Rubio: 'No children are dying on my watch'

“No children are dying on my watch.” That’s what Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers at the House of Representatives on Wednesday during the third of four marathon hearings on Capitol Hill this week. It was the second time that Rubio — who has overseen the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development since President Donald Trump returned to office — made such an assertion in the hearing. Earlier that morning, he told Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, that “no one had died” because of cuts to USAID. “Here are the people who have died,” Sherman shot back, gesturing to the two poster boards his staff had displayed behind him. One showed Pe Kha Lau, a woman in Myanmar who died after a State Department stop-work order forced the International Rescue Committee-supported clinic she relied on to close in late January. Lau was sent home — and she passed away four days later. The second poster board showed Evan Anzoo, a 5-year-old from South Sudan. Evan lost access to lifesaving HIV medications after the Trump administration halted the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, in February. Evan and his mother both lost access to their antiretroviral medications during the funding freeze and died soon after, The New York Times reported. “That’s a lie,” said Rubio. “False.” Rubio’s words echoed those of billionaire Elon Musk, who oversaw the crippling of USAID and has repeatedly asserted that “no one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding. No one.” But Pe and Evan are far from the only ones who have lost their lives. “I think people don’t want to believe that the policy decisions they’re making, or the funding decisions they’re making, have real-life human implications.” --— Anonymous leader of humanitarian agency In South Sudan, at least five children with cholera died while trying to find treatment — the result of Save the Children clinics being closed by the U.S. government. In Uganda, the U.S. canceled funding for MUCOBADI, a nonprofit focused on HIV-positive orphans, causing the death of 28-year-old Lydia Nabirye. And in Nigeria, one of two facilities serving nearly 40,000 internally displaced people was also shuttered — leading at least one child to die from an illness that FHI 360, the organization running the clinic, typically could have handled. “Before, the humanitarian workers used to give my child free blood transfusion and medications,” said the child’s mother, whose comment was provided by FHI 360, an international aid agency based in the U.S. “This time when he fell sick, I had no money for treatment, and he passed away. If [those] health workers were still here, he would be alive today.” A visit to the other, private clinic would have cost $30, an FHI 360 official said. “I think people don’t want to believe that the policy decisions they’re making, or the funding decisions they’re making, have real-life human implications,” said the leader of another humanitarian agency, who requested to speak anonymously to protect their organization. “I think it’s really critical that we come to terms with the fact they do.” Boston University’s School of Public Health estimates that today, more than 91,200 people have died as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts to global health assistance alone. Those deaths are occurring at a rate of 103 an hour, the analysis found, and just over 50,000 of the total deaths were due to the loss of PEPFAR programs. But at both hearings on Wednesday, Rubio repeatedly told lawmakers that 85% of PEPFAR’s recipients are still receiving assistance. “[PEPFAR] is a program we’re proud of. It’s one of the first programs we restored after the 90-day pause, even before that,” Rubio said, referring to the Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze. That pause was later extended from 90 days to 120 days, and officially ended on Tuesday. “It’s one of the first programs I highlighted here today. Eighty-five percent of recipients are on it.” It’s not clear where Rubio’s 85% figure came from. A recent analysis by health research firm KFF found that the U.S. government had canceled 71% of its awards focused on HIV/AIDS. In another analysis, those figures fared better: according to a brief from the Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR, just under 60% of PEPFAR programs were found to be active, while 22% were terminated, and the status of 20% remained unknown. Either way, the figures don’t add up to 85%. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment about the data in time for publication. “We’re by far the most generous nation on earth on foreign aid,” said Rubio. “And we’ll continue to be, by far, with no other equal.” He made similar assertions about food aid — a category that was meant to be exempt from Trump’s foreign aid freeze. Yet since the pause began, multiple nonprofits have repeatedly told Devex they had been barred from accessing the funds, approval, or resources needed to deliver food assistance. It’s an issue Rep. Gabe Amo, a Democrat from Rhode Island, drilled the secretary on — stating that 185,000 boxes of ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTFs, were sitting in a warehouse in his home state. “These boxes of RUTFs could save hundreds of thousands of children’s lives,” said Amo, speaking at the hearing. “And these delays have real consequences.” Rubio pushed back, saying there was “no impediment on [the State Department’s] end,” and told Amo that the representative should figure out why the boxes aren’t moving, as delays weren’t due to the State Department. “We’re going to continue to do food aid,” said Rubio. “We’re going to do more food aid than any country on the planet, times ten.” It echoed the same line Rubio delivered when he went through a similar round of hearings in the Senate. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, Rubio insisted that despite the Trump administration’s cuts to more than 80% of USAID’s funding, the U.S. will still contribute “more in foreign aid than the next 10 countries combined.” That’s far from likely. Last year, the U.S. contributed $63.3 billion in official development assistance, making it the world’s largest donor. But if the Trump administration follows through on its proposed cuts — slashing foreign aid by at least 48% — the country would fall well short of the $118.9 billion provided by the next 10 largest donor countries. In the meantime, those across the world continue feeling the effects. Five thousand miles from Washington, another child in Nigeria was stripped of the malnutrition treatment he’d been relying on, according to FHI 360. “He was due for follow-up in the week activities were suspended,” the child’s mother told the organization. “My son, who was recovering, has now relapsed, and there is nowhere to get help. I am helpless, and I am worried about my son.” Update, May 22, 2025: This article has been updated to clarify that one clinic in Nigeria was closed, not two.