Why did the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which gives money to humanitarian causes around the world and accounts for roughly half of one percent of the federal budget, end up in DOGE’s crosshairs? And is its abrupt closure legal?

Guests: Franco Ordoñez, White House Correspondent for NPR. Fred Kaplan, Slate’s war stories correspondent.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.

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