I knew what to expect from Nicholas Enrich’s Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID because I followed news of the agency shut down in real time. Enrich details his experience immediately following President Trump’s second inauguration when contracts were canceled, staff were placed on administrative leave and then fired, and global public health programs were dismantled, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people dead, many of them children. Reading the book was in many ways an exercise in confirmation bias.

The fate of USAID was of interest because of the six years I spent on the county board of health. I found the professionals who do this kind of work take the challenges seriously. The good done by USAID in controlling tuberculosis, malaria, HIV and AIDS, Neglected Tropical Diseases, and Emerging Viral Threats like Ebola and mpox was wiped clean. Some functions transferred to the State Department, but their response can be nowhere nearly as robust.

As a government employee, Enrich maintained a way of looking at political leaders assigned to the agency that is common among long-term government employees. The idea that when the government changed political orientations, staff tried to accommodate the new regime was eclipsed by the fact that the president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DOGE leader Elon Musk, and others knew the agency’s fate in advance. I found myself telling Enrich to give it up as he tried to accommodate the political leaders. He does a good job of explaining his actions and we should be thankful to have this narrative.

What makes the book useful is the inside view of how our government operates under Republicans. There is little to be proud about in the dismantling of USAID and Enrich gives readers a factual basis to reach that conclusion. For that, it is worth reading.