President Donald J. Trump, alongside Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has officially dismantled USAID — a bloated, taxpayer-funded foreign aid agency that long served as a playground for globalists and career bureaucrats.
The decision marks a major victory for American taxpayers and a decisive end to one of Washington’s most expensive and least accountable international spending programs.
Bush and Obama Beg for Bureaucracy
In a video message to laid-off USAID staff, former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama — joined by left-wing activist and U2 frontman Bono — lashed out at Trump and praised the agency’s now-unemployed operatives.
“Gutting USAID is a travesty,” Obama said. “It’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world.”
Bush added that the staffers had shown “America’s good heart,” while lamenting the dismantling of an agency he once used to push AIDS initiatives in Africa.
The message, not released to the public, was played internally for departing staff, according to the Associated Press.
Musk: “A Viper’s Nest of Radical-Left Marxists”
Elon Musk, who helped lead DOGE’s investigations into government waste, previously called USAID a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”
Trump agreed — and spent the early part of his term tearing apart USAID’s bloated budget, with audits revealing over $22 billion in waste, including grants for:
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$45 million for DEI scholarships in Burma
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$40 million to support “sedentary migrants”
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Millions more to fund leftist NGOs across the globe
USAID was officially absorbed into the State Department on July 1, with only a skeleton staff retained to administer programs aligned with America’s national interests.
Rubio: “NGO Industrial Complex Is Dead”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed the globalist sob fest in a statement Tuesday:
“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the Cold War.”
“Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”
Rubio confirmed that all foreign assistance moving forward will go through the State Department, where it will be managed with accountability and strategy, not activist ideology.
Bono Reads a Poem, Hillary Cries
Bono, who once called Trump “potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America,” read a dramatic poem to USAID staffers, mourning the end of the agency:
“They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,” he said.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also posted a tribute to the now-defunct agency:
“Foreign service officers and development professionals were among the most dedicated public servants I encountered.”
Left-wing accounts on social media praised USAID as a force for “equity” and “climate justice” — two of the very reasons Trump and Musk tore it down.
Trump: “Time to Put America First Again”
President Trump didn’t hold back in his assessment:
“Forty-five million dollars for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma. Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody even knows what that means,” he said.
