THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 77 term, Enrich recounts efforts to navigate the chaos and contradictions of USAID’s new leadership. From Day One In Enrich’s telling, President Trump’s day one order to pause and reassess foreign assistance is reason for caution but not panic. But four days later, a formal “stop-work” instruction goes to every grant and contract worldwide—a death blow to the operational machinery of USAID, akin to cutting the ignition of a car speeding down the highway. A prohibition on any USAID communication with project implementers accompanies the order, leaving stricken contractors completely in the dark. Then Elon Musk tweets a barrage of unhinged attacks on USAID throughout the same Sunday that health officials learn of an Ebola outbreak in Uganda. This comes after the devastating layoffs of half of USAID’s health workforce and the placement of most senior career leaders on administrative leave, elevating Enrich without consultation or assent to the agency’s top health position. In a brief glimmer of hope, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issues guidance exempting lifesaving humanitarian assistance from the stop-work order. A machine gun spray of contract termination notices via form letter follows, including some that Enrich and his team believe were covered by the Secretary’s waiver. They warn of the lives that will be lost, the suffering that will proliferate, and the deadly diseases that will very likely arrive into the U.S. absent reactivated programming. As Enrich and his colleagues struggle for approvals to put the waiver into practice, one political appointee suggests that his busy, nonexpert bosses might grasp the potentially cataclysmic outcomes if offered “Barney-style” slides, pitched at the level of the purple dinosaur of preschool television. Rather than approve a modest payment to the World Health Organization for transport of alreadypurchased Ebola protective equipment, USAID leaders order Enrich to book a flight to Kenya to personally drive the delivery truck (he doesn’t). In a head-spinning distillation of the DOGE effort’s heedlessness, a later round of contract termination notices cuts the software operating USAID’s procurement-management database, preventing further termination notices. That decision is then hastily reversed. No such luck for lifesaving programs. The book’s conflicts are at their most consequential when DOGE and political leadership put political expedience over simple human compassion. In one passage, an echo of this tension emerges between Enrich and a fellow senior career colleague, who is arguing for engagement with the political leadership even in the face of their egregious actions. As Enrich’s colleague hews to her conviction that every career official’s duty is to implement the policy of elected leaders, build trust, and influence rather than resist, her image shifts from respected senior leader to naif who won’t acknowledge what to Enrich becomes the plain truth—namely, that DOGE and agency leadership are beyond persuasion. When this colleague proposes celebrating the birthday of one vindictive leader with cake and candles, as staff BOOKS Profiles in Carnage Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID Nicholas Enrich, S&S/Summit Books, 2026, $29.00/hardcover, e-book available, 240 pages. Reviewed by Chris Saenger Nicholas Enrich’s introduction to the impact of USAID assistance came during a semester abroad in HIV-AIDS–ravaged Kenya. Summiting Kilimanjaro the same day President George W. Bush signed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) into law, he nurtured a patriotic conviction to join U.S. health assistance efforts one day. By 2025 Enrich was living his college dream, directing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) efforts to align its multibillion-dollar health budget and strategy in support of a healthier world and a safer America. Into the Wood Chipper is Enrich’s unsparing account of the first 42 days of the assault on USAID by the erstwhile Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Those six short weeks, laden with ignorance, mistrust, and malice, were enough to effectively demolish the agency. The swift liquidation of USAID also terrified much of the rest of the administrative state and forced federal employees of all stripes to think concretely about the meaning of their oath of office. The “I was there—here’s how it happened” book is a Washington staple, and Enrich’s entry delivers both meticulous documentation and narrative propulsion. In chapters measuring the days elapsed in President Trump’s second
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