In case you missed it, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio got a bit of a grilling before congressional committees this week. He got a bit of a grilling away from Capitol Hill, too. Former USAID leaders issued searing rebukes of the Trump administration’s mass purge of the agency’s staff and programs, warning of devastating global consequences and branding the rationale behind the cuts a campaign of lies.
During a Foreign Policy for America dinner last week, Samantha Power, who led the U.S. agency for International Development under the Biden administration, recalled how fired USAID staff were kicked out of their headquarters in Washington, D.C., in February: “I saw many tears that day … as principled public servants who had dedicated their lives to helping the world's most vulnerable were given 15 minutes in assigned time slots to pack up their desks as police stood ready to escort them out.”
She painted a stark contrast between the agency’s quiet, essential work and the attacks it has faced — often by Elon Musk and Rubio himself: “There was not a hard problem on this earth that USAID team members weren't working day and night to try to figure out how to solve,” from pandemic preparedness and drought resilience to supporting independent media and reducing U.S. reliance on Chinese supply chains. “The people who have dismantled USAID and slandered its workforce have lied,” Power said. “Every word they have said about USAID is a lie.”