Was DOGE Responsible For The Massive Death Toll in Nepal's Disaster?

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1:00This is the Tom Harbin program. Unsettling questions raised over the Trump administration's role in a devastating flood into all. You saw this, you know, 3,000 people are missing a thousand are dead, more or less, including 90 Americans. Turns out according to a former USAID disaster response chief Jeremy Kondink, K-O-N-Y-N-D-Y-K. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Kondik who led USAID's response, this is Alexander Willis writing in raw story. Kondik who led USAID's response to the COVID-19 pandemic raised an unsettling question. As to whether the Trump administration and its Department of Government efficiency doge

2:00may have crippled the ability to prepare for such a disaster into bat. Kondik wrote, Doge famously used keyword searches for terms like climate to terminate federal grants. Among the victims, a collaboration between USAID and NASA for flood prediction early warning, disaster readiness, glacier inventories, and mapping dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal. Now I'm wondering why I haven't heard this on every news report about this. Where's the damn media assuming that this is true? I mean the guy used to run the program, so you would think that he would know. He has among the USAID programs, Kondik said was affected with server, SERVIR, a program that produced detailed and advanced flood forecasting with days of lead time that allows people to plan and prepare for floods.

3:00The program was specifically monitoring the potentially dangerous glacial lakes of Nepal. A notice from NASA supports Kondik's assertion, the server was impacted by doge cuts. Quote earlier this month, USAID notified SERVIR partners that they have terminated all agreements and contracts with NASA and the SERVIR network. The notice was published in March of 2025 after a musk went through the agency with a chain saw. Without the partnership with USAID, NASA cannot continue the SERVIR program. Meanwhile, we've got 15 people missing in the Grand Canyon from a flash flood. Again, the flash floods like this are the natural and predictable byproduct of global warming. And the big problem with trying to rescue these people is you can't get there except by helicopter. Rob, in Mount Iron, Minnesota, hey Rob, what's up? Now, much time, how you doing? I haven't talked to you in a little while.

4:02I got something here. It's where it kind of goes into the geeky history thing. You know, you've seen all the pictures of those floods that were over there in Tibet, how terrible they were. What if I told you that you're sitting somewhere where there was 500 foot high wall of water hit about 13 or 14 thousand years ago? Are you sure the West Coast you mean? No, right there in Portland. Oh really? Tell me about it. Yes. Can I plug the book in the author? Oh sure. Yeah. Okay, the book's name is Glacier Lake, Missouri. And it's name is Humongous Floods. It's by David Alt, ALC. He's the author. I've got a book here. It's about 15 years old. It's a fascinating read. Let me tell you. The long story short about this. It's where back about 13 or 14 thousand years ago, we had the glaciers. They were forming all over the North America. And there was a glacier where what do you want to call it?

5:03It came down through Northern Idaho, right, to Red Break, right there, between Washington and Montana. And it built up a glacier that was about a thousand feet deep and there was an emptying point right there. And the whole thing is, is that one that glacier once you had created a dam, it was about a thousand feet high. And it backed up a little out of a piece of water going all the way back into Montana, several hundred miles. It was about a thousand feet deep. They estimated the volume of that lake was about 530 cubic miles of water. And when it went, it went and it came here. It all busted loose at one time. Washington, you can be able to drive a car. I used to be a cross country truck driver. I traveled all the channels out there. You can see the washouts and stuff like that. Sure. I estimated that when it was coming down to Columbia River Gorge, it was where it was maybe a thousand feet deep. And when it finally hit the Portland Valley, it was about 500 feet deep.

6:04And this is how, you know, I mean, this is, you know, I mean, for me, that would just, you know, I'm keep out all at once. You know, I mean, nobody even knows about this. I don't even think you know about it. Good, you know. No, I didn't. And this would be within, you can't say living memory. But when I, when Louise and I lived in Vermont, the scientists at the University of Vermont, there was this, the Abanaki's are the indigenous people of Vermont, you know, the Native Americans. The Abanaki tribe is the main one. And they have, and we got to know an Abanaki storyteller. I can't remember his name right now, but he's written a couple of books and he was just a brilliant storyteller. And he used to come to the state capital on New Year's Eve and stuff like that and do these like half hour long storytelling things that were just brilliant. And, you know, they were the ancient stories. This is how they passed down their culture. And multiple stories that the Abanaki had were about where and when the walls of blue ice melted and vanished in Vermont.

7:04And so the geology department at the University of Vermont or so a bunch of, you know, maybe somebody working on a PhD, I don't know the details of it, but they went out and they, they looked at those places where the Abanaki stories talked about this was where the glaciers were and this is where they melted and all this kind of stuff. And they actually had stories of the walls of blue ice because they were there 15,000 years ago, right? And they found the remnants of these glaciers, you know, these giant, basically gravel pits, you know, where they deposited all this rock. And they found that the Abanaki stories were accurate. That the stories that have been passed from, you know, mother to daughter, from father to son for hundreds of generations since 15,000 years ago were literally accurate within a half mile. So it's, you know, I'd be fascinating to know if there are any, I mean, you know, the Pacific Northwest was populated 15,000 years ago. It'd be fascinating to know if there are Native American stories here about that event.

8:05I'll bet there are. Well, you know, I mean, that's the footage where, you know, I got the book and it was where, you know, I mean, I just picked it up in a truck stop. And it just, just wanted to grab something. It is fascinating because the whole thing is, you know, again, you know, if you ever get to travel out there and watch Western Washington, you could see where it backed up into the Snake River when it finally went through the gorge there, between Washington and Oregon, the Columbia River. And it gives you all the details as far as what had happened. They got picked up the pictures of different, different areas. You can be able to take and see where the washouts were and stuff like that. I just want to be able to take them to us as well. And I mean, you know, I mean, again, you know, well, the biggest thing that got me is that they showed that the best ones are terrible, you know, the only thing is is that nothing compared to this one. Yeah, yeah. The Abanaki storyteller, by the way, I just looked up, his name was Jesse Brushak, BRUCHAC. And his father was an Abanaki storyteller too. We met his father while I think his father has passed away. But amazing stuff Rob, thanks for sharing that.

9:06I'm going to fast it in a little bit of geekiness. Sure enough, good talking to you. Did you know your brain is roughly 73% water? That's why even mild dehydration can sometimes contribute to things like headaches, dizziness, brain fog and irritability. Staying properly hydrated with water and electrolytes plays an important role in supporting memory, focus and mental alertness. And as we age, hydration becomes even more essential for helping our bodies function at their best. That's where native hydrate comes in. Native hydrate is 100% natural with the thoughtfully designed formula that includes BCAA's and all nine essential amino acids to support muscle recovery, strengthen overall wellness. It helps replenish key electrolytes to support your body's natural energy levels. And it's free of artificial flavor, sugars and dyes with only five calories per serving.

10:06Every order comes with a 365 day money back guarantee. Try and risk free at nativehydrate.com slash Tom THOM. And see what it can do for your hydration and wellness. That's nativehydrate.com slash Tom. Shane and Boulder Colorado, hey Shane, what's on your mind today? Hey, yeah, I call in every now and then about information about Nepal. It's pretty close to me. I've said today, my wife is from Nepal. I've lived in Nepal for many years. The flooding, they're calling it a tsunami. It was a tsunami, not a flood anymore. Actually, they call it body, but it's actually a tsunami. But the glacier had been receding for a while. And it fell, it fell about a mile. And there is so much misinformation right now online about this. There are 4,000 people missing right now. And 1,000 people have died. And climate change is affecting Nepal more than anything.

11:07The developing countries are the biggest contributors. And a lot of people are saying, well, hang on just a second, they're not the biggest country. They're the developed countries. So the biggest contributors to climate change, the developing countries are the biggest victims. Exactly. That's my interrupting. And so Nepal is on the forefront of this. Nepalese see this, all Nepalese believe in climate change. They all know it's happening. The flood, the tsunami, I have a teacher that called it a tsunami because it was a half mile wide and it was 50 feet high. But it wasn't water. It was cement like debris. And they only had a two minute warning before they could get out of the way. And they're still finding people back during their earthquake in 2015. Over 10,000 people died. And this is looking like that. But a lot of people ask why they build houses next to the river. It's to continue the water for the farms. And if they build the houses up on the mountain, you risk landslides too. So you have to get water. Well, everybody always builds houses around rivers.

12:08I mean, that's just a normal thing. Do you know why they only had a two minute warning, Shane? Because the glacier just let go. No, no, the reason they only had a two minute warning. We used to have an association, the USAID, the US Agency for International Development, had a division. They had an agency within USAID that collaborated with NASA and with the US Weather Service and provided advanced warnings all over the world of events that were associated with climate change. And they were monitoring that part of Tibet. And they could have warned those people that that glacier looked like it was about to go. But Elon Musk fired all those people. And that's why they got a two minute warning rather than a two day warning. There were people on bridges taking selfies when this was coming. Right there on bridges doing TikTok. Nepali really big on TikTok. They were taking selfies.

13:08And here comes the tsunami. And it was just gnarly. No, I don't know. 120 by you. It did. Yes, it was very quick. And people were running. But on a side note, Nepali are using the EVs in the polar. 73% of new cars are EV sold in the palm and 73% of the EV cars. Well, and so it's even higher than that in many European countries. It's over 90% in Norway. People around the world are waking up to the fact that number one, they are. You know, we're ruining the environment and our own lives with by burning fossil fuels. And number two, electric cars are cheaper to drive, cheaper to run, cheaper to maintain, and a hell of a lot of fun. Boy, do they have pickup. They are. They are. They are. They use hydro power to charge their car. They use hydro power. Well, it makes perfect sense. That's what we do here in Portland, too. Shane, thanks a lot for the call. Good talk to you. And, you know, my best to your wife. Thank you. Mark and Oakland, California.

14:10Mark, what's on your mind today? Thanks for taking my call. I saw him back in 2024, the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, who's having a conversation with Steve Bannon on his wallroom podcast. And he said at that time, we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless at the left allows it to be. Right. If the left allows it. I remember. Of course, the key part, because here's the situation, that was not just a wild pot shot. That was a calculated assessment. And over the past 18, 19 months, we've sort of proved him to his theory correct that the left will not engage in a violent revolution if we're pushed over the edge or pushed far enough. We may put on some pink cast in March of the streets with some funny signs, but we're not going to go. We're not going to we're going to keep it bloodless. Well, sort of like let me let me push back on that little mark because because Trump is not keeping a bloodless Alex Freddie.

15:11You know, Renee Good, they are not keeping a bloodless. That is correct, Tom, but the point is that they're not expecting any push back. This is where I was born with this. Oh, I see. I see your point. Yeah, coming up, coming to election, we've got two months and I don't think Trump is going to go quietly in the by that. I mean the midterms. I think he has got too much at stake. There's too many of their people are going to go to prison. If not worse, I mean, he knows it's going to be bad if they ever leave power. So I would expect and anticipate a democratic should anticipate that there is going to be some obstruction during this coming election. One way Trump has already proved he can push the envelope and not get pushed back in terms of like it's already started. Mark Texas just purged 1.2 million voters off their voting rolls. Most of them in the big cities. These are mostly Democrats. I mean, it's already started. Last point, Tom, final point.

16:21This is only going to end one of two ways through the power of persuasion, which L Said Abdul-Affayee is doing right now very articulate charismatic person that can't actually win over those right wing voters that he government that don't have a pot to piss in. He is the guy that can win them over and they know it. That's why they clear him. But the other way is the old fashioned traditional way that we normally typically settle our differences here in America. And that's with violence in the street like during the Civil War, during civil rights movement and on and on and on. Okay. So you know that this country was founded on violence. And my concern is that the Democratic Party had better start talking about that. Make it up and understand this could become a reality. It could be the only way that this thing gets resolved from a historical perspective. It's one of two ways that it's going to get resolved. And that's a concern that I think we should be talking about between now and November. Not whether or not. Well, there is a middle ground here, Mark, which I hope is not the direction we go, which

17:25is Richard Nixon and blew up the peace deal that Humphrey and Johnson had worked out. He committed treason to become president. Ronald Reagan's campaign reached out to the Iatola and said, if you hang on to the hostages, we'll give you millions of dollars where the free weaponry or we'll sell you replacement parts for your military. And they went along with that. So you had these two presidents who committed treason to become presidents. And what happened was the media just completely ignored it in the Democratic Party and never did anything about it. And then the same thing with George W. Bush just months before the election in 2000, the Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, Kathleen Harris knocked over 100,000 black people off the voting rolls in Florida. And that's how George won Florida and thus the United States, even though he lost the election by half a million votes, the popular votes. He won the electoral college because of Florida by 537 votes. And again, the media did not out them.

18:26The media did not talk about it and neither did the Democratic Party. So if you know, here you've got three illegitimate Republican presidents, three Republican presidents who used crime or even treason to become president. And so if they do that kind of stuff this time, and I want to know more about this Texas purge, by the way, and I want to know about purges going on in other states. But if they try to do that this time, I sure hope that our media doesn't just roll over and go, well, I guess the election's over. Let's not talk about it. And I hope the Democratic Party does. And I hope that Ken Martin and company are ready for this stuff. I certainly am. Mark, thank you for the call and I will raise health. We'll be right back. You're listening to Tom Hartman. Visit tomheartman.com for audio and video archives. Here on the true people's media, talk media for the rest of us. We'll be right back. John and Roselle Illinois, hey John, what's on your mind today?

19:27Hey, so a lot of people were talking about USAID and just coincidentally last night I was on a news channel. It was either Reuters or BBC. They had a story on a water project, also as a dam and some other things that they were doing in Kenya. And when those did the cost, they pulled the funding out from one of that project. And the project was meant to help improve their situation with like planting and all that. Now it's worse. The dams are flooding. They said, you know, you could see pictures of the like the fields with bananas trees, sunk submerged and interviewing people with their homes that are in them dated with water. And they said it's worse than it was, you know, than the problem they were trying to fix. Right. Because they had a $2 million. Yeah, they only need like two million. You would think maybe somebody could try to step in there and help with that. But I just wanted to mention that. I just saw that yesterday.

20:28It's going to be something interesting for you to look into. Yeah. Elon's got a lot to answer for here, John. I mean, a lot of dead people as a result of Elon Musk doing this stuff. It's morally criminal. The use of Asia, Africa, right here in the U.S. probably too. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. John, thank you. This spot on Stella and Salinas, California. Hey, Stella, what's on your mind today? Well, obviously Trump's cutting USAID and programs that help the poor. And then these reckless wars that don't really seem to have any purpose other than killing, you know, getting. Yeah, killing off our public health programs. Well, killing people, period. It's the one thing that's guaranteed is casualties. Yeah. And you know what they say? They call us useless eaters. We're not wearing convenient. They're in their way. Yeah. So I think they want to get rid of a lot of us. And I can I just add one thing? You mentioned the vegan, the Republicans using vegan as a kind of swarm of. Yeah.

21:29And I think that might have something to do with Trump's plan to import B from South America. Maybe they're using that as a distraction because they know that's going to hurt them in the elections. Interesting. Interesting. Bill, in Sun City, Arizona, hey, Bill, what's on your mind today? I tell you, can we give a voice to the voiceless firm in it? And by that, I mean, the desert dried up riverbeds, green breads and and creek beds. Living out of 25 years, people point to them and they call them rivers, but they're not rivers. They're failed rivers. But the rivers didn't fail. We failed to manage them. Their washes, what's been washed out is the things that make the water stay in linger. Well, so that it could percolate down to the, the aqua. Are there kind of two issues here? Bill, one is that you've got basically seasonal rivers in the desert. And then the other is that you've got regular, you know, like the Colorado regular main river rivers, but they have been, you know, exploited and redirected and, you know, bloody, bloody.

22:32And then I expose the third one is the aquifer underneath you is draining rapidly too. This would help the aquifer to be let the water linger in the desert here. And percolate down to the aquifer, but what also happens is that same water promotes the life on the shores and greenery and those green things, they give their water back at night and that water evaporates locally and it cools locally and flows locally. And we can do this. We can green this planet. There are examples on YouTube of people doing this where they live and where they are. And it's just astounding. You know, you've got a close grip, really comes to mind. Go west, we need you out and you're rocks. Yeah. Go west, young man. Was his slogan, wasn't it? Yes, right. So, so, you know, we have some friends who are thinking of moving to Arizona right now and they're a little bit freaked out about the possibility that you guys might be out of

23:35water in the next decade or two is. But we're not. No, because, you know why? There's a bunch of water on this planet as they were ever was. It's in the reservoirs, the seas and our greatest reservoirs are atmosphere. Right, but how do you get it to Sun City? By doing what I'm suggesting, by promoting it, we let it go. We failed to manage it. Okay, so specifically, how does that work, Bill? Educate me. Okay. You make these washes, whole water for a short time while it's present instead of just running like through and being wasted and what happens is it percolates into the ground, into the into the aquifers. But that can take a thousand years, can it? What's the difference? You got to start somewhere. Well, that's a good point. That's a good point. So, you're suggesting basically damning the washes. But, yeah, I would have damed six to eight to ten inches tall with foot tall.

24:38Sure. We're not capturing the water. We're just keeping it from the water. And being wasted in such a way. And because it lingers, all the things in the desert, all the seeds that are lingering in the desert saying, come on, please, give me some water. They get it and they green up and they transpire at night and they, that water evaporates locally and it, like I said, it falls down locally. Yeah. And you start to cycle. Fascinating. Fascinating. Well, we go around saying things have always been that way. Well, this is one thing that's been there like that for Eons because we let it happen. We, you know, we think up the land all over the place and dump it where it's convenient instead of where we need to. Yeah. Interesting point, Bill. I never, I never thought of that, but I don't live in the desert. So, I don't think about such things. Thank you, Fred. You're welcome to say it. You got to take three steps back and get a different perspective. I totally agree. I totally agree. Back at you, Bill. Thanks.

25:39Hi, a few minutes, Bill. Jeremiah, cold pork Pennsylvania. Jeremiah, what's up? Hey, Tom. If you said that eating a plant-based diet was the number one way to reduce your carbon footprint. Actually, the number one way is to not have kids. That's way up there. I mean, if you... Well, yeah. Okay. i get that but you know for a lot of people you know they either have them or they don't i think it's like you but i'll but i get you know but the republican parties encourage it yeah i want to get the baby's please yes i know right right we need to have more baby actually we don't you need to have fewer i agree for the sake of the plan i agree and and basically for our economy i think it's really weird there's all these right-wing economists who are saying you know we need more babies we need more people uh... when in fact when the population of a country shrinks

26:41the ratio of people to the asset based on the country increases in favor of people and there's everybody gets a little richer when there's fewer people and nobody seems to want to talk about that yep so okay thank you for the call david uh... limpio washington hey dav what's on your mind today hey tom how you doing that i want to follow up on that how many kids choice or have a kid and there's actually four options you can have you can have kids you can have no kids and you can adopt kids but there's one more option and that is have a kid and there's a great book on the subject matter by bill mcibbon just one yet yeah i got a book title just one it's called maybe one oh maybe one yeah and maybe one and so you know go through you know that limited-sized family you know how significantly reduces resource consumption and carto-foot print and then also good blows apart the myth of you know you can raise the kid is going to be you know socially awkward or messed up because you didn't have a

27:42cibbling which is totally uh... you know totally not true in this day and eight and i have i'm living proof i've got one daughter and she's she's fantastic fantastic wonderful the studies on only children i mean there used to be this kind of conventional wisdom in a fifty years ago that only children were spoiled brats and there's been a lot of good science done in the years since that has found that only children are no more less neurotic than kids from you know families with ten kids it yeah it's just you know that's not the variable the other big thing yeah that's a big thing is you know you know when i grew up in a larger family you know the kids got delegated off to the children's table when i was in high for dinner in this case our daughter sat with us and she you know became such a much more intelligent interesting kid because she joined right into the conversation with adults and so it makes a lot of sense yeah i was the oldest of four boys so i can tell you all about cibbling rivalry yeah yeah all right that's all i have okay well i was a good one day thank you thanks for the reminder add in chicago hey add what's on your mind today

28:46hey time you know i'm thinking uh you might want to think about sticking with this radio gig i think you got a real future in it okay for thank you if after listening to you for 23 years um i was thinking today about uh what the disaster in uh Nepal and reminding me of something i've been finding that nobody remembers is that in may of 2025 in a town of blatton b l a t t n blatton switzerland the exact same thing happened oh yeah it took out 90 percent it took out 90 percent of the town it's un bit it's on youtube you can see it yeah it took out 90 percent of the town but they had sensors set up they they kind of knew something was going to happen there was one death uh she perter got caught in the in the wash of the thing and it just got me thinking about about people living in your neck of the woods or people and i was telling the tale i'd be terrified to be living in june olasco right now and looking up at those mountains yeah but but thank god we got you know a really competent people running the

29:49p a right now i'm sure they're on top of this well we actually had sensors that were monitoring that particular glacier in Nepal the sensors were in satellites the satellites were run by nasa the the uh monitoring program was supervised by the u.s. agency for international development and uh we were looking at a hundred thousand glaciers around the world we were actively monitoring around two thousand of them that represented a potential risk to human life and that program and and that you know and that glacier by the way started cracking a week before it before it went so we could have given that that community of four weeks advanced notice but Elon Musk killed off the program when he killed off us a id oh jeez yeah yeah i was unaware that we had sensors like yeah yeah well that's what that's what got me think is like monitoring that exact glacier well because like i said when i when i checked in the

30:51bled and thing in switzerland yeah they were they were all all oh yeah oh no they they they take they take avalanches very seriously in switzerland now this is this is what what any launch hands that's that's what this is yeah yeah exactly what it just goes to show you it's happening around the world but like like i said i mean people living in your neck of the woods Juneau yeah boy you better start voting blue people yeah well if you know we we had the Columbia River flood here the the year before Louise and i moved here a couple years before i guess i think it was 98 and affect the floating home that we used to live in had been had broken loose from a different warge and went down the river and got reclaimed but and that was the result of the glacier on mouthhood melting too early because because of a change in the weather so you know i've seen it here why haven't seen it but i've seen the movies of it here knowing to be extreme is uh mr. doing sets there you go add thanks for the call yeah and and and and spread and pass pass it along about uh Elon and us a idea in the

31:56fall because that's a huge story just astonished that the you know i've seen mentioned of it a couple of times on msnbc but it it it should be on the front page of the new york times yeah thank you for the call yeah thank you scott in gresham speaking of Oregon scott and gresham organ a scott it's on your mind then hey Tom how's it going good and stuff uh i just wanted you were somebody was talking about nuclear energy and the data centers yeah and i just want to let you know if you hadn't heard of them there's a company and tiger called new scale and they make modular smr's small modular reactors are these uranium or thorium i have gotten that there's not enough technical information available on the web but they went public in like 2021 huh so they're on the new york stock exchanges i don't i'm not going to promote them because

33:00i used to work in the nuclear replacement um um industry as far as electric motors and controls and i'm not sure how their system actually works but i suspect it's probably bad well i'd look into it's got i think i'm iigred yeah i'm sorry it's got a lot of time but thanks thanks for the heads up on that i appreciate it nice to hear from and thank you for being with us today we'll be back tomorrow same time same place the meantime don't forget democracy is not a spectator's sport it requires all of us so get out there get active tag you're it have a great afternoon be good to yourself and the folks around you stay safe each of edges get your exercise and i will catch up with you you've been listening to tom hartman for audio and video archives

34:01visit tom hartman dot com