Jul 02, 2025 6:30:10 pm
Barack Obama and George W. Bush have united with staffers of USAID to slam Donald Trump, calling the DOGE-assisted dismantling of the agency a ‘colossal mistake.’
Monday was the last day of independence for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organization, created by President John F. Kennedy as a peaceful way of promoting U.S. national security by boosting goodwill and prosperity abroad.
Their agency was one of the first and most fiercely targeted for government-cutting by the president and his billionaire ally Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, with staffers abruptly locked out of systems and offices and terminated by mass emailing.
Trump claimed the agency was run by ‘radical left lunatics’ and rife with ‘tremendous fraud.’ Musk called it ‘a criminal organization.’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered USAID – which Trump infamously called a ‘left-wing scam’ – absorbed into the State Department on Tuesday.
Asked for comment, the State Department said it would be introducing the departments foreign assistance successor to USAID, to be called America First, this week.
‘The new process will ensure there is proper oversight and that every tax dollar spent will help advance our national interests,’ the department said.
USAID had provided over 40 per cent of global humanitarian funding until Trump returned to the White House in January.
ELON MUSK IS A POS: But two weeks into his second term, Trump’s then-close advisor and former head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, announced that they had put the agency ‘through the woodchipper’.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio then revealed the sweeping cuts in March, saying that 5,200 of the 6,200 USAID programs had been stopped.
At the time it was slashed, USAID represented 0.3 percent of all US federal spending.
USAID oversaw programs around the world, providing water and life-saving food to millions uprooted by conflict in Sudan, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere.
They also sponsored the ‘Green Revolution’ that revolutionized modern agriculture and curbed starvation and famine, preventing disease outbreaks, promoting democracy, and providing financing and development that allowed countries and people to climb out of poverty.
Bono spoke passionately as he recited a poem he had written to the agency and its gutting.
He spoke of children dying of malnutrition, in a reference to people – millions, experts have said – who will die because of the U.S cuts to funding for health and other programs abroad.
‘They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,’ Bono said.
‘It’s not left-wing rhetoric to feed the hungry, heal the sick. If this isn’t murder, I don’t know what is.’ – By Stephen M. Lepore for DMail.
IN RETROSPECT, IT LACKED EMPATHY: The richest man in the world is processing the consequences of his own actions live on X.
Elon Musk, in the midst of condemning Trump’s budget bill, expressed regret Tuesday over his decision to wear sunglasses inside while waving a huge chain saw around with Argentinian President Javier Milei at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the chainsaw on stage and acted a fool,” an X user told Musk as he complained about Republicans’ budget increasing the debt ceiling. “Maybe you could have gotten more done if you weren’t so worried about looking cool.”
“Valid point,” Musk responded directly. “Milei gave me the chainsaw backstage and I ran with it, but, in retrospect, it lacked empathy.” – The New Republic.