Debora Cahn, showrunner of the Netflix series "The Diplomat," and former Obama United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power attacked the Trump administration on Monday amid cuts to the U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID).Cahn and Power took part in a discussion about the state of U.S.
diplomacy and the series' latest season, along with the show's lead actress Keri Russell, at the John F.Kennedy Forum at Harvard. Throughout the event, they lamented the state of government since President Donald Trump took office again in 2025.
Cahn described the situation in 2025 as a "funeral" in Washington."We go to Washington every year," Cahn said."Last year, it was the funeral for democracy.
I had never seen so many people in a state of complete existential despair over the wreckage that was falling around them, and I think we all went home and started Googling, 'How did you get an EU passport.'"ELON MUSK THREATENS TO SUE RO KHANNA OVER CLAIMS USAID CUTS SENTENCED CHILDREN TO DEATHActress Keri Russell and former Obama United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power.(Stephanie Augello/Variety via Getty Images; Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images)However, she remarked that the upcoming midterm elections have provided more hope to people struggling in the "wreckage" of government institutions."I think as a citizen, I think we are all so exhausted by the constant barrage of, you know, somebody we talk to in Washington called them, 'dead cats getting thrown on the table' in the midst of the wreckage of our institutions," Cahn said."We no longer have the capacity for outrage.
So, I worry we don't have the capacity to kind of mount any kind of resistance to the crumbling of our own democracy.And so, to see people are like, 'God, stop worrying about that, that is so last year.
Move on.There are things we can do and things we will do.' It is good," she said.Power took more issue with the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID, having been the agency's administrator from ...