(10 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Washington – 10 February 2025
1. USAID sign outside building
2. Protesters gathered outside USAID
++PARTIALLY COVERED++
3. SOUNDBITE (English) William Whelan, Retired USAID Employee:
“I’m here because I believe in the work of USAID. I spent years in the field. I spent time in Washington on projects related to keeping people from starving, and that actually benefited American farmers and benefited the American workers who load food into railcars and send it to ports and those who actually load and unload at ports. This program helped people not only who face starvation, but it helped Americans. So, I find it hard to believe that Americans wouldn’t understand the mutual benefit of helping ourselves and helping people who face starvation.”
4. Protesters gathered outside USAID, Mieka holds protest sign
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5. SOUNDBITE (English) Mieka, Furloughed USAID Contractor:
“Of course, it affected me personally, and I’m an indefinite furlough, which is just a polite way to say that I no longer have a job. And so for myself and my family, it’s very impactful. But, you know, we, the term that gets floated and to me really speaks the most is the soft power of USAID’s work. We work by…not by forcing people to have respect for America or by telling people to have certain values, but by supporting them in the ways that they feel that they need, and in doing so, making the world a better place for all of us.”
6. Taylor Williamson and another protester hold signs
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7. SOUNDBITE (English) Taylor Williamson, Furloughed USAID Implementing partner:
“The stop work orders have prevented me from providing services around the world that help keep America safer and stronger by promoting trade partnerships, by ensuring that we are tracking and monitoring infectious diseases and making sure that they don’t come to our shores and ensuring that people around the world understand that America is filled with good, kindhearted people who understand the importance of having relationships abroad.”
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Protesters continued to gather outside the U.S. Agency for International Development on Monday, after Elon Musk and President Donald Trump made moves to dismantle the agency.
William Whelan, a retired USAID Employee, says that he worked for the agency to help starving people worldwide.
“I spent years in the field. I spent time in Washington on projects related to keeping people from starving, and that actually benefited American farmers and benefited the American workers who load food into railcars and send it to ports and those who actually load and unload at ports. This program helped people not only who face starvation, but it helped Americans,” Whelan said.
A furloughed USAID contractor named Mieka, who would not share her last name, spoke about the soft power of USAID.
“The term that gets floated and to me really speaks the most is the soft power of USAID’s work. We work by not by forcing people to have respect for America or by telling people to have certain values, but by supporting them in the ways that they feel that they need, and in doing so, making the world a better place for all of us,” Mieka said.
A federal judge on Friday dealt Trump and Musk their first big setback in their dismantling of the agency, ordering a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.
Taylor Williamson, furloughed USAID Implementing partner, says that the stop work order has put much at risk.
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