Congressman defends USAID staff but admits Democratic leverage limited

Republicans have Project 2025. Perhaps Democrats should create a Project 2029?

That was a suggestion floated by U.S. Rep. Ami Bera, a Democrat from California, during a recent Devex Pro Briefing where he talked about the need to preserve the U.S. Agency for International Development in some form and make the case to the American people that USAID benefits everyone, not just abroad but at home.

Project 2025 is the conservative playbook written by the Heritage Foundation to help then-candidate Donald Trump formulate policy ideas should he win the presidency. Now that he has, many of those policy ideas are coming to fruition, including the rapid-fire dismantling of USAID.

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