(TNND) — Diversity programs and the government’s foreign aid agency are both in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s new administration.

Now, a former Trump appointee is sharing his experiences with both.

Mark Moyar was a senior political appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development during Trump’s first term.

He was at USAID in 2018 and ’19 and was the director of the Office of Civilian-Military Cooperation.

Moyar is now an author and history professor at Hillsdale College.

Friday, he told The National News Desk about his experiences with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at USAID.

Moyar told TNND that he took part in a "privilege walk," which is intended to increase awareness of social privileges based on gender, ethnicity and other factors.

For the DEI exercise, Moyar said he was asked to play the part of an American woman of Scandinavian descent. Other USAID employees played other roles, and everyone would take a step forward or back based on their responses to questions about certain stereotypes.

“I think it was just for new employees, but they threw us in with the other career employees. And we didn't have actual training on important stuff like fighting waste, fraud and abuse. But we were getting the DEI training,” Moyar said.

BELOW: Moyar also spoke to Fox News about his privilege walk and DEI experience at USAID

Trump is now moving to dismantle USAID and has ordered federal agencies to terminate their DEI programs.

Moyar saw some DEI efforts firsthand during his time with the government, though he believes “when they went crazy is when the Democrats came in 2021.”

He’s not in favor of DEI programs.

“I think it's a toxic ideology that pits people against each other based on inherited differences,” Moyar said.

He alleged that time and taxpayer dollars were wasted on DEI efforts.

“I think most Trump appointees knew this was bad business, and so we tried to get rid of it,” Moyar said.

BELOW: This video shows an example of a privilege walk, not the one Moyar took part in

Nailing down the total cost of federal government DEI efforts is tough.

And Moyar said some government DEI efforts are masked as other things.

USAID reportedly awarded millions in grant money to LGBTQ+ rights groups overseas.

Another government agency, Veterans Affairs, announced last week that it was placing nearly 60 DEI-focused employees on paid administrative leave. Their combined salaries are more than $8 million, VA said.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, in December accused the Department of Education of spending $1 billion in taxpayer money on DEI.

Trump’s and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency said on Jan. 31 that they’ve canceled dozens of DEI-related contracts that will save $1 billion.

The DOGE figure included seven USAID contracts totaling over $200 million in reported savings.

Cato Institute research fellow Erec Smith wrote that he agreed with Trump’s decision to terminate federal DEI programs.

“Contemporary DEI, not to be confused with the colorblind antiracism of the Civil Rights Movement, actually confines minorities, especially Black Americans, to the status of perpetual victims that need the rules changed (i.e., made more lenient) and white Americans disempowered to accommodate for that victimhood,” Smith wrote. “The reality is that most people, including Black Americans, have a much more positive self-regard.”

Others say the merit argument used by Trump and other critics of DEI programs is flawed.

Adia Harvey Wingfield, a sociologist who focuses on race, gender and work at Washington University in St. Louis, noted in an article last year that the formal exclusion of women of all races and men of color didn’t become illegal until the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s. Wingfield wrote that for nearly 200 years of American history, white men “had virtually unrestricted and exclusive access” to power.

“The objective, meritocratic past that DEI critics imagine is thus a myth,” she wrote. “The centuries-long, systematic exclusion of white women and people of color gives lie to the idea that jobs have historically gone only to the most qualified.”

Monica Wang, an associate professor of community health sciences at Boston University, worked on a study that found evidence lacking on whether DEI programs were effective or not.

Wang, however, voiced support for DEI efforts in a 2023 article. She said DEI programs, if run properly, can improve employee health and reduce burnout brought on by feelings of discrimination.

“So, if we’re thinking about recruitment and retention and the overall health of an organization, creating inclusive and equitable work environments can actually facilitate success in those outcomes, as well,” Wang said in the article.

A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found most U.S. employees saw DEI at work as a good thing.

But that survey also found wide partisan splits.

More than three-quarters of Democrats said they saw DEI at work as a good thing.

Just 30% of Republicans said the same.