❓WHAT HAPPENED: A group of fired United States Agency for International Development (USAID) staff is reportedly organizing resistance efforts against Trump.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Former USAID workers, Ro Tucci, and the Trump administration.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The resistance efforts began after the Trump White House shuttered USAID earlier this year, with the operation revealed on July 7, 2025.
💬KEY QUOTE: “You just released a bunch of well-trained individuals into your population,” a current federal official boasted.
🎯IMPACT: The operation suggests a resistance effort among federal workers, similar to the one seen during Trump’s first term, is gaining some traction. It also indicates that the administration was correct in suspecting that certain officials would have undermined it if they had been left in place. Actions taken by the Trump White House to implement significant federal workforce reductions and remove career employees from policy-sensitive roles are likely to lessen the impact of any “resistance” efforts.
A group of recently fired United States Agency for International Development (USAID) staffers, along with other government employees, is reportedly organizing a resistance against the Trump administration. The former federal employees boast that they intend to utilize their experience in working around the world against authoritarian regimes to build their efforts, appearing to suggest the foreign aid agency was, as many suspected, active in foreign ‘color revolutions.’
“Take it from those of us who worked in authoritarian countries: We’ve become one,” a current federal government employee stated, adding what could be interpreted as a political threat: “They were so quick to disband AID, the group that supposedly instigates color revolutions. But they’ve done a very foolish thing. You just released a bunch of well-trained individuals into your population. If you kept our offices going and had us play solitaire in the office, it might have been safer to keep your regime.”
Reminiscent of ‘resistance’ efforts during President Donald J. Trump‘s first term, the former USAID staffers claim they are organizing training sessions on “noncooperation,” a tactic aimed at slowing the advance of the Trump White House’s policy agenda. The group even believes their efforts could culminate in a nationwide general strike.
Among the resources being used in these training sessions is an old Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) handbook, which instructs readers on how to conduct acts of sabotage. “Widespread practice of simple sabotage will harass and demoralize enemy administrators and police,” the intelligence agency manual states, adding: “The saboteur may have to reverse his thinking… where he formerly thought of keeping his tools sharp, he should now let them grow dull; surfaces that formerly were lubricated now should be sanded; normally diligent, he should now be lazy and careless.”
While a number of the individuals and groups leading the resistance efforts have managed to remain anonymous, DemocracyAID has been identified as an organizer of invite-only anti-Trump resistance training sessions for federal employees. The group is co-led by Ro Tucci, who previously served as director of the USAID Center for Democracy, and its training sessions thus far primarily focus on simple acts of defiance, such as how to use office socializing to identify allies and how to conduct work slowdowns.
However, the Trump White House appears to be well aware of the resistance efforts. “It is inherently undemocratic for unelected bureaucrats to undermine the duly elected President of the United States and the agenda he was given a mandate to implement,” Deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly said regarding the former USAID staffers’ efforts.
Join Pulse+ to comment below, and receive exclusive e-mail analyses.
_01.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
