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‘Sociopathic’: USAID Worker Sues Alleging State Dept. Medevac Refusal for Pregnant Wife
In a damning affidavit filled with harrowing details, a USAID career foreign service officer alleges that the Trump administration’s “rushed, haphazard, and cruel” effort to shut down the agency has placed their pregnant wife and unborn child in grave danger. Among the many risks cited, the officer claims the administration denied medically necessary medevac services, leaving them stranded in a country plagued by “routine political upheaval” and an “ongoing ethnic and religious insurgency.”
Since the Trump administration ordered what amounts to a possibly unlawful shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the employee, an overseas technical office deputy director, says “each day has brought a new constellation of suffering.”
“My wife is 31 weeks pregnant, after years of infertility and $50,000 of personal investment in countless fertility treatments across multiple tours, spanning three continents,” the USAID employee, identified only as “Terry Doe,” writes in the affidavit, part of a lawsuit by the American Foreign Service Association. AFSA says it is “challenging the unprecedented effort to dismantle” USAID.
“We have been overjoyed with this pregnancy but that joy has turned to turmoil, sadness, and dread. Because of the stress and strain of the constant onslaught by my employer in recent weeks, my wife has repeatedly been in the hospital with a life-threatening condition and stress-related complications,” the affidavit reads. “Because of these medical complications, she was told she needed to immediately evacuate because of a high risk of hemorrhage, which would be life-threatening to both my wife and our baby.”
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They say the “request for medical evacuation was denied twice by the State Department [in] Washington,” and were told that “there is no USAID funding for medevacs.” They charge, “this administration cruelly has taken the position that our lives are acceptable collateral damage for their political gain.”
In a particularly damning indictment, they write: “I later learned that there was a verbal directive from State Department Washington leadership to Regional Medical Officers and the Medical Evacuations Team to cease all USAID medical evacuations, hospitalization support, and guarantees of payment for urgent medical services.”
They do not identify who “State Department Washington leadership” is.
“Prior to this Administration, each of these services was provided to all Foreign Service Officers and their Eligible Family Members, in no small part because we serve in remote, austere, and unstable countries throughout the globe.”
And while they finally were able to get medevac approval thanks to intervention from an unnamed U.S. Senator, it was too late: “before my wife could be medically evacuated, on February 8th, my wife began hemorrhaging and had to be admitted to the hospital at our overseas post.”
It is no longer medically safe for her to get on a plane, they say, “even for a very short flight to better regional care and the three successive flights necessary to travel back to the US was simply a nonstarter.”
“Now I’m afraid for her and my baby’s health because of this rushed, haphazard and cruel push to shut down the agency. This didn’t have to happen. I don’t know how to explain to our daughter, who is living through all of this with me and my wife, that our own government is doing this to us,” they say.
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They also allege that there “has been constant uncertainty, constant changing directives, a full and abject failure to follow any of our pre-established processes and procedures,” they say, while also alleging some of the directives they have been given “often times may be illegal.”
“Jokes from administration political staff about us being federal flotsam continue,” they also write.
Politico’s Kyle Cheney, who posted screenshots and a link to the affidavit, calls it, “Another medical horror story in a court affidavit from a USAID employee stationed overseas.” He adds: “The employee, identified only as Terry Doe, says he’s been in touch with 25 other pregnant foreign service officers who are fearful their care will be cut off if the agency closes down completely on March 8.”
Others also responded.
“Read this story,” urged professor of law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. “This isn’t pro-life. This is treating federal employees-people in government service like the enemy instead of the heroes they are. The people who villainized Hillary when one of our embassies was overrun are now victimizing our own people.”
U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) called it, “Absolutely horrifying from a ‘pro-life’ administration.”
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes, “Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been brutalizing the families of American citizens working abroad for USAID, sometimes in dangerous and remote places. So remember that the Musk assault on USAID isn’t just killing foreigners but also threatens US citizens.”
Republican former U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Comstock blasted President Trump: “Horrifying story of what Trump’s unilateral mindless cutting off of USAID funds to families in remote areas means to one family – a serious and potentially deadly threat to the life of a pregnant mother and child. Outrageous and unconscionable.”
Democratic former U.S. Congressman Tom Malinowski, who served in the Obama administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Obama administration also weighed in.
“If you want to burn down part of the American government because all you know about it comes from crazy tweets, fine,” he wrote. “But don’t tell the Americans who signed up to serve that part of OUR government overseas that you won’t even pay to medevac them home in an emergency.”
Former USAID official Jeremy Konyndyk, now president of Refugees International, unleashed outrage at Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Elon Musk.
Secretary Rubio, Konyndyk wrote, “this is happening ON YOUR WATCH. Put a stop to this insanity already. Pete Marocco’s cruel recklessness is going to get US personnel killed.”
Marocco, according to The New York Times, is “the State Department official who took over the remains of U.S.A.I.D. and is now charged with reorienting a foreign aid mission to serve Mr. Trump’s agenda.”
“Shaking with anger after reading what Pete Marocco and Elon Musk are doing to patriotic @USAID workers who are serving their country abroad,” Konyndyk added. “Absolutely sociopathic.”
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Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
