out how to administer the policies of this administration. This is completely off the rails and is a violation of laws, of court orders, of congressional intent and it is unethical and causing destruction and harm to public safety." And I wish that I had been able to say earlier, "This is not okay and I cannot continue to work within the bounds of these walls that are collapsing around me to tr
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