| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
What the facts, straight from the source. | |
| No commentary, no agenda, just democracy. | ||
| Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAM networks. | ||
| Our look at the top moments in congressional hearings for 2025 continues with this hearing from February on President Trump's decision to defund and eventually close the U.S. Agency for International Development, known as USAID. | ||
| It came 10 days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over the agency and began its wind down. | ||
| This portion of the hearing is just over an hour. | ||
| The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the misuse of public trust through U.S. AIDS, woke programming, and explore ideas for reorganization to promote a stronger, better, and more prosperous United States. | ||
| I now recognize myself for an opening statement on this hearing. | ||
| I can tell you that we are here today very simply because many of the people and many of the programs in USAID have literally betrayed America. | ||
| My colleagues to my left will say that I'm lying about these programs, and I know they damn well wish that I was lying. | ||
| The programs that USAID and the State Department have spent money on are indefensible. | ||
| They hurt America's standing around the globe. | ||
| And I think the fact is clear that America would have been better off if your money had been simply thrown into a fireplace. | ||
| Instead, the Biden administration spent it imposing their far-left-wing ideology onto other nations. | ||
| Under them, USAID spent $2 million for sex change surgeries in Guatemala, $22 million to increase tourism in Tunisia and Egypt. | ||
| That's not life-saving. | ||
| $520 million to pay consultants to teach people in Africa about climate change. | ||
| That's not medicine. | ||
| $4.5 million to teach people in Kazakhstan how to fight back against internet trolls. | ||
| That's not life-saving. | ||
| $20,000 to help LGBT individuals vote in Honduran elections. | ||
| That's not medicine. | ||
| $5.5 million to improve the lives of LGBT individuals in Uganda. | ||
| $14 million to identify LGBT leaders in Cambodia. | ||
| $425,000 to train Indonesian coffee companies on how to be more gender-friendly. | ||
| $15 million for condoms to the Taliban. | ||
| And I have pages and pages more. | ||
| That's not diplomacy. | ||
| To slap in the face to every American who got up this morning and went to work. | ||
| To this moment, you haven't seen or heard any of my colleagues apologizing for this being wrong or wasteful. | ||
| Instead, for the left, their biggest concern is that the person assembling a team to make sure that these programs are not funded is a billionaire named Elon Musk. | ||
| So out of touch that they actually believe these programs are bringing other countries closer to us or that our adversaries are going to gain some kind of foothold if we don't continue doing these programs. | ||
| That's not what competing looks like for the United States of America. | ||
| On the contrary, last month, when I participated in a QA with my colleague here to the left in the United States Institute of Peace, which will have to explain their funding, the Ugandan ambassador stood up and said these programs were not doing anything to improve relations between our nations. | ||
| Take a look at the video. | ||
| Maybe we'll get some audio on it. | ||
| Maybe we won't get audio on it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is there a 14-year-old in the audience like they can figure out a 419-year-old just emergent? | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Maybe we won't do this video. | ||
| But I have the video that shows exactly what the Ugandan ambassador was saying. | ||
| And they were thanking us for not continuing these programs. | ||
| That's what took place. | ||
| And that's just one of the countless ambassadors that these programs will not continue, that they're going to come to an end. | ||
| Yet my colleagues to the left are arguing for these programs to continue. | ||
| Arguing for the people who put these programs in place to go back to work. | ||
| Arguing that the agency that did this be allowed to continue wasting your money. | ||
| They're going to argue that President Trump doesn't have the authority to do this, but the fact is, of those who were in Congress, all but three of them voted to give him the authority in 2024, and it says very specifically in S-FOPS appropes that the administration may potentially expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize covered departments or agencies or organizations. | ||
| That's the language of the authority. | ||
| It's not just the content of USAID that is the betrayal. | ||
| It's the larceny that USAID has conducted. | ||
| Crooked NGOs around Washington, D.C. swindling American taxpayers out of their money. | ||
| A recent audit found that USAID's implementing partners were using upwards of 50% of their grants for overhead costs, not life-saving measures. | ||
| The administration has said that the aid pause is temporary and they have proven it. | ||
| The recipients of USAID programs, they can apply for a waiver. | ||
| I have a list with me. | ||
| Many have applied, many have been denied, and some have received waivers that actually proved their work was life-saving. | ||
| Let me give a warning to my colleagues. | ||
| It will be short-sighted of you if you turn a blind eye to USAID's betrayal and more broadly the betrayal within the State Department. | ||
| Because we are going to bring in the people who put these programs in place. | ||
| We are going to show to the American people exactly what they were doing. | ||
| The videos, the documents, the everything. | ||
| They are going to see it. | ||
| Like $25,000 for a drag show seminar for Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador. | ||
| And we are going to show you that video. | ||
| That's the USAID program, Spending Your Money. | ||
| We will be writing these programs out of law as we conduct our first full State Department review since 2002. | ||
| I would say that when done right, foreign aid can be one of the best tools. | ||
| It can help strengthen our relationships with our allies that need a hand up. | ||
| And it can help countries realize that America is the best partner. | ||
| But it's only true if we understand a couple of things. | ||
| What does America actually need from each country or region? | ||
| What does that country or region actually want from the United States of America? | ||
| Because it's not these things. | ||
| And it's only fair to Americans if we can prove that a dollar is better spent going abroad than staying in the pocket of an American who is right now hustling and grinding it out at work. | ||
| And I now recognize my colleague, Ranking Member Gregory Meets. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to welcome our witnesses to our first full committee hearing this Congress. | |
| But I would be remiss if I didn't make clear my disappointment in the midst of the chaos created by the Trump administration's unlawful attempt to shut up USAID and pause foreign assistance funds. | ||
| We don't have anyone here today from the administration to explain, to appear and to explain their actions before this committee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It shouldn't be just private sector individuals here. | |
| We are the oversight of the U.S. government, and we should have members from the State Department, the Secretary of State, Rubio, president. | ||
| And my Democratic colleagues and I have asked the chairman to have a committee hearing with Secretary Rubio, and I urge that to be done as soon as possible. | ||
| The American people deserve to have their elected representatives question the administration about the decision to shut down a government agency established in law by Congress. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't have a king. | |
| We have a system. | ||
| If the administration believes what they have done is legal and merited, they should be before Congress. | ||
| They should be here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They should be talking to the American people directly. | |
| We should be summoning them here. | ||
| I also want to do away with the myth that this exercise with Doge and USAID is about addressing waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| Because if you really care about waste, fraud, and abuse, you don't illegally fire 21 independent inspector generals in the dark of night. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You don't fire the head of the government ethics office. | |
| Just this week, President Trump fired USAID's independent inspector general just one day after he issued a report showing that the administration's own effort to dismantle USAID is wasting taxpayer dollars and putting our national security at risk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's what's happening. | |
| Our national security is at risk. | ||
| And I'm asking unanimous consent to enter that IG report into the record. | ||
| This committee and the American people deserve to hear from the IG. | ||
| I would urge you to invite the Inspector General to appear before this committee to tell us about the actual work of addressing waste, fraud, and abuse, if that's what this is really about. | ||
| Now, many Republicans, this has not been a partisan issue. | ||
| Many Republicans have long championed U.S. foreign assistance as critical to our national security, as a source of United States soft power, and a key tool to out-compete China's growing global influence. | ||
| Despite my disappointment over not having Trump's administration panelists here, I am pleased that among our witnesses today, we have a number of individuals who are Republicans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I look at my former colleague, Ted Yoho, who I have traveled with on several times, several coldales, and we visited USAID programs. | |
| I know when you go and travel and see firsthand the work of dedicated USAID Foreign Service officers, civil servants, and local staff to whom we owe our gratitude and our thanks, not the dishonor shown to them by wealthy billionaires with a social media platform. | ||
| Now, I only have a few minutes left, so I won't spend my time debunking every mischaracterization or outright lie we've heard from the Republican distractors of USAID. | ||
| These are distractions meant to obscure the critical work USAID does. | ||
| I instead submit into the record the stories by the Washington Post, the New York Times, fact-checking, and dubious claims made by the Republicans. | ||
| Do you have them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So ordered. | ||
| And what I will use my time on is making clear that this hearing title, the USAID Betrayal, is absolutely correct because this is a betrayal. | ||
| The Trump administration is betraying our national security. | ||
| It is betraying our allies. | ||
| It is betraying the Americans who carry out USAID's mission in some of the world's most challenging and dangerous places. | ||
| It is betraying the generosity of the American people and is betraying the investments Americans have made for decades to stop diseases before they spread, to make sure girls have the same educational opportunities as boys, and to make sure that the innocent victims ravaged by war or natural disaster have basic human necessities. | ||
| It's betraying babies who have been born with HIV in the last three weeks, who could have been born HIV-free if only we continued to provide their mothers with the necessary medication that was sitting on the shelves. | ||
| It's betrayed America's victory in nearly wiping out polio around the world by stopping the funding to stamp it out in the last two countries on earth with the virus still present. | ||
| Want to know what happens when we stop funding this type of work? | ||
| Just look at Kansas where the outbreak of tuberculosis right now grows. | ||
| So it's not just about health programs. | ||
| Economic development programs in Latin America build stronger communities and help reduce migration to the United States. | ||
| Good governance, independent media, civil society programs in developing countries help break debt traps from China and ensure citizens can enjoy their God-given rights. | ||
| Bottom line, who wins when we pull back from one of America's greatest strengths? | ||
| China wins. | ||
| Russia wins. | ||
| Our adversaries win. | ||
| So yes, this is a betrayal. | ||
| This is a betrayal of our national security. | ||
| And I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Thank the gentleman for yielding. | ||
| I think I called it exactly right what the arguments were going to be. | ||
| Other members of the committee are reminded that opening statements may be submitted for the record. | ||
| We are pleased to have our panel of witnesses here today on this important topic. | ||
| Max Primerak, Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| The Honorable Ted Yoho, former U.S. Representative from Florida's 3rd Congressional District, and the Honorable Andrew Nazios, former administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development. | ||
| This committee recognizes the importance of the issues before us and is grateful to have you here to speak with us today. | ||
| Your full statements will be made a part of the record, and I'll ask each of you to keep your comments, spoken, and remarks to less than five minutes in order to allow time for member questions. | ||
| Hopefully, you give us something more than what we could just read in your opening statements. | ||
| I would also ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. McCormick, be allowed to sit on the dais and participate in today's hearing. | ||
| Without objection, so ordered. | ||
| I now recognize Mr. Primerack for your opening statement. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee. | |
| My name is Max Primerak. | ||
| I am a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| I previously served at the U.S. Agency for International PEPFAR saves lives! | ||
| Restore AIDS funding now! | ||
| Heffar saves lives! | ||
| Restore AIDS funding now! | ||
| PEPFAR saves lives! | ||
| Restore AIDS funding now! | ||
| PEPFAR saves lives! | ||
| Restore the AIDS funding now! | ||
| Get up, save lives! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Restore AIDS funding now! | |
| PEPFAR saves lives! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Restore AIDS funding now! | |
| I guess these guys don't watch the news. | ||
| They didn't realize that PEPFAR was one of the many programs that did prove to be life-saving, so the funding was restored. | ||
| Somebody better give them a link to, I don't know, maybe Fox News or something like that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You may resume your opening statement. | |
| Mr. Chairman, I previously served at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State. | ||
| I've dedicated 35 years to international relations work. | ||
| The views I express here today are my own. | ||
| President Donald Trump's decision to shutter USAID reflects the agency's loss of bipartisan support in Congress and the trust of the American people. | ||
| It exposes a bureaucracy that went off the ideological rails and no longer reflects the will or the values of the American people. | ||
| What should be and must be an effective tool of U.S. foreign policy has turned into a partisan global vehicle focused on spending money rather than achieving concrete outcomes aligned with American interests and on imposing radical social ideas that divide us at home and spur resentment abroad. | ||
| They refuse to be held accountable to Congress and American taxpayers who fund them. | ||
| Advocates evoke dangers to our national security, citing programs to counter communist China, protect us from the global spread of infectious diseases, and provide life-saving humanitarian aid. | ||
| I understand the importance of these programs. | ||
| At USAID, I co-chaired a Counter-China Interagency Group, oversaw containment of two Ebola outbreaks, and led the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. | ||
| But USAID's obsession with identity politics, gender fluidity, population control, and climate fanaticism undermined these goals. | ||
| Americans are now aware of massive waste, fraud, and abuse of their money. | ||
| Every single project was corrupted by this radical agenda. | ||
| They are not happy. | ||
| USAID's leadership failed in its most basic fiduciary responsibility, and that is to avoid the kinds of reputational risks that would imperil the agency's legitimacy with Congress and the American people. | ||
| USAID pushed developing countries to rely on communist China for their green energy needs. | ||
| Two years ago, 131 African lawmakers and religious leaders from 13 countries implored Congress not to use PEPFAR to promote abortion, stating, We want to express our concerns and suspicions that this funding is supporting abortion, that it violates our core beliefs concerning life, family, and religion. | ||
| Many Africans have told me, but also from other places in the world, the Chinese do not ask us to give up our religion to do business with them. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, our aid approach has severely harmed our global standing. | ||
| USAID's humanitarian system is also broken. | ||
| In Gaza, American aid financed Hamas's campaign to exterminate Israel. | ||
| Similarly, in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria, where we lack physical presence to ensure that our aid is not diverted to terrorists, our aid is sustaining these war economies. | ||
| USAID failed to properly manage the billions of dollars entrusted to it. | ||
| This committee discovered that USID partners were charging 50% or more for overhead. | ||
| A government audit showed that USAID could not account for overhead charges concerning $142 billion worth of awards. | ||
| These funds proved a boon for the progressive-dominated foreign aid industry. | ||
| President Trump's leadership has created a unique opportunity to fast-track important reforms of our aid system. | ||
| Secretary Rubio might look at the reforms made during the last Trump administration. | ||
| Our starting point was that the purpose of foreign aid is to end the need for it. | ||
| Foreign aid is not an international welfare program. | ||
| USAID is not an international NGO. | ||
| These must align with American interests and values. | ||
| A final point. | ||
| Congress must also do its part. | ||
| Why should pro-Hamas South Africa, Beijing's point country in Africa, receive billions of dollars of aid from us? | ||
| We should support our friends instead. | ||
| Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Primerac. | ||
| I now recognize Mr. Yoho for his opening statement. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Meeks, and members of the committee, it's an honor to participate in this hearing regarding USAID. | |
| I'm a former member of Congress serving from 2013 to 2021 representing Florida's 3rd Congressional District. | ||
| During my eight years in Congress, I served on this and the Agricultural Committee. | ||
| I had the honor to serve as chairman of the Asia Pacific Subcommittee during the 115th Congress. | ||
| I entered Congress. | ||
| Mr. Yoho, could you move a little closer to your mic? | ||
| It'll help turn it on too, won't it? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I lost that knowledge already, huh? | |
| I entered Congress with the goal of eliminating foreign aid for various reasons. | ||
| Looking back, I was ignorant on what I thought foreign aid was, what it did, and thought it was unnecessary. | ||
| Soon after my first foreign congressional delegation trip, I realized that foreign aid, when used properly, can be a tool in soft diplomacy that strengthens the nation's economy, security, increases trade, decreases migration, creates strong partners and allies. | ||
| When used improperly, it has the opposite effect on both our friends and adversaries and wastes taxpayers' money. | ||
| I became a strong proponent of reforming international assistance by working in a bipartisan and bicameral fashion with my co-sponsors along with the first Trump administration when we introduced the BILD Act that authorized the creation of the DFC. | ||
| This was the largest reform in foreign aid in over two decades, and my goal was to move countries from aid to trade with the use of effective tools managed correctly. | ||
| I chaired along with Congressman Adam Smith the effective aid caucus and met with members and outside groups to improve efficiency and effectiveness on assistance. | ||
| This committee has had many hearings dealing with USAID. | ||
| It's frustrating that an agency set up to further our security, prosperity, engage in humanitarian projects, and work to prevent the spread of diseases, hunger, and conflict have strayed so far from its original intent when it was created under President Kennedy in 1961. | ||
| U.S. aid has lost the trust of a large portion of the American people and the international community. | ||
| Remember, President Lincoln said, with public support, you can do almost anything. | ||
| Without it, you can't do anything. | ||
| The redesigned U.S. Foreign Assistance Entity will have to work hard to recreate that trust here and abroad. | ||
| Many new reforms are necessary in USAID. | ||
| There are many ways reform can be performed. | ||
| And many administrations, and as I heard here today, Congresses have acknowledged this, yet we did not act. | ||
| The Trump administration acted, and there's a lot of angst and concerns about who has authority, how is it going to be done. | ||
| Those debates will go on as long as people want to debate, criticize, and complain. | ||
| President Trump and Secretary Rubio stated the objectives of international aid very clearly moving forward. | ||
| Does it make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous? | ||
| It'll serve the nation, our security, and economy, as well as developing nations and our allies to get new reforms in place as soon as possible. | ||
| Not all aid is bad, nor is it all good. | ||
| We should focus on those programs that are good and make them better and more effective. | ||
| Programs that were misused and not aligned with the administration should be eliminated. | ||
| Congress should look to support programs that have a proven track record of success, and there are many examples to look at, and I'll be happy to discuss those. | ||
| Moving forward, I would recommend the Trump administration place aid into two categories. | ||
| First, the hard infrastructure projects like road, water, energy, transportation. | ||
| These are the projects that are necessary to build an economy in the recipient country so we can wean them off of aid. | ||
| The U.S. government has instruments like the DFC, MCC, tasked with the heavy lifting in initial phases of a project by providing risk insurance, technical assistance, and expertise, and brings in outside investors and other nations' DFIs. | ||
| Second, the humanitarian side of assistance via a repurposed U.S. aid-type entity working synergistically with the DFC and other USG agencies. | ||
| Feed the Future, African Growth and Opportunity Act are effective health and food security programs when implemented properly and generate much soft power goodwill. | ||
| Unfortunately, if mismanaged, we lose credibility, money, and drive the affected nations to our adversaries. | ||
| By pausing U.S. international assistance, a vacuum is created. | ||
| China, Russia, or other are already moving in to fill those voids. | ||
| The U.S. must quickly bring back the authorization, funding, and a knowledgeable workforce to implement those programs that align with the administration's goal. | ||
| Does it make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous? | ||
| One last point. | ||
| By not being effectively present can be arguably worse than pausing a program. | ||
| And all you have to do is look at South and Central America and look at how much we've ceded to China and their influence from Russia, China, and Iran. | ||
| That has to be dealt with immediately. | ||
| That's a national security threat. | ||
| Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I yield back my time and look forward to your questions. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Yoho. | ||
| I now recognize Mr. Nazios for your opening statement. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much. | |
| I speak for myself today. | ||
| I speak for myself today. | ||
| I've been involved in humanitarian work and development work. | ||
| Let's try that microphone one more time, maybe pull it a little closer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, how's that? | |
| Much better. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Better. | |
| Okay. | ||
| I speak for myself today. | ||
| I don't represent anyone. | ||
| And I've been doing this work since 1989 when I joined the Bush administration, the first Bush administration, as the director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance when the world order was collapsing. | ||
| And our little office, along with the Food for Peace office, saved tens of millions of lives around the world, which they continued to do through the BHA Bureau, which is now much larger than it was when I was there. | ||
| If you're upset about getting off course, so am I. | ||
| But let's course correct, not course destroy. | ||
| When I took over AID as the administrator in Bush 43, W's administration, in early 2001, I ordered my deputy to begin reviewing every single project, every single program in AID, line by line, and we eliminated 80 programs over a month. | ||
| And we moved that cash back into the program because there was a cassava mosaic that was destroying the cassava prof in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Eastern Congo. | ||
| There was a risk of a famine. | ||
| And we got cuttings in and we stopped the pandemic, the disease pandemic for the cassava. | ||
| My point is, I eliminated a lot of philosophically offensive programs that a conservative administration would not tolerate. | ||
| And when the Democrats took over, they moved the agency to the left. | ||
| I moved it to the right. | ||
| The Obama people actually said I was very right-wing. | ||
| I was the most right-wing administrator in the history of the agency. | ||
| And yet the career people followed what I wanted to do in the agency. | ||
| We put heavy emphasis on economic growth. | ||
| Some of the things you've criticized, sir, with all due respect, are economic growth programs that have been highly successful. | ||
| 10% of the workforce in Egypt is from tourism. | ||
| AID has properly invested $100 million over the years, and it's massively increased the number of jobs in Egypt. | ||
| They are our ally. | ||
| Don't we want people working instead of being unemployed? | ||
| It is 12% of the GDP of Egypt, tourism. | ||
| We call it development tourism. | ||
| We do it in Lebanon. | ||
| We do it in Tunisia. | ||
| We've done it in Kosovo and in Bosnia. | ||
| We've done it in Morocco. | ||
| We do it all over the world. | ||
| It brings in revenue and employs people. | ||
| It's an economic growth project. | ||
| I believe in economic growth. | ||
| I believe in the private sector. | ||
| I believe in free markets. | ||
| That's what AID does. | ||
| The notion that AID is some kind of a Marxist institution is absolutely ridiculous, okay? | ||
| I know the career officers. | ||
| I work with them. | ||
| There is a career track called the private sector officers. | ||
| And what do they do? | ||
| They work with the business community. | ||
| I started a program which the Democrats continued called the Global Development Alliance. | ||
| We started it very early on, 2001. | ||
| What it does is it matches AID money with corporate money to supply their supply chains. | ||
| We did this, we do this all over the world. | ||
| We're working with hundreds of American corporations. | ||
| We've raised $60 billion in private sector funding with the American business community to increase jobs all over the world. | ||
| We've been doing this for 24 years, very successfully. | ||
| The Europeans and the Canadians and the Australians have taken our lead in this and tried to replicate these public-private alliances. | ||
| 25% of the money in those GDAs is U.S. government money. | ||
| 75% is private money. | ||
| We invest together. | ||
| We don't give them any money. | ||
| They don't give us any money. | ||
| We design the project. | ||
| We co-invest and then we manage it. | ||
| The notion that AID is irresponsible in terms of its oversight is utter nonsense. | ||
| I wrote an essay 12 years ago called The Clash of the Counterbureaucracy and Development. | ||
| It was published. | ||
| It's the most cited thing I've written in the scholarly literature. | ||
| And it was based on my frustration with the level over and over and over again of oversight. | ||
| The Inspector General, the Special Inspector General. | ||
| Why do we need two Inspector Generals in Afghanistan and in Iraq? | ||
| Then we have the GAO, we have the OMB, we have the Congressional Oversights Committee. | ||
| Every line of what AID does is overseen by seven different levels of oversight. | ||
| You know why money disappears? | ||
| I'll tell you why. | ||
| Where do we work? | ||
| Where do we work? | ||
| Christian NGOs are now delivering food in Sudan in a famine. | ||
| There will be two million people dead by the end of this year. | ||
| Those are the projections. | ||
| There is no government in Sudan. | ||
| There's no police in Sudan. | ||
| There are no courts. | ||
| Thank you for your opening remarks this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman Mass. | |
| And I appreciate your leadership, and I look forward to working alongside you to bring needed reform to our diplomatic strategy. | ||
| We certainly have a lot of work to do, and this hearing is just beginning. | ||
| Accountability is coming. | ||
| Thank you also to our witnesses today. | ||
| The corruption going on behind USAID's doors has been a wake-up call for all Americans. | ||
| As chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, I spent the last two years exposing the Biden administration's sabotage of our border and the policies that kept America safe. | ||
| I saw firsthand their willful refusal to protect this country. | ||
| Under the guise of foreign aid, USAID has been an unapologetic front for a far-left agenda. | ||
| It has become self-evident there weren't a handful of foolish policies, but rather a coordinated strategy of radical, idiotic, and often anti-American priorities. | ||
| Idiotic, you say? | ||
| Millions to teach Moroccans how to make pottery? | ||
| The Moroccans were making pottery before we were a country. | ||
| This entire debate today and the crocodile tears from Democrats just goes to show what's wrong with this town. | ||
| Not a single Democrat I've heard has expressed dismay at the many examples of crazy, wasteful spending. | ||
| I don't understand the objection to a deep dive in how we spend our money, but perhaps it's the fact that over the last several weeks, a massive surge has occurred in the search for a criminal defense attorney. | ||
| That probably says it all five times in this city, any other city in the nation. | ||
| I'd like to remind the committee that President Kennedy unilaterally created USID through an executive order in 1961. | ||
| Yet the president, President Trump, orders a momentary pause after winning a mandate for reform, and Democrats cry, constitutional crisis. | ||
| This is after four years of reckless spending and unrepentant lawlessness from the Biden administration. | ||
| I want the American people to understand how this works in Washington. | ||
| As long as you're spending other people's money, no one bats an eye. | ||
| But the second you want to save taxpayer dollars, the swamp cries wolf, or in this case, unprecedented constitutional crisis. | ||
| This breathless, fake outrage from the left is utterly insane. | ||
| And you know what the American people, you know they can see right through it. | ||
| The generosity of Americans and the blessing of giving aid to others has always been one of our most valuable tools for diplomacy. | ||
| The American people have a proud history of championing aid to our fellow man, but lawless bureaucrats have poisoned that goodwill. | ||
| Many USAID programs are wasteful and actively sabotage our diplomatic relationships by forcing woke ideology on our partners. | ||
| Just look at PEPFAR, a beacon of hope in the fight against HIV AIDS, yet the Biden administration even weaponized this crucial program, jeopardizing lives and undermining our relationship with African nations. | ||
| Under administrator powers, our message to Africa was explicit as it was heinous. | ||
| Abort your babies and violate your religious convictions, or we won't grant you life-saving aid. | ||
| Let me be crystal clear to those who've been complicit in this betrayal. | ||
| Firing those involved is just a start. | ||
| We have a long way to go. | ||
| And one last point. | ||
| I want to correct the record on a couple of things. | ||
| First, Elon Musk and the team that is working does not have access to personal data. | ||
| They don't have access to your social security number. | ||
| That is a lie. | ||
| Elon Musk does have a security clearance. | ||
| He has a top-secret security clearance. | ||
| By God, he makes the rockets for NASA. | ||
| But the suggestion that he somehow can't be trusted to dig into how we're spending our money is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the corruption and the wasteful spending that has occurred there. | ||
| And I am personally offended at the left's continued references to 19-year-olds and 21-year-olds in there doing work. | ||
| There are 19-year-olds who have won the Medal of Honor defending this country. | ||
| Just because you're 19 doesn't mean you're some child who can't be trusted. | ||
| It is offensive. | ||
| And if you're 19 years old out there, 20 years old, and you're serving this country, by God, your service matters. | ||
| Keep serving. | ||
| We thank you for that. | ||
| It would appear that I'm out of time, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| I yield. | ||
| Amen. | ||
| Representative Castro is now recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Chairman. | |
| I would just say that if you can find us a 19-year-old Medal of Honor winner who'd love to serve in the U.S. government, we'd love to have him, rather than this 19-year-old who's a mystery man and got fired from his last job. | ||
| As y'all hear a lot of angry, fire-breathing rhetoric coming from the other side, I want you to consider as Americans where we started the year. | ||
| Our country, for all the complaints and all the anger, is still the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth, with the lowest unemployment rate in decades and a strong economy, where foreign aid represents about 1% of our total budget. | ||
| And yet, Elon Musk and this administration's attempt to illegally shut down USAID and freeze ongoing foreign assistance programs has been met with support and applause from some of the world's worst authoritarians. | ||
| Venezuelan Interior Minister and Nicolas Maduro's key lieutenant celebrated the Trump administration's actions in ending support to the Venezuelan opposition. | ||
| In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega's sons said that, quote, Trump turned off the faucet for terrorists when he shuttered USAID funding. | ||
| Belarusian leader Lukashenko applauded the administration's decision to cut funding for, quote, the fugitive opposition. | ||
| The opposition that for years Republicans have said they support, they have now abandoned. | ||
| President Trump has abandoned. | ||
| He cut off TPS for Venezuelans and betrayed the people of South Florida and sent them back to a man he says is dangerous, yet sent Rick Rinnell to handshake with. | ||
| After this administration's halted funding to Cambodia to remove unexploded bombs that the United States dropped on their country years ago, China offered to move in and replace U.S. funding. | ||
| China has offered to go do the job that we are no longer doing. | ||
| What do you think that does for American diplomacy? | ||
| What do you think it does for our reputation around the world? | ||
| What do those people think of us that we won't help them take away the bombs that we dropped years ago? | ||
| Similar celebrations have come from leaders in Russia, Iran, Hungary, Cuba, and other countries as we've cut support to democracy activists in these countries, democracy activists. | ||
| Republicans have been eager to accuse Democrats of, quote, abandoning our allies. | ||
| The reality is that the Trump administration abandoned our allies everywhere, and it didn't even take a week. | ||
| Donald Trump has abandoned those fighting for democracy in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and China. | ||
| He's abandoned Taiwan, freezing security assistance to the island nation facing threats of invasion from China. | ||
| Donald Trump abandoned our partners in Indonesia, Malaysia, Iraq, and other countries fighting terrorism with the support of USAID. | ||
| He's abandoned the country of Jordan by freezing security assistance, abandoned millions of victims of HIV AIDS supported by PEPFAR, and abandoned those suffering from malaria and TB. | ||
| Donald Trump has also abandoned American citizens, American farmers that feed the world, whose produce is rotting in ports and warehouses, and our USAID professionals and families that he stranded abroad. | ||
| Make no mistake, these decisions will come back to haunt the United States of America. | ||
| And not only in terms of diplomacy, not only in terms of how people think of us in faraway lands. | ||
| Those diseases that we're no longer helping to cure, people will get sick not only in those countries, but in the United States. | ||
| And I hope that just as folks are taking credit for what's going on now, that when those diseases hit the United States, that they will take full credit for that. | ||
| I have a question of the panel. | ||
| I want to ask, Mr. Natsios, whether you think these actions, and you were a USAID administrator, you saw the good and the bad and you had reform. | ||
| I had a reform bill myself, which some Republicans joined me on last Congress. | ||
| You think the totality of this is making us stronger in the world or weaker? | ||
| I think that our aid program makes us stronger, and I think USAID, prior to all of the controversy, was achieving that, except for the woke program that has been introduced, which has alienated very conservative Christian societies in Africa. | ||
| And Mr. Natsios, I want to interrupt you for just a second, because there was an example of funding to help LGBTQ communities in Uganda. | ||
| In Uganda, the death penalty was proposed for gay people. | ||
| Is that considered woke? | ||
| Is that what they're using as an example of woke is helping gay people because they're under the threat of death by their own government? | ||
| Any violence against any person is not acceptable. | ||
| So I understand what you're saying. | ||
| So you would be for that funding, then? | ||
| I'm saying is that we're dealing with very conservative society, Muslim and Christian, and we need to respect not what you're talking about, because that happened, I think, in reaction to us, actually, because it wasn't there before. | ||
| But let me just say that we give, AID gives, a billion dollars a year to Christian NGOs, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, my church, the Orthodox Church, and mainline Protestant, a billion dollars a year. | ||
| All those programs are now frozen. | ||
| They've laid off the staff, and I have to say, it's damaging the church's mission in the world. | ||
| I think this whole shutdown is, and I might say, Mr. Chairman, just not to be partisan, just to tell you what's happening. | ||
| I've met with the Christian groups. | ||
| Even though they have waivers, the Phoenix system is not operating. | ||
| Unless the Phoenix system can operate, they can't issue checks. | ||
| No one is getting funded, even though the waiver has been granted. | ||
| I'm not saying that in a partisan way. | ||
| Please do something about it. | ||
| It's having an effect in the field in a profound way. | ||
| A lot of AIDS orphans are being taken care of by the church. | ||
| Gentlemen's time has expired. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the staff has been laid out. | |
| Gentlemen's time has expired. | ||
| Representative from Kentucky. | ||
| Mr. Barr is now recognized. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Appreciate the very important hearing exposing the jaw-dropping waste at the USIAD. | ||
| And many U.S. aid foreign assistance grants are not only wasteful, but counterproductive to our diplomatic and foreign policy objectives. | ||
| Just a few examples. | ||
| $75,000 for a drag show workshop in Ecuador. | ||
| $37 million for services for sex workers and their clients and transgender people in South Africa. | ||
| $31 million for providing U.S. aid employees with resilience, wellness, and work-life balance counseling. | ||
| $24 million to build green transportation alternatives in Georgia. | ||
| A half a million dollars to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly. | ||
| $15 million to promote LGBT rights for individuals in Kenya. | ||
| And $2 million to conduct sex change surgeries in Guatemala through a trans-led organization. | ||
| My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are whining that President Trump has fired the Inspector General of this agency. | ||
| Thank goodness for President Trump for firing an Inspector General for not exposing what Elon Musk has exposed with this waste. | ||
| Are these programs what hardworking American taxpayers should be funding? | ||
| But let me focus on Uganda because my colleague from Texas raised that issue, a country that has thousands of soldiers fighting for our counterterrorism interests against al-Shabaab in Somalia. | ||
| And that country was severely punished by the Biden administration for signing its anti-homosexuality law into law in May of 2023. | ||
| The Biden administration revoked Uganda's AGOA eligibility, enacted visa restrictions on Ugandan individuals, and pressured the World Bank to prohibit new public financing. | ||
| Despite this, U.S. aid has provided a $600,000 grant to, quote, empower Uganda's LGBT community to push back against this legislation, and a $5.4 million grant to shift public perception and attitudes in Uganda towards LGBT acceptance and to train LGBT individuals on the skills needed to engage in the economy. | ||
| Now, in Uganda, China is expected to finance the $5 billion East African crude oil pipeline directly because Western leaders and the World Bank are walking away from the project because the Biden administration's response to their own domestic legislation. | ||
| Mr. Primerak, should taxpayer dollars go toward penalizing countries like Uganda for making their own internal domestic political decisions on social issues that one administration doesn't agree with, which in turn strengthens countries' relationships with our adversaries like the communists in China. | ||
| Congressman, I've spoken to many officials from the region there, and they explained to me their shock when they would prepare for meetings with Secretary Blinken. | ||
| They prepared about how can we work together to combat China, actually. | ||
| But when they had the meeting, they were hit with the woke things about the climate, about the LGBT, and all these issues. | ||
| They were utterly stunned that here they are, Africa, they know about the challenge and the great geostrategic fight that we have, ready to work with us, but we weren't ready to work with them. | ||
| Well, look, I get it. | ||
| The gentleman from Texas disagrees with the Ugandan people. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| The Biden administration disagreed with the Ugandan people, and Secretary Blinken and U.S.AID in the previous administration disagreed with the Ugandan people on this issue of homosexuality legislation. | ||
| I get it. | ||
| The question is not their opinion. | ||
| The question is what is the diplomatic job of the State Department and U.S.AID? | ||
| Is it to lecture the Ugandans or is it to help us counter Belt and Road? | ||
| Is the job of the State Department and USAID to advance American national security? | ||
| That's the question. | ||
| And what they did in that instance with Uganda is compromise American national security and empower our adversary. | ||
| Representative Yoho Ted, it's good to see you. | ||
| Thank you for your amazing work and your authorship of the BILLD Act. | ||
| You were instrumental in the passage of that bill and authorized U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. | ||
| Can you see DFC playing a much more effective role in advancing our interests abroad and countering China's Belt and Road? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| And if you could, how can reforms like equity scoring and country eligibility changes help U.S. investments in countries like Panama? | ||
| It's a big reform. | ||
| I mean, that's the best tool we have to counter the BRI, the Belt Road Initiative. | ||
| And the equity scoring is a must-fix. | ||
| It's something that has to be because right now it limits what the DFC can do. | ||
| And then raising the country of eligibility allows us to go into these countries strategically where we can counter the BRI where we can't go now. | ||
| And this is something that we're going to talk about next month in the reauthorization. | ||
| And I hope it's a bipartisan effort. | ||
| And there's a lot of support. | ||
| But if we don't do it, we're going to see that much more influence. | ||
| And it goes to people that aren't friendly to the United States. | ||
| Well, thanks for your leadership on that. | ||
| And I agree with you. | ||
| Move from aid to trade. | ||
| To trade. | ||
| And thank you to President Trump for his leadership on rooting out all of this waste and frankly activity that undermines our national security. | ||
| Votes have been called. | ||
| We're going to go through one more round of questions and then recess until the conclusion of votes. | ||
| So Representative Sherpalis-McCormick, you will be the last one to be recognized before we recess. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member. | |
| And thank you, everybody, for being here. | ||
| U.S.AID, along with the State Department, has been one of our strongest mechanisms to secure the region and national security and also build relationships throughout the entire world. | ||
| In Haiti, we've seen huge support and huge, huge forward movement when it comes to USAID providing an option for many children who are either forced to join the gangs or face starvation and their families dying. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But USAID has stepped in and actually gave them an option, which is to eat and provide food. | |
| We recently spoke with the World Health Organization and other organizations that are there feeding people in Haiti. | ||
| And one of the things they brought up to us is that if they don't have the funds by March, they will not have the option to start feeding again and doing those programs in Haiti. | ||
| Although there is a waiver, we've already talked about at length about the problems with the waiver and them kicking in back with the payment system. | ||
| But we also have to talk about how there is not enough people to be working at USAID right now to facilitate that. | ||
| We've gotten several calls of people who are anxious about what is going on, including people who are actually sending food out through our ports in Palm Beach. | ||
| We've heard a lot of people wondering if their food is going to be sent. | ||
| Farmers now are worried. | ||
| We have over 23 farms that are being impacted in the state of Florida. | ||
| So I have a question for you. | ||
| My question is, I think we all can come together and agree that auditing U.S. aid is actually a good thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can talk about where we agree and disagree. | |
| However, the real issue is implementation. | ||
| We're finding that this implementation is creating extensive collateral damage to American citizens and also to our partners. | ||
| And we're also finding that some of this damage is irreparable harm, meaning that we just can't fix it by giving them money. | ||
| We're hearing more and more about people who are exposed and who need life-saving treatment who are not getting it despite the waivers. | ||
| And so I believe that the strength of our nation is us following that constitutional privilege of us embodying and allowing Congress to actually determine the implementation. | ||
| So I want to know for you how much of U.S. AIDS programs are actually life-saving programs. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Of the $38 billion last year, $15 billion was humanitarian assistance and emergencies, famine relief, disasters, civil wars. | ||
| $8 billion was for health. | ||
| Most, except for the family planning program, which is the last time I checked was $275 million, most of the health programs were life-saving. | ||
| And so do you believe that if Congress- That's about 55% of the budget. | ||
| So do you believe if Congress actually had the opportunity to do its role in actually crafting out the implementation over Doge, do you believe that we would have been able to substantiate or even to make sure that many people who are being harmed right now are not being harmed? | ||
| Well, there's a problem now that people who are being denied who can't get the anti-retrovirals because the system is shut down. | ||
| There's violence against the aid workers and against our AID officers. | ||
| There was an incident just now in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Lakondo, where the aid officers had to take their families and go across to Brazzaville, across the river to another country, because they were under attack for people who thought they were going to die because they couldn't get this aid. | ||
| There's a whole bunch of articles on this. | ||
| This is not a small incident. | ||
| This was very, very serious. | ||
| Some of the embassy people were under attack too. | ||
| Well, thank you so much for identifying that because U.S. aid is not a faucet that you can turn on and off. | ||
| You cannot pause it and then turn it on and think that there will be no damage. | ||
| However, I do have confidence that if Congress had the opportunity instead of Doge, that we could have worked across the aisle to identify what would have been the consequences and in fact protect not just our farmers but the people who are using it. | ||
| We're hearing more and more stories about people who are actually losing their lives because they were part of an experimental program, they were part of a U.S. aid program, even hearing stories about people who have objects and instruments who are still in their body and because there's a stop order, they cannot remove them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so as we move forward, I would like for us to focus on what is the strength of our nation, us being able to work together and identify how we can actually promote the agenda of the United States, but still preserve our compassion. | |
| And I have full faith and confidence that if we had the opportunity to do our constitutional duty as members of Congress, working with the chairman, who I've worked with several times before, and I believe he's a compassionate person, that we would have saw what was happening and prevented any kind of collateral damage to our farms, to our district, to our ports, especially the loss of life. | ||
| So, as we go forward, I think we should stop focusing on totally a few programs which you may disagree on, but focus on how we can regain ourselves internationally. | ||
| Because every single day that we actually have these arguments and funding isn't going out, China is stepping in. | ||
| Russia is stepping in. | ||
| And what they're telling them is that we are not reliable, that we will not be there, that we will start and we will stop and people will get hurt. | ||
| Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Over the past two weeks, the Trump administration and unelected billionaire Elon Musk have led a reckless and illegal attack on USAID, freezing funds for an agency that, in the past words of the Republicans' own witness, Mr. Primerack, quote, increase country self-reliance and resilience, all while advancing American values and interests. | |
| Stopping USAID's work jeopardizes millions of lives and billions of dollars of investments in American small businesses and farms, all while undermining our national security, diplomatic efforts, and global influence. | ||
| It's great to be on this committee. | ||
| Before coming to Congress, I actually spent many years working for a Seattle-based global health nonprofit organization that employs about 1,600 people in my district as well as around the world. | ||
| And many of our partners were USAID-funded. | ||
| And so I got to see firsthand the direct impact of effective USAID programs and life-saving work all over the world. | ||
| The devastation that's being caused by this irresponsible funding freeze is alarming and painful. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Even though Secretary Rubio did backtrack from Trump's order and said that life-saving humanitarian work would be exempt from the freeze on foreign aid through a complicated waiver process, that process has been a mess. | |
| Funding has stayed frozen, even for programs with a waiver. | ||
| And now there's a new directive that again puts any approvals for these waivers on hold. | ||
| Drug deliveries have been stopped. | ||
| Life-saving food is rotting at ports. | ||
| And we have abandoned people with experimental drugs and medical products in their bodies, cutting them off from the researchers who supervise their care. | ||
| So let's be clear: this conspiracy theory-driven liquidation by Doge is about trying to come up with spending cuts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's the other committee I'm running back and forth between, however minor in the grand scheme of things, that they hope will finance the extension of Trump Tax Scam 2.0, the effort to make American taxpayers pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest. | |
| Dangerously, it's also about fueling an erroneous belief that America spends too much on foreign aid that does not serve American interests. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If you ask any American or the average American in this country how much we spend, they'll say 25% of our federal budget is going to foreign aid. | |
| And I'll say, I'll tell you what, give me a number that you would be willing to spend on foreign aid, and we'll agree to spend it. | ||
| And they'll say 10%. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But guess what? | |
| We actually don't even spend three-quarters of 1% of our entire federal budget on foreign assistance. | ||
| And so the reality is that USAID spends much less than most Americans think. | ||
| And the impact for that tiny amount of money is extremely important for our diplomatic efforts, for our national security, and for our relationships and global presence on the stage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Nacios, you are the former Massachusetts Republican Party chair. | |
| You served as the U.S. administrator under George W. Bush. | ||
| Can you briefly explain why the average American should care about USAID money and work and what are the benefits to the average American? | ||
| And I have a couple questions for you, so just be brief, please. | ||
| First, you're. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can't shut ourselves off from the world because our borders, we have a huge problem at the border. | |
| I have no doubt that that's a legitimate issue. | ||
| We need to deal with it. | ||
| But I'll tell you what's going to happen once the border is impregnable. | ||
| They're going to come through the coastline. | ||
| And you can't put walls up for the whole coastline of the United States. | ||
| It's too big. | ||
| I live in the coast in the summertime. | ||
| We even live in Texas, but in the summertime, we live in Maine because it's a little hot in Texas. | ||
| And I don't want walls up on the coastline in Maine. | ||
| So, how do you deal with that? | ||
| You make sure that if famines are starting, you stop them before they get out of hand. | ||
| You know what, people? | ||
| At the end of any famine, people start moving en masse. | ||
| When you have an earthquake, as we did in Haiti, what do people do? | ||
| They start leaving the island. | ||
| Where do they come? | ||
| They come to the United States. | ||
| Not through the border, along the coast. | ||
| So we need a presence in the world to reduce forced migration. | ||
| It's the biggest forced migration crisis in the history since World War II. | ||
| 125 million people are now not where they intend to be. | ||
| Their refugees are internally displaced. | ||
| Number two, we already went through the diseases. | ||
| It's not in American interest to have a disease get out of control because it's going to be a catastrophe for all of us. | ||
| And Dr. Yoho is absolutely correct. | ||
| This pandemic was nowhere near as bad as 1918. | ||
| 5% of the world's population died in 1918 in six months. | ||
| I'm going to stop you because I have one more question before I get to the end of my time. | ||
| The waivers. | ||
| Secretary Rubio said these waivers are there. | ||
| Are they working? | ||
| Even in PEPFAR, are they working? | ||
| Are we getting money to these life-saving programs? | ||
| I have spoken to the Christian NGOs because I know them. | ||
| That's the community I come from. | ||
| And they said they appreciate the waivers. | ||
| They have the waivers, but there's no money flowing to them. | ||
| That's what they told me. | ||
| A waiver doesn't seem to be a problem. | ||
| Many of them are old friends of mine. | ||
| They would not make this up. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Chair now recognizes Representative Luna. | ||
| Chairman, for the record, I'd like to submit this letter saying that PEPFAR funding was actually resumed. | ||
| I know there's been a lot of push saying that the Trump admin had actually cut it, but thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I want to start out by saying initially I think the idea behind USAID was done with a good intention. | |
| However, we've come to find out that the agency has indeed, to a certain extent, operated in a row capacity. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And USAID has absolutely broken the trust with the American people and not been transparent about where our taxpayer dollars are going. | |
| There's an individual by the name of Mike Benz. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He actually served over at the State Department for a while and he's been going on to expose a lot of what USAID has been doing, which, being a member of oversight and being on this committee, I wanted to verify and see if he was telling the truth, which much to my disappointment, he was. | |
| And I say that because I'm disappointed that our taxpayer dollars are funding some of these items. | ||
| I mean, to just put this in perspective, in 2021, the Special Operations Command under Mark Milley, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, put out an instruction manual, a vision for 2021 and beyond, that contained instructions and examples on how the military could work with the State Department, Intel Services, and USAID using race rights. | ||
| Here's examples of some of the instruction manuals here, one and two, in order to destabilize nations. | ||
| In addition to that, they advocated for setting up job fairs near some of these rights so that disaffected workers could gain employment. | ||
| Now, as a member of Congress, I ask myself, did anyone in USAID get elected to Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How about to a presidency? | |
| When you are acting in the shadows and you are destabilizing nations using race wars to do it and then advocating that the military does it, in my opinion, not only do you put the future generations that would have to fight in those wars in jeopardy, but at the end of the day, you're operating without any oversight. | ||
| So I guess the question for you guys is, Mr. Naxios, is that something that you are aware of? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you aware that that instruction manual is being promoted not just with the military under Millie, but that USAID may be operating in this capacity? | |
| Because in my opinion, and I'm sure I speak on behalf of many of my constituents, I don't think that's where our taxpayer dollars need to be going. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I completely agree with you. | |
| personally, I doubt very much that what you've been told is accurate, but let me just tell you. | ||
| Well, look, I'm telling you right now, I brought their seats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| And the reason I'm not trying to argue with you, but I find this disturbing on so many capacities. | ||
| And I would like to also just, if I can, sir, Mike Benz, what he's exposing and bringing receipts, I've confirmed it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for doing that on behalf of the American people because I understand that when you take on the intelligence agencies, we're also now finding that apparently in this manual that they're also advocating for social media campaigns, illuminating controversy to a global audience. | |
| I mean, using disinformation campaigns, is this happening here in our own country? | ||
| Where is the oversight? | ||
| I'm just to ask you, who in the agency, what bureau. | ||
| I just said you can actually find that instruction in this manual. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That Millie. | |
| Yes, but Millie approved it. | ||
| You have it right here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
USAID working with government agencies. | |
| I mean, this is not. | ||
| Wait a second. | ||
| Did AID say that or did the military say that? | ||
| Well, that would be the question for you, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I do. | |
| I mean, these operations. | ||
| Sorry to interrupt you. | ||
| These operations that are taking place without government oversight, without the authority of the president, without the authority of Congress, real men and women serve and they die because of stuff like this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When you destabilize nations without any oversight, we have to fight those wars. | |
| You have our chairman right here that literally risked his life. | ||
| No, I'm sorry to interrupt you. | ||
| I'm frustrated. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know it's not necessarily your fault. | |
| I'm telling you, as a head of agency, that's not. | ||
| I'm telling what Benz told you is nonsense. | ||
| That's not nonsense. | ||
| These are the information reforms. | ||
| And Ben, Benz put this out to me. | ||
| AID did not write that. | ||
| Sir, I disagree with you on so many levels. | ||
| And I appreciate you being here. | ||
| How do I know what? | ||
| Any person can write AID's name into a manual. | ||
| It goes on and on. | ||
| Sir, they are advocating that the U.S. military work with taxpayer funds and State Department USAID funds to destabilize nations. | ||
| That is unacceptable. | ||
| I don't care who wrote it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
USAID needs to come down and condemn it. | |
| They need to provide oversight to Congress on exactly where our tax dollars are going. | ||
| And I know I might be at 17 seconds with our time, but sir, I hope that you agree. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can I, yes or no? | |
| Do you agree that this is wrong? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Period. | |
| Should this be happening? | ||
| The military should be held accountable. | ||
| I think it's a good idea. | ||
| And should USAID condemn it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nonsense decision. | |
| Should USAID condemn it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Should they condemn it? | |
| The military should. | ||
| USAID, should USAID also condemn this? | ||
| Of course, we don't comment. | ||
| AIDS. | ||
| It's none of our business. | ||
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