▶ 0:02:28e e
▶ 0:03:17meet you let me get this for committee on Foreign Affairs will come to order I ask that everybody in the room regardless of your position please rise join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for
▶ 0:03:57all the purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the misuse of public trust through US 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
▶ 0:04:27and many of the programs in USA ID 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 lying the programs that usaid and the state department have spent money on are indefensible they hurt America 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
▶ 0:04:58fireplace instead the Biden Administration spent it imposing their far- leftwing 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
▶ 0:05:28how to fight back against inter 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
▶ 0:05:58and 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
▶ 0:06:29so 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 programs that's not what competing looks like for the United States of America on the contrary last month when I participated in a Q&A with my colleague here to the left in the United States Institute of Peace which will have to explain their funding
▶ 0:06:59the 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
▶ 0:07:34or 19yearold Mr burett thank you maybe we won't do this video but I have the video that shows exactly what the Uganda 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
▶ 0:08:05that 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
▶ 0:08:36in 2024 and it says very specifically in es fop's approaches 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 Larsen that usaid has conducted crooked NOS around Washington DC swindling American taxpayers out of their money
▶ 0:09:06A 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
▶ 0:09:36let me give a warning to my colleagues it will be shortsighted of you if you turn a blind eye to USA'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 $225,000
▶ 0:10:07for a drag show seminar for Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador and we are going to show you that video that's the US aid program spending money we will be writing these programs out of law as we conduct our first full State Department
▶ 0:10:37review 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
▶ 0:11:07States 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 colle colleague ranking member Gregory Meeks I want to welcome our witnesses to our first full Committee hearing this
▶ 0:11:38Congress but I would be remiss if I didn't make clear my disappointment in the midst of the chaos created by the Trump administrations unlawful attempt to shutter us Aid and Paul's foreign assistance funds we don't have any one here today from the administration to explain to appear and to explained their actions before
▶ 0:12:09this committee it shouldn't be just private sector individuals here we are the oversight of the US government and we should have members from the state department the Secretary of State Rubio presid and my Democratic colleagues and I have asked the chairman to have a Committee
▶ 0:12:39hearing 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 we don't have a king we have a system if the administration believes what they have
▶ 0:13:09done is legal and merited they should be before Congress they should be here they should be talking to the American people directly we should be summoning them here I also want to do away with with the myth that this exercise with Doge and US Aid is about addressing waste Fraud and
▶ 0:13:39Abuse because if you really care about waste Fraud and Abuse you don't illegally Fire 21 independent inspector Generals in the dark of night you don't fire the head of the government ethics office just this week president Trump if IED us Aid's independent Inspector General just one day after he issued a report showing that the administration's own effort to dismantle
▶ 0:14:10us Aid is wasting taxpayer dollars and putting our national security at risk 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
▶ 0:14:40from 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 issue many Republicans have long championed US foreign assistance as critical
▶ 0:15:11to our national security as a source of United States soft power and a key tool to outcompete China's growing Global influence despite my disappointment over not having Trump's Administration panelists here I am pleased that among our witness today we have a number of individuals who are Republicans I look at my former colleague Ted Yoho who I have traveled with on several times several
▶ 0:15:41cells and we visited usaid programs I know when you go and travel and see firsthand the work of dedicated us Aid 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
▶ 0:16:11platform now I only have a few minutes left so I won't spend my time debunking every miscar or outright lie we've heard from the Republican distractors of usaid these are distractions meant to obscure the critical work USA ID 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
▶ 0:16:43yes so ordered and what I will use my time on is making clear that this hearing title the US Aid 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 us Aid's mission in some of the world's most challenging and dangerous
▶ 0:17:13places 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 3 weeks who could have been born HIV free if only we continued to provide their mothers with the necessary medication
▶ 0:17:43they were sitting on the shelves it's portrayed 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 the earth with the virus still present want to know what happens when we stop funding this type of work just look at at Kansas with the outbreak of tuberculosis right now grows so it's not just about health programs Economic Development programs and Latin America build stronger communities and help reduce migration to the United States good governance Independent Media Civil
▶ 0:18:13Society programs and 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
▶ 0:18:43statements may be submitted for the record we are pleased to have our panel of witnesses here today on this important topic Max primac senior research fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center For Freedom At The Heritage Foundation The Honorable Ted Yoho former US representative from Florida's thirdd congressional district and the honorable Andrew naos former administrator at the US 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
▶ 0:19:14will be made a part of the record and I'll ask each of you to keep your your comments spoken remarks to less than five minutes in order to allow time for member questions hopefully you give us something that uh more than what we could just read in your opening statements and I would also ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Georgia Mr Mr McCormack be allowed to sit on the dis and participate in today's hearing without objection so ordered I now recognize Mr primac for your opening statement Mr chairman thank you for the opportunity to
▶ 0:19:44testify before this committee my name is Max primac I am a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation I previously served at the US agency for International peer saves sa lives restore fing now help our saes restore fing
▶ 0:20:22Resto funding now restore AIDS funding now pep I guess these guys don't watch the news they didn't realize that pepar was one of the many programs that uh did prove to be life- saving so the funding was restored somebody better give them a link to uh I don't know maybe Fox News or something like that you may resume your opening statement Mr chairman I previously
▶ 0:20:52served at US agency for International Development and US 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 usid 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
▶ 0:21:22be and Must Be an Effective tool of US 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
▶ 0:21:53programs 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 usid I co-chaired counter China in her Agency Group oversaw containment of two Ebola outbreaks and led the Bureau for humanitarian assistance but Us's obsession with identity politics gender fluidity population control
▶ 0:22:23and 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 usid
▶ 0:22:54pushed 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 pepar 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
▶ 0:23:24the 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
▶ 0:23:54usid failed to properly manage the billions of dollars in entrusted to it this committee discovered that usid Partners were charging 50% or more for overhead a government audit showed that usid 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
▶ 0:24:24Fast Track important reforms of our Aid 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
▶ 0:24:54part why should Pro Hamas South Africa beijing's Point country in Africa received 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 Prim I now recognize Mr yo for his opening statement 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
▶ 0:25:25serving from 2013 to 2021 representing Florida's third 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 it'll help turn it on too won't it thank you I lost that knowledge already huh um I entered congress with the goal of eliminating foreign aid for various reasons
▶ 0:25:55looking back I was ignorant on what I thought foreign a was what it did and thought it was unnecessary soon after my first foreign con 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 waste taxpayers
▶ 0:26:26money I became a strong proponent of reforming International assistance by working in a bipartisan and bamal fashion with my co-sponsors along with the first Trump Administration when we introduced the build act that authorized the creation of the DFC this was the largest reform in foreign a 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
▶ 0:26:56improve efficiency and effectiveness on assistance this committee has had has had many hearings dealing with usaid it's frustrating that an agency set up to further our security Prosperity engage in hum humanitarian projects and work to prevent the speed spread of diseases hunger and conflict have strayed so far from its original intent when it was created under President Kennedy in 1961 us Aid has lost the trust of a large portion of the American people
▶ 0:27:26and the International Community remember President Lincoln he said with public support you can do almost anything without it you can't do anything the redesigned US foreign assistance entity will have to work hard to recreate that trust here and abroad many new reforms were necessary in usaid uh 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
▶ 0:27:56and there's a lot of angst and concerns about who has Authority how's 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
▶ 0:28:26is bad nor is it all good we should focus on those programs that are that are good and make them better and more effective programs that were misused and not align 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 for uh 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
▶ 0:28:56transportation uh these are the projects that are necessary to build an economy in the recipient country so we can wean them off of Aid uh the US government uh 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 out brings in outside investors and other nations dfis second the humanitarian side of assistance via a repurpose U us Aid type entity working synergistically
▶ 0:29:27with the D C 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 uh soft power Goodwill unfortunately if mismanaged we lose credibility uh money and drive uh the affected Nations to our adversaries by pausing us International assistance a vacuum is created China Russia or other are already moving in to fill those
▶ 0:29:58the US must quickly uh 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 seated to China and their influence from
▶ 0:30:28Russia 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 yo I now recognize Mr naos for your opening statement thank you very much I speak for myself today I speak for myself today uh I've been involved in human work develop let's try that microphone one more time maybe pull it a little closer okay how's that
▶ 0:30:58much better 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 uh it through the BHA Bureau which is now much larger than it was when I was there
▶ 0:31:29if you're upset about getting off course so am I but let's course correct not 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 lined by line and we eliminated
▶ 0:31:5980 programs over a month and we moved that cash back into the program because there was a casava mosaic that was destroying the cassava prop in Uganda uh Rwanda ruy and Eastern Congo there was a risk of a famine and we got cuttings in and we stopped the pandemic the uh the disease pandemic for the cassaba my point is I eliminated a lot of philosophically
▶ 0:32:30offensive 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 with all due respect our economic growth programs
▶ 0:33:00that have been highly successful 10% of the workforce in Egypt is from tourism Aid has properly uh invested a hundred million dollar 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 done it in in Kosovo and in uh Bosnia we've done it in
▶ 0:33:31Morocco we do it all over the world it brings in revenue and employs people it's an economic growth uh 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 them there is a a a career track called the private private sector officers and what do
▶ 0:34:01they do they work with the business Community I started a a a a program which the Democrats continued called the global development Alliance we started it very early on 20 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 we're working with hundreds of American corporations we've raised 60 billion Dollar in private funding
▶ 0:34:31with 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 private public private alliances 25% of the money in those gdas is US government money 75% is private money we invest together we don't give them any money they don't give us any money
▶ 0:35:02we design the project they 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 counter bureaucracy and development it was published it's the most cited thing I've written in in the scholarly literature and it it was based on my frustration with the level over and over over again of oversight the Inspector General the special Inspector General why do we need
▶ 0:35:32two spec inspector Generals in in Afghanistan and in in uh in uh Iraq then we have the GAO we have the OM 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 Ng are now delivering food in Sudan in a famine there will be 2 million people dead
▶ 0:36:02by the end of this year those are the projections there is no government in Sudan there's no police in Sudan there no courts I thank you for your opening remarks this morning and I now recognize chairman ameritus ranking member Meeks for his five minutes of questioning chairman McCall I'm sorry chairman amerus McCall for his five minutes of question thank you Mr chairman um when I when I was chairman of this committee I got Congressional notification s of spending programs from usaid and state
▶ 0:36:32department and I put holds on those programs many listed by the chairman instead of working with me the administration the prior Biden Administration decided to blow through those holds bucking a longstanding tradition and I want to go through some of those I I put on hold 1.5 million to lgbtq C causes for immigrants in Latin America allowing them to litigate against
▶ 0:37:03foreign governments primarily Nations I don't know how that advances the US interests abroad and as a Catholic myself I find that very offensive we've also heard about the 15 million for condoms and contraceptives Afghanistan a country under sha law $15 what did usaid do they they blew through my holds in complete and utter
▶ 0:37:33disregard of this committee's oversight responsibilities I also uncovered the department had spent $500,000 to advance Atheism in Nepal Atheism in a country where Tibetan Buddhists is a predominant religion what does that have to do with advancing us abroad the humanist International group that they gave money to
▶ 0:38:03the 500,000 the CEO called the Catholic Church an institution you should be ashamed to be involved with our taxpayer dollars to condemn the Catholic church again as a Catholic I find that extremely offensive and then the one we've heard so much about $20,000 for drag shows and drag workshops in Ecuador
▶ 0:38:34Mr chairman i' I've seen the video you've sent out it is utterly disgusting to the American taxpayer that we are funding that kind of behavior all these programs gave usaid a black eye and that's unfortunate because you go back to the Marshall Plan really really the Genesis for thinking about us Aid the Marshall Plan was one of the most successful
▶ 0:39:04programs we endeavored in after World War II to make sure a Hitler never Rose From the Ashes again the food for peace program sir that you discussed the American Farmer benefits from this it's been extremely successful why was usaid created in the first place in 196 61 it was to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War I believe it
▶ 0:39:34still has a legitimate purpose to counter the rising threat of China and belon Road and our other foreign adversaries it also has the ability to counter terrorism Lindsay Graham and I passed the global fragility act State DOD usaid all working together to stabilize destabilized Nations which breed terrorism pep far one of the most
▶ 0:40:05successful Global health programs ever developed under President Bush yet all this is called into question because of the irresponsibility of the Biden administration's woke agenda and policies Mr yo I've we've been friends we worked together colleagues I your greatest Legacy is the build Act and we need to reinforce that policy as well but when you look at the core Mission all these
▶ 0:40:35programs need to go and they will be gone but as we get look at program by program and strip down to the core mission do you still believe that this is a worthwhile Endeavor the core mission of usaid I do um I think what you see over a period of time is a a mission creep you know these programs were designed with purity of purpose this is what they're supposed to do and when you get Mission creep you get these things that we're seeing and they're indefensible
▶ 0:41:05some of the programs that you guys mentioned and that loses trust like you said and in business what I've learned and I think everybody can agree with this people like to do business with people they know they like and they trust if that's true with us on a business U setting it's the same in Nations if PE if other nations know us they like us and they trust us they're going to do business with us and we've heard this over and over again you know it's it's been brought up by other leaders that and can I just ask my time is it in our national
▶ 0:41:36security interest to maintain the core Mission and I would argue under the state department for proper supervision yes it is and if we don't do that we see that leadership to other people I now recognize ranking member Meeks for five minutes thank you and uh I too am a chairman Meritus of this committee and I can recall president Trump when he was the president blew past some of my things that I want to in fact he's blown
▶ 0:42:06past some already in this term um so that's just the will of what presidents do at times in that regard but in this instance 93 missions everyone has been closed everyone that's not trying to fix something that's destroying something but let me just stop there because one of the reasons why
▶ 0:42:37I ask Mr nasos to testify here because he is a lifelong Republican and he understands the insides and the outsides of running us a more so than anybody no disrespect to any body that's on this panel he's the one that has done it and I will admit we don't agree on certain things Democrats and Republicans
▶ 0:43:07don't agree some things that Republicans do that I believe is full of destructive but if they win the elections they have a choice to try to move it in that direction when Democrats win what we stand for we move in our Direction that's part of having a free Democratic Society we're not Russia so I want to put the politics aside for this discussion and ask Mr
▶ 0:43:37nasos can you explain to the committee why you believe foreign assistance and the work of USA ID as you've done so is so essential and you feel so passionately enough about it that you did respond because I've seen administrators Democrats and Republicans alike who have worked at usaid alike come out against closing usaid can you tell us that today well
▶ 0:44:07let me tell you two stories one story is my last month at Aid uh no one knew except my wife I was going to leave and teach at Georgetown and uh this was December of 2005 and I always would get a briefing from the director of counter terrorism at the CIA and he came in to see me and he said Mr naos the chatter is your coming and they're going to attempt to assassinate you I said who he said well obviously the Taliban he said why are they
▶ 0:44:37going to assassinate me because you're the head of Aid they can't deal with Aid they can deal with the military they just shoot each other but they can't build health clinics we built 400 health clinics we got the child mortality rates and the maternal mortality rate is down by a third it took seven years to do that but we did it very successfully and uh we opened schools we published 90 million textbooks in the schools to get the kids back in school and the Taliban can't deal with that they're going to try
▶ 0:45:07and we advise you not to go I said well let me think about that but if you do go announce you've arrived as you're stepping on the plane to leave I said what he said announce your when you're stepping on the plane to leave announce you've arrived in other words they won't know you're there so I went I I decided to go and nothing happened and I did what he suggested but what I found out was from talking to the mullers in the village the uh the religious
▶ 0:45:38leaders who were pro- democracy and pro America that the Taliban disregarded the greatest enemy of the Taliban was usaid you know in Kosovo they named their kids USA they actually the albanians are are Muslims in Kosovo and this Muslim they made it a Muslim name you say if you go to the Rel you go to the refugee camps and displace camps around the world USA is the image of the United States
▶ 0:46:08we used to bring 20,000 students to the United States to get their Advanced degrees during the Cold War you know what the Chinese you know what we're doing now 900 scholarships we stopped doing it the Chinese the Chinese are spending huge amounts of money to bring 40,000 people from from the developing world to get their degrees in China we should be investing in that we're not and I think we're falling behind and we're we're focused on the wrong things the amount
▶ 0:46:39of De Dei stuff I I started going through the the um rfas it's a small percentage it is not accurate to say that this is and and some of these things that have been shown those are not Aid project those are State Department programs why are you blaming aid for what the State Department did the F office in state controls all this stuff now let me tell you a second story after the a tunami we did a huge response a is a part of Indonesia which had
▶ 0:47:09a Muslim Insurgency for many years against the central government we did a huge response we put the Aid logo on everything the mission director got carried away 50,000 stickers us aid from the American people before the a tsunami Bin Laden had a 57% approval rating in Indonesia the largest Muslim country in the world in a democracy after the after it he collapsed from 57% to 27 we had a 26% approval rating we went from
▶ 0:47:3926% to 63% now you say Americans like to be liked we all like to be liked but what difference does it make president udono the president of the country said I like President Bush I like the United States but it's very hard to work with you because you're so unpopular not after the a tsunami the newspapers in Indonesia said where is bin Laden when we need him the Americans are here we really don't like and we now we realize who our real friends are than for answering our questions today sir we appreciate it
▶ 0:48:09we agree a lot of waste like $10 million through usad Aid everything I listed was usaid $10 million for circumcision in mosm Beek there's another example for you I now recognize uh Mr Smith from New Jersey thank you Mr chairman upon assuming office President Biden repealed President Ronald Reagan's Mexico City policy expanded by President Donald Trump in 2017 but the Biden Administration didn't stop there they initiated a new radical Vision that
▶ 0:48:39integrated aggressive abortion on demand into pepfar programming called it reimagining pepar that included explicit guidance directing recipients and this is billions of dollars of US taxpayer funds to use their leverage to enact pro-abortion laws and policies in pepar countries Biden hijacked pepar and he shattered I mean I did the reauthorization of pepar for five years during the Trump Administration the first one I'm all for it
▶ 0:49:10in this place here and on the floor of the house and all over Africa as I traveled all for it but then was hijacked in a strong rebuke and Mr uh Max had mentioned this earlier 131 African lawmakers and religious leaders said that the pep for funding is supporting abortion and they admonished us to say the NOS that we Finance are hijacking uh their ideals by pushing it so aggressively uh in Africa Mr naus you testified today and I read your
▶ 0:49:40written statement that usaid needs to be refashioned and you said that quote you believe it's it is bad policy to transfer domestic culture wars into politics to the developing world do you believe that the Biden Administration was wrong to integrate abortion on demand as into Global health because they did it across the board usaid and of course P far much of that money is is is you know deployed through usaid uh when you did say that efforts to protect the weakest and most
▶ 0:50:10vulnerable from extermination I do believe that's trivialized when you somehow bottom line it and say it's a culture War we believe in defending unborn children and their mothers from the violence of abortion it's not a culture War it is a fact when they're in these countries pushing it uh that unfortunately children will die I am like-minded pro-life advocates in Congress and around the world seek to protect unborn baby girls and boys from violence of abortion including dismemberment decapitation
▶ 0:50:40and of course the abortion pills which are now being pushed all over the world including the United States how do they work they starve the baby to death that's how it works so the you know I'm all for Global we did two bipartisan I was the Prime sponsor of it Global Food food security acts you know I'm all for mitigating Global hunger but when you turn around and say to an entire segment of humanity unborn children we're going to starve you to death through these abortion pills that to me that's unconscionable so do you agree
▶ 0:51:11that pro-abortion ngos should continue to be empowered and subsidized with billions of dollars each year by the American taxpayer to promote abortion with the goal of changing uh pro-life laws in these nations and I would ask all three of our Witnesses Congressman you can check my voting record in Massachusetts I 100% And in massachus this is in Massachusetts I had 100% pro-life voting record for 12 years in the house right so my position is very clear and I took a lot of heat from the feminist groups in
▶ 0:51:41massachusett and My Views have not changed I called you once because we found them doing vaginal scraping in Bangladesh in a remote uh Village and I and the mission director called me immediately he said we discovered this we put a stop to it Andrew because if you do that and the woman is pregnant they the child dies okay and you're supposed to check before you do it they weren't trained properly they weren't doing it maliciously they just didn't understand because they weren't trained properly we fixed it
▶ 0:52:12very quietly I called you up and told you what happened we were being transparent about it other than that that's the only violation we had in the five years that I was Aid administrator the career people will do what they're told to do I am appalled at what what you're telling me that they have done and by dragging Aid into these culture wars the Biden Administration is undermined the need for bipartisan support for Aid we cannot tolerate in an
▶ 0:52:42in an agency with programs all over the world a a a war between parties which I'm seeing right now it's in my view it's a Fator all of the things I did at Aid I tried to do it in a way that would not alienate the Democratic party when I left if you look before they took apart the agency everything I created is still there was still there they left it in place thank you I'm almost at a time the other two
▶ 0:53:12distinguish whatt this is thank you Congressman um everything that we did during the first Trump Administration and I had these senior positions we worked very hard to make sure that everything that we did had bipartisan support what I've seen with uh the last Administration is actually breaking the law because you're not supposed to by law you're not supposed to and I think the pep far coordinator has stressed that point but when you fund International planed Parenthood when you fund un agencies that openly promote it and when the Africans themselves tell you it's happening
▶ 0:53:42then the law is being broken I hope that the the the second Trump Administration pursues the the pro-life policies that it had in the first one but also to include humanitarian assistance thank when we set these policies forward it's going to behoove all of us and this is hard to do these policies should be what's best for America if it's best for America it's going to be best for the rest of the world and it those policies are based on our beliefs as a nation if we're a Christian Nation as we always talk about
▶ 0:54:12that's the right thing to do and I think we need to stay that way and the hard part is with us in body we have to keep the checks on that if not it goes away I yield back thank you Mr chair thank you and I'm glad to hear the conversation about University spending as well because there's a lot of that within usaid also 42 million for John's Hopkins to research and drive social behavior and 250,000 for FIU for Dei training and 244,000 for Stanford to do leadership training
▶ 0:54:43not life-saving programs and now recognize Mr Sherman California 48 is good thing Americans think that we spend 25% of the federal budget and on foreign aid and want it reduced to 10% but the fact is it's way less than 1% it helps us challenge China in the world it reduces not only hunger but migration to our
▶ 0:55:13borders and it helps us fight communicable diseases over there before they mutate and come here and that's why Ronald Reagan recognized the importance of foreign aid Mr chairman my fear because I've been here for a long time when I got here it wasn't just Democrats against Republicans it was the legislative branch against the executive branch and we need to play that role and as the ranking member points out we need to have
▶ 0:55:43government Witnesses here so we can talk about the future ra uh rather than uh uh just be a cheering squad for the executive branch but I want to bring to your attention Mr chairman an action taken by the state department today that was too woke for Sherman they announced that they're going to spend $400 million on zero greenhouse gas emitting armored cars that's right electric Armored Cars
▶ 0:56:13$400 million replace perfectly good gas-driven armored cars they said they were going to be Tesla cybertruck Armored Cars This Administration will get too woke for Sherman if it helps the shareholders of the Tesla automobile there have been a number of falsehood stated the biggest one is the $50 million for cond Gaza uh condoms musk admitted that
▶ 0:56:43it was just completely false he apologized so that he made a doge made a mistake are we going to terminate Doge well I'd like to but we going to terminate Doge because it made one mistake no you identify mistakes that are a lot less than $50 million people want to terminate usid musk act statement he should be apologizing for uh and publicizing because the truth has a tough time catching up with the falsehood but let's go through a few others
▶ 0:57:14um we're told that there's $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt uh Mr nasio you would demonstrate how that's a good program we should give credit to Donald Trump for that program he started it under his first Administration now it's being attacked we're told that uh circumcision is terrible it's a very cheap operation it's only done voluntarily it's been done by Democratic and Republican administrations including Trump why because
▶ 0:57:44it's a 60% reduction in the risk of female toale transmission of HIV we were told that usaid was spending $80 million on subscriptions to Politico no the entire executive branch was doing that but you know who else spends money on Politico republicans in Congress who spent $800,000 of their office Budget on Politico and Mr chairman you didn't spend any money on Politico like me you spent your money on it's uh uh on Bloomberg uh as do
▶ 0:58:15I of course Michael Waltz uh uh spent his money eight over 8,000 on Politico just for his own office um the list goes on and on but we are told that there's waivers for all this well pepar has been allowed to work but they have not no access to funds but what doesn't get a waiver is democracy programs and we need democracy in Iran education programs and economic development so it's okay under
▶ 0:58:45Trump to give a Hungry Man a fish but it's illegal to spend a dollar to teach him to fish or to tell them how to get a uh a fishing pole and with under that be feeding hungry Egyptians forever because they won't have the tourism so that they can buy their food on the World Market we need education we need democracy we need economic uh development um finally there's a sad
▶ 0:59:15instance 71y old pay cow she was able to survive and flee from Myanmar to Thailand she was in a camp with over people they cut off the money and they cut off our oxygen and she died and no future waiver is going to bring her back to life Mr chairman I ask that this committee take a minute of Silence
▶ 0:59:46to remember pay C Lao gentle gentleman's time has expired and I would also point out that pep far care and treatment HIV prevention and other pep far programs have been reauthorized for $500 million and other Appropriations as well just in case you were not aware we now recognize Mr Wilson Mr Carina Mr Wilson is recognized thank you
▶ 1:00:16very much uh chairman Brian Mast and thank you for your leadership on this very important Hearing in the past I have supported the very inspiring me messages and Mission of American Outreach I have though surround sounded the alarm for abuse and wasteful spending in aid program sadly for years we've Ely seen Aid diverted to dictators such as Assad of Syria and oppressing the Very people that was meant to help the Biden Administration insanely provided
▶ 1:00:47and funded woke deranged depravity in Syria instead of trying to help the people and the UN delivered Aid through the regime itself to the people as they were being slaughtered by baser alad legitimate uh Aid was diverted from the needed earthquake recovery that occurred there in Syria fortunately Assad is now removed by the people of Syria and he is in hiding of course in the appropriate location Moscow uh with war
▶ 1:01:17criminal Putin another example Mr primara is the tragic example of dictator diversion and that is in once a shining success of the Arab Spring and partner in North America it's now been turned into a fully full-blown dictatorship by k s while lennium challenge Corporation rightfully suspended Aid usaid sent 30 million dollar to cover unclear programs while the dictator
▶ 1:01:47has corrupted the economy destroying jobs what can be done to stop pring dictators and also Aid being diverted as you correctly identified even the terrorists themselves Mr primer yes sir I'm not familiar with the situation in in Tunisia but uh this happens a lot I think uh there's a lot of Goodwill in these programs there's a lot of good programs overall
▶ 1:02:18but the problem is is that very often these things just go on year after year after year and know there's no changes we're actually propping up bad regimes and socialism I was in mosm Beek in October for the election uh elections there we have a Marxist leninist regime they stole the election we're spending a billion dollars half a billion to a billion dollars a year and then what what happens there's no reform we're supporting socialism and the government just two months before we came there
▶ 1:02:48provided their port in order to allow the Chinese Navy to Pro to uh project their power into the Western uh uh Indian Ocean so there has to be a much better Affinity between what we do on the development Aid side and the diplomacy where we put our ambassadors on the hook to make sure these things don't happen thank you and indeed we've seen in the Republic of Georgia the corrupted election of October where uh the legitimate president salom
▶ 1:03:19z uh but has been replaced by Georgian Dream uh which as you identify ports uh indeed the Chinese Communist party has taken over the uh the port there in Georgia on the Black Sea and simultaneously uh the Georgian Dream dictatorship and toi has reached out to uh work closely with Tran uh at the same time as Teran has sent assassins to murder uh Donald Trump with that in mind thank goodness we have good people like our Congressional alumnist
▶ 1:03:49Ted Yoho here and so uh Ted uh delivery mechanisms for Aid have been co-opted by enemies the United States running the UN fortunately president Trump has repoed Alise stonic as the UN Ambassador in the tradition of Ambassador Nikki Haley who will stand firm for America First many of the nonprofits that are are Bing doing the bidding of dictators are being supported what can we do to ensure that uh indeed these agencies are working for the uh
▶ 1:04:19the people we're trying to help and not prop up dictators or or support terrorists I think I think the biggest thing is just oversight and we need to follow up on the oversight we hear every year how many how many uh erroneous spending programs there are how money is being wasted we hear those reports but yet when I was in Congress I didn't see us acting it was hard to get everybody to act and that's where I go back to the purity of purpose and what is the mission we have to stay within those guard rails and we need to make sure well the body of of Congress
▶ 1:04:50needs to make sure that they stay that way um and it's it's a tough thing you you know if it was a static world it would be easy but it's it's a it's a tough world and also in the best Florida tradition uh our secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced just last week a great letter to pres to Chairman Mast about how they would be stepping in to identify programs and promote those that promote the people of legitimately in the world who need it I yield back
▶ 1:05:20thank you representative Wilson now recognize representative key thank you Mr chairman uh I welcome uh two of my former colleagues here uh Ted Yoho who is one of more conservative people I served with uh here in Congress and Andrew naos who I think is the most conservative uh member I served with uh in the Massachusetts house as a Republican and Republican leader uh in Massachusetts as well uh you know I think that what we're seeing
▶ 1:05:50with our witnesses witnesses like this is the fact that up until three weeks ago this issue usaid used to be the most bipartisan issue and I've been on this committee now for 14 years plus we used to agree with these things we could find things wrong with it that we can correct and the irony of all this is this the Republicans are in charge of the White House the house and the Senate they have the power to do this the right way they have the
▶ 1:06:21power of oversight to look at all the things that being pointed out that's your responsibility if you don't like it and you have the power to do it you don't need this Draconian executive directive to do it that's causing chaos not just here uh in this country but around the world it's not necessary and it's a huge departure from everything I've seen uh occurring in the 14 years before this along those lines I'd like to submit Mr chairman a letter
▶ 1:06:51uh to the Republican and Democratic Leadership in the house and the Senate and it's from almost 150 former administrative officials Republicans and Democrats those who served in the military and the state department and urging the recision of the Trump executive orders aimed at freezing our foreign assistance and dismantling usaid it deplores the undemocratic and unconstitutional dismantling of these agencies
▶ 1:07:22I'd like to submit this with unanimous consent and I'd also like to point out some other correspondents that occurred around this issue the people that praised this action where did they come from I'll tell you where they came from they came from our greatest critics the greatest critics of democracy uh right now in the world they came from the leaders of Russia and Hungary and Venezuela uh they're praising this effort
▶ 1:07:53that's who's for this effort in fact fact the speaker of the Russian State Duma said that anyone who received funding from us Aid should be made to publicly confess and repent on Red Square that's who's praising this that's who's happy with this Putin's happy with this this is so important now in Ukraine one example Putin's primary target in Ukraine is to destroy the
▶ 1:08:23electrical grid to use that as an energy weapon of war against the ukrainians in his aggression and what does us a do they're helping to train and give the resources so that the ukrainians can repair these damaged electrical grids so they can keep the power on and and fight Putin Putin's happy with this I mentioned the military leaders General Mattis
▶ 1:08:53who is also secretary defense under Donald Trump he used to come to this committee time and time again and say don't fully fund these programs like usid and you know what if you don't fund it just buy me some more ammunition the military in our country understand the importance of this program I've had discussions for years and I just recently had discussions with our special operations forces those people I respect them beyond words they are in
▶ 1:09:23the most dangerous parts of the World in small numbers a global footprint working to know where our greatest threats are in the country they're P placed in positions uh hosting the most dangerous threats to our country as are so many people working for us Aid risking their lives as well trying to secure the safety of people not just in the world but in our own country from terrorist
▶ 1:09:54threats that are metastasizing and pose increasing threats right here back at home they told me of the importance of us Aid they told me how they work together on security issues on Intel issues on understanding how they can use their ability to keep us safe and use it effectively and they particularly pointed out what a threat China is and it'll become a greater threat in the absence
▶ 1:10:24of USA Aid that's who's uh that's who's asking us not to make these changes and you know do it the right way all those things you do all the little small Cuts I won't say anything about circumcisions being a small cut listen all these small Cuts you have the power to do it yourself do it do it the right way don't this i
▶ 1:10:54y back I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts we will write $10 million of foreskin out of the budget I now recognize representative Perry thank you Mr chairman usid was created through executive order in 1961 by President Kennedy long having lost and strayed from its Mission lost its direction even the Clinton Administration tried to to reform it and we spend I don't know somewhere between
▶ 1:11:244 and 50 billion dollar annually on this organization and with the things that you hear well many of us probably most of us in room agree with projecting America's power for the good of all the World Around the Globe quite honestly if our enemies were asked to design a foreign aid program that would actively undermine the United States of America at maximum cost to the taxpayer they would be hardpressed to create
▶ 1:11:54a scheme more effective than us Aid that that that's shocking to say but I I just it's uh look let's just go to a couple things here uh we left Afghanistan and I'll just call characterize it as left in August of 2021 August of 2021 so the talibans in charge Taliban threatens the lives of the NGO Personnel Distributing usaid they claim
▶ 1:12:25credit for usaid in distribution they interfere with the distribution of us aid aid they tax the beneficiary of the aid they tax the delivery service they steal the food commodities they they divert the funds they extort citizens for protection for USA aid aid they create sham procurement schemes and they threaten the lives of those to
▶ 1:12:55oppose those schemes now that all occurred before August of 2021 when we were there when we were there now you know you don't have to be a rocket science you could just read the the Taliban is classified and if you don't know the taliban's in charge of Afghanistan they're classified as a specially designated Global terrorist organization by ofac so post
▶ 1:13:252021 so this is last year 2024 we spent 697 million of the taxpayers dollars in Afghanistan including 534 m719 th000 in change from usid in Afghanistan I don't know what we think we're going to change in Afghanistan we lost 22,000 lost or 22,500 Americans in Afghanistan stand over the course of
▶ 1:13:56our term there in the war spending over $2 trillion we're just going to keep on spending because somehow we think it's going to get better and if you're wondering who's in charge of Afghanistan getting the money and that money I just mentioned the 697 million is on top of in is addition to the weekly to every 10day shipments in cash of $40 to 80 million Afghanistan is ruled by folks
▶ 1:14:26named Sarah Udin hakani H hakani Network mean anything to anybody in the room how about Abdullah Bin Laden who gets some of that money does that name ring a bell to anybody in the room because your money your money $697 million annually plus the shipments of cash funds madrasas Isis Al-Qaeda bah Haram Isis Corazon terrorist training camps that's what it's funding
▶ 1:14:56if you think that the that the uh the program under operation enduring Sentinel entitled women's scholarship endowment which receives $60 million annually or the young women lead which gets about $5 million annually is going to women who by the way if you read the inspector General's report has tell is telling you that the Taliban does not allow women to speak in public yet some somehow you're believing
▶ 1:15:27and American people are supposed to believe that this money is going for the betterment of the women in Afghanistan it is not you are funding terrorism and it's coming through usaid and it's not just Afghanistan because Pakistan's right next door USA Aid spent 80 $840 million in the last year last 20 years on Pakistan's education related program it includes $136 million to build1 schools of which there is zero
▶ 1:15:57evidence that any of them were built why would there be any evidence the Inspector General can't get into to see them but you know what we doubled down and spent $20 million from usaid to create educational television programs for children unable to attend the physical school yeah they can't attend it because it doesn't exist you paid for it somebody else got the money you are paying for terrorism this has got to end I yield Mr chairman thank you Mr Perry in addition we don't
▶ 1:16:27even have an embassy in Afghanistan chair now recognizes the representative from California Mr Bara thank you Mr chairman um I want to start off by I know a lot of usaid workers former workers alni are watching this hearing I want to thank them for their work they're patriotic Americans they're out there they're doing God's work helping save lives and everything else and I'm sorry that you guys are caught up in this so I want to appreciate this on behalf of you know the United States of America you guys
▶ 1:16:57are patriotic Americans I've visited with a lot of these folks I travel a lot gone into refugee camps and have seen what they do in terms of life-saving stuff and again it's super important work that they do represents the best of American values and it is really sad to see these folks get thrown under the best when we talk about stronger better more prosperous I think we're all in fav of that we're all in favor of working together
▶ 1:17:28you know Mr chairman Congressman Yoo is my classmate and he may have been more conservative than you when he got to Congress um Ted you and I traveled I think on your first former your first trip abroad um we went out and saw some of these usaid product projects I watched you over time you know become the champion of the build act a champion of reforms um and we've continued to stay in
▶ 1:17:58touch now what saddens me about this whole approach um now I'm not going to talk about Elon Musk I'm not surprised by how he's approaching things but this isn't Twitter I don't want a 21-year-old Tech bro going through um SL deciding which programs we should continue and not continue Mr chairman I want us to work and do that work we can go line by line or we could hire Mr yo to go through line by line and say hey here's the programs that make sense here's the ones that don't but
▶ 1:18:28that's our job that's what we're supposed to be doing that's our oversight I don't want that 21y old Tech proo probably has never traveled anywhere has no passport doing our job let's do this work together and I'm not here to defend every usaid program but I do believe it serves a really important purpose for our values you know we've read Heritage Foundation reports I worry about what's happening in the Pacific Islands they put out a good report we've met with them we're seeding our influenc there we're
▶ 1:18:58already seeing China step in and take things over we're watching in Cambodia and Southeast Asia programs that are good programs like de mining China has stepped in its Front Page News let's not shut everything down let's make necessary reforms let's Cong Congressman Yoo said let's focus on humanitarian Aid let's focus on development and let's let's look at the programs that do this for the American people the most
▶ 1:19:28successful development program in the history of the world was the Marshall Plan that was us that was the United States of America rebuilding Europe creating stable democracies preventing War lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty that was us we can do this and we can do it better and smarter and not betray our values as Americans but we should do this this is congress's job it's not someone else's job and I'm willing to work with you to figure out what programs make sense let's write a 48 authorization
▶ 1:19:58bill but let's do it in a smart way let's get former administrators in here let's us do the work Democrats and Republicans to rebuild a better stronger more prosperous usid Congressman you um you know we're friends and we've stayed in in touch over the years I appreciate the build act that was bipartison um and your leadership there I am a little bit worried because I've heard president Trump talk about creating a sovereign wealth fund perhaps you know making
▶ 1:20:29that's DFC Mission will you actually talk about the difference between DFC and and Sovereign wealth F yeah um what I see is the DFC was designed for a specific P purpose when we put it together uh we wanted to move countries from Aid to trade that was our big thing uh and I won't go into why I came up with that we were on a codell over in uh the DRC and if they want to create a sovereign wealth fund I think they should do that separately and I think there was an executive order in fact
▶ 1:20:59to do that which is good because if you put it in the DFC it starts clouding the mission you know are we going to do development or we going to do um build the trust fund or The Sovereign wealth fund and you start clouding the mission and you get away from what I like to call Purity purpose the DFC was for hardcore infrastructure projects that will bring in other investors in a region that needs those jobs and the opportunity so that we can wean them off foreign aid you know foreign aid by itself has not brought anybody out of into
▶ 1:21:30Prosperity but working together to build that infrastructure to create a that structure there that will that brings in the opportunity outside dollars and then we create friendships and allies around the world increases trade Mr chairman I'm willing to work let's do the work here in Congress in this committee let's um Build a Better Stronger more prosperous I commend you guys for saying that could I just add something if could gentleman's time has expired I do thank the representative for wanting to work on the the state department reauthorization and
▶ 1:22:00look forward to working with you on that representative from Tennessee Mr burett is recognized thank you Mr chairman I want to submit for the record an article why condoms cannot always be trusted it's dated March 19th 1993 and it goes on to say that USA distributed around 8800 million condoms last year and this was in 93 the argument that condoms are not being distributed obviously has some holes in it Mr chairman um
▶ 1:22:30Mr uh premar can you provide an example of USA programs uh uh USA program that was harmful to the US interest you I probably didn't say your name right I've said that's okay Congressman thank you nobody gets Jonathan Jackson still doesn't get birchett right so we're good now I've heard a lot about the issue of of China and and and I agree that it's very important to to counter China but
▶ 1:23:00the last four years went in the opposite direction the strong counter China infrastructure that we had developed over at usid was simply dismantled by the next ad next Administration I can't think of anything that's harmed our the developing world than the climate agenda it has pushed all of uh these countries especially in Africa to go green so wind EV who produces all of those materials it's China and so and then on top
▶ 1:23:30of it we tell them no you can't develop your own fossil fuel industry because it's not it's it's anti-green so what happens they can't generate the revenues to create good jobs at home they can't generate the revenues in order to finance their own health education and other other needs and it increases the price of energy which does wet to the poor it hurts them the climate agenda has done more in increasing poverty and increasing hunger than anything else of course the resentment that's
▶ 1:24:01building up from around the world that's much more conservative than we are on these woke things it's extremely it's extremely damaging and look I I um a friend of mine at work provided me this morning with something that's very very telling of the 19 of the top 20 countries receiving uh aid from usaid are part of the belt and Road initiative that China runs sure I mean this is showing that our efforts are not working and I agree with Congressman yo and and
▶ 1:24:31and administrator naos that the the the developing World they want more trade they want more investment I don't care if you're speaking to uh government officials business leaders religious leaders they don't want all of this uh other kind of Aid where 50% of it is gone and we're violating their their Norms let me get a couple more questions in to you if that'd be all right us Aid assist in illegal immigration on our
▶ 1:25:01border I think that's something it's both state and Aid that shareed in that responsibility PRM over at State I think is doing this there was this whole thing about root causes and spending billions of dollars in Central America as if that would stem uh uh illegal immigration but the problem with that argument is that these countries earn tens of billions of dollars of remittances so the amount of Aid that we're that we're we're spending is such a tiny amount it doesn't have any impact if you want to stem illegal immigration it's not foreign
▶ 1:25:31aid it's closing the border and we're seeing the results of it now did USA fund foreign terrorist organizations such as the Taliban you know when I when I launched and led the Bureau for humanitarian assistance we had an internal risk assessment tool and I pushed it immediately into red because we were sending money in places where we didn't an actual presence in a place like Afghanistan we're not there all of the international NOS that we
▶ 1:26:01worked through they they left and the Afghans that had worked for us they fled or were killed so we have we have absolutely no idea what's happening with that money but it's being spent before I left as the COO I put in a very tough vetting requirement that anybody who touches the money must go through our databases to see whether or not these are terrorists but the next Administration just removed it so I think we we can we can safely conclude that we are those groups will hide Us for free
▶ 1:26:31um Ted does Congress authorize the spending for every individual USA program and that's to say did Congress approve the $20,000 for the drag show in Ecuador or the $47,000 for a transgender Opera in Colombia no they don't um it goes again those things happen without the oversight and it's hard to do oversight when you have a big uh organization like that that's why again you have to have the Purity purpose and we have
▶ 1:27:01to be diligent when I was in Congress to be the ones that say we're not spending this money thank you but those two projects are State Department projects they're not usaid projects let me that is inaccurate sir I didn't did I say that I I asked I didn't say that sir but thank you for putting words in my mouth um I would like to submit this article for the record Mr chairman so ordered gentleman time is expart and i' D they don't just happen whether we authorize or
▶ 1:27:32deauthorized they happened because of bad people in USA or the state department that put these forwards program you don't belong there if you're putting these programs forward and their time at those agencies will come to an end and now recognize the representative from California Miss Jacobs thank you Mr chairman um first of all uh a question for my colleagues I know all of us probably remember Ebola from the 2014 outbreak that President Trump a private citizen at the time was particularly outspoken about and terrified of for
▶ 1:28:02those of you who don't remember Ebola is a disease that has about a 41% fatality rate no vaccine no treatment uh it causes vomiting muscle pain and hemorrhagic bleeding pretty bad uh I'd like all of my colleagues please raise your hand if you would like Ebola in the States no one you say your question again would you like Ebola in the United States I'm glad the Trump Administration approved Ebola response in their W yes on that point um with
▶ 1:28:32uh I ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record a New York Times article life-saving Aid remains halted worldwide despite Rubio's promise so ordered but it's not if you want to see the list and um on Tuesday Elon Musk the billionaire Tech entrepreneur empowered by President Trump to combat the agency I'm quoting the article now told reporters in the Oval Office that the administration had turned on funding for Ebola prevention and for HIV prevention but in reality again quoting this article
▶ 1:29:03the Ebola funding and virtually all of the HIV prevention funding remains Frozen according to usaid employees and several Aid groups and that is because the payment system called Phoenix that usaid relies on to disperse financial assistance has been inaccessible for weeks um so as uh you may know um m naos um the outbreak of of diseases infectious diseases is one of the big things that usaid helps to prevent um
▶ 1:29:33which is why I think we all should be so horrified that because of Elon musk's illegal takeover of usaid usaid is no longer able to screen Travelers at airports leaving Uganda where there is currently an ebola outbreak that Americans have already been affected by Mr naos you led usaid correct do do you think stopping the screening of Travelers makes America more or less safe it makes us less safe but I would add that there is over
▶ 1:30:03the last 30 years we've built a a system in 90 Southern countries for monitoring all infectious diseases and that's the early warning system so if an outbreak of any disease takes place we know about it the countries where like China where uh Co started there's I'm not I certain would Advocate being an having an aid Mission there but the countries where there's an aid Mission the ministries of Health have been trained and there's a a comprehensive
▶ 1:30:34um early warning system to protect us that systems uh in in terms of Aid support for it has been shut down that's right I might also add sorry I I just want to reclaim my time because I have a few more questions but I completely agree with you so let's take my Republican colleagues at your word you want to reduce waste Fraud and Abuse I agree with that you want to reform How usaid does its work I agree with that too in fact I have bipartisan legislation to do that that I'm happy to work with you Mr Mast on so but let's talk about what
▶ 1:31:04what's actually happening so Mr nasos again would you consider yourself liberal or woke in any way no okay great do you believe that usaid is a criminal agency plagued by waste Fraud and Abuse no and on February 4th nearly the entire usaid Workforce was notified that they were being placed on administrative leave Mr naos would you say that removing the majority of the staff responsible for overseeing usaid's programs increases or decreases the risk of waste Fraud and
▶ 1:31:34Abuse well it increases it because the oversight of aid aid offices are there for oversight that's what they do 40% of the staff of Aid are compliance officers they spend all day trying to make sure these things don't happen they do happen sometimes because of where we work and um the usaid Inspector General agreed with you uh as the ranking member uh entered into the record stated that all of USA's oversight controls are non-operational but instead
▶ 1:32:04of addressing this problem Trump actually fired the Inspector General who released this report the very next day Mr naos does firing usaid's Inspector General generally reduce or increase waste Fraud and Abuse well uh Congressman when I'm trying to stay out of the uh the vitri all here but uh the Inspector General is there to investigate abuse and let me tell you how it works people think that they watch us and then they
▶ 1:32:34find this stuff and then they arrest us and all that's not how it works the 80% of the investigations done by Aid are initiated by Aid compliance officers who call the IG and say there's a problem you need to come in here and fix it and then they work with them just to clarify not only is this freeze endangering Americans but Trump and musk's argument for stopping this assistance to reduce waste Fraud and Abuse is a complete lie because they are doing the opposite that's because
▶ 1:33:05this is not about oversight it's not about reform it's about completely gutting foreign assistance itself with that Mr chairman I back I thank the gentle lady for her questions and I would remind everybody that Ebola response has been restored 250,000 through 1.5 million through Unice F another 250,000 irfc and others the list goes on and we should be supporting the correct programs Uganda was brought up and I would say as an example there there was a program
▶ 1:33:35of5 A5 million dollar uh for promoting LGBT Acceptance in Uganda that is not lifesaving and that's not combating Ebola gentleman from Tennessee Mr Green is now recognized thank you chairman mass and I appreciate your leadership and I look forward to working alongside you to bring needed reform form to our diplomatic strategy we certainly have a lot of work to do and this hearing is just the beginning accountability is coming thank you also to our Witnesses today the corruption going on behind usaid's
▶ 1:34:05doors 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 for foreign a usid has been an Unapologetic front for a far-left agenda it has become self-evident there weren't the a handful of foolish policies but rather a coordinated
▶ 1:34:36strategy 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
▶ 1:35:06I 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 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 K uh Kennedy unilaterally created usid through an executive order in 1961 yet the president
▶ 1:35:36president 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 law lawlessness from the Biden admin 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
▶ 1:36:07are 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
▶ 1:36:37many usaid programs are wasteful and actively sabotage our diplomatic Relationships by forcing woke ideology on our partners just look at pepar 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 power Powers our message to Africa was explicit as it was heinous abort
▶ 1:37:07your 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
▶ 1:37:38a lie Elon Musk does have a security clearance he has a top secret security clearance for 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 smoke screen to hide the corruption and the wasteful spending that has occurred there and I am personally offended at the left's continued references to 19y olds and
▶ 1:38:0821y olds in their doing work there are 19y 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 if 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
▶ 1:38:38Mr chairman I yield amen representative Castro is now recognized thank you chairman uh I would just say that if you can find us a 19-year-old Medal of Honor winner who love love to serve in the US 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 you all hear a lot of angry fire breathing rhetoric coming from the other side I want you to consider
▶ 1:39:09As 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
▶ 1:39:39has been met with support and Applause from some of the world's worst authoritarians Venezuelan interior Minister and Nicholas maduro's key Lieutenant celebrated the Trump administration's actions and ending support to the Venezuelan opposition in Nicaragua Daniel orga's Sons said that quote Trump turned off the faucet for terrorists when shut when he shuttered usid funding belarusan leader lukashenka applauded
▶ 1:40:09the 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 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 grenell to with after this administration's halted funding to Cambodia
▶ 1:40:40to remove unexploded bombs that the United States dropped on their country years ago China offered to move in and replace us 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
▶ 1:41:11Cuba and other countries as we've cut support to democracy activists in these countries 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
▶ 1:41:41freezing 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 pepar and abandon those suffering from malaria and TB Donald Trump has also abandoned American citizens American farmers that feed the world
▶ 1:42:12whose produce is rotting in ports and warehouses and our usaid professionals and families that he stranded abroad make no mistake these 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 Far Away 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
▶ 1:42:42credit 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 naos whether you think these actions and you were a usid 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
▶ 1:43:12weaker I think that our aid program makes us stronger and I think usid 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 N I want to interrupt you for just a second because there was an example of of funding to help lgbtq communities in Uganda in Uganda the
▶ 1:43:43death penalty was proposed for gay people right right is that considered woke is that what they're using as 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 I I understand what you're saying so so you would be for that funding now what I'm what I'm saying is that um we're dealing with very conservative Society Muslim and Christian and we need to respect not not what you're talking about because that happened I think in reaction to us
▶ 1:44:13actually because it wasn't there before but uh let me just say that we give Aid gives a billion dollars a year to Christian NGO 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
▶ 1:44:43to be partisan I'm I'm just just to tell you what's happening I've met with the the Christian groups even though they waivers the Phoenix system is 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 I'm not saying that in a partisan way please do something about it it's having an effect in the in in the field in a profound way there a lot of AIDS orphans are being taken care
▶ 1:45:13of by the church gentleman's time has expired and the staff has been L's time has expired representative from Kentucky Mr bar is now recognized thank you Mr chairman appreciate the very important hearing exposing uh the um jaw-dropping waste at the usid and many US 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
▶ 1:45:44and their clients and transgender people in South Africa $31 million for providing us Aid employees with resilience wellness and work life life balance counseling 24 million to build Green Transportation Alternatives in Georgia a half a million dollar 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
▶ 1:46:14change surgeries in Guatemala through a trans Le 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 uh
▶ 1:46:44funding but let me focus on Uganda because my colleague from Texas raised that issue a country that has thousands of solders fighting for our counterterrorism interests against al-shabab and Somalia and that country was severely punished by the B Administration for signing its anti-homosexuality law into into law in May of 2023 the B Administration revoked uganda's agoa eligibility enacted visa restrictions on Ugandan individuals and pressured
▶ 1:47:14the World Bank to prohibit new public financing despite this us 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 the5 billion
▶ 1:47:45East African crude oil pipeline directly because Western leaders and the World Bank are walking away from from the project because the Biden administration's response to their own domestic legislation Mr primac 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 country's relationships
▶ 1:48:16with our adversaries like the Communists in China Congressman I've spoken to many officials from from the region there and they they explained to me their their their shock when they would prepare for meetings with secretary blinkin 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 stunned that here they are
▶ 1:48:46Africa they know about the challenge and the great uh uh Geo geostrategic fight that we have ready to work with us but we weren't wor ready to work with them well look I get it the gentleman from Texas disagrees with the Ugandan uh people I get it the Biden Administration disagreed with the Ugandan people and secretary blinkin and USA in the previous administration disagreed with the Ugandan people on this issue of legislation I get it the question is not
▶ 1:49:16their opinion the question is what is the Diplomatic job of the State Department in US Aid is it to lecture the ugandans or is it to help us counter belon road is the job of the state department and USA 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
▶ 1:49:47adversary representative yo Ted it's good to see you thank you for your amazing work and your authorship of the build act you were instrumental in the passage of that bill and author and authorized us uh International Development Finance Corporation can you see DFC playing a 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 us investments in countries like Panama um
▶ 1:50:17it's a big reform I mean that's the best tool we have to counter the BR 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 the DFC can do and then raising the country of Eligibility allows us to go into these countries strategically where we can counter the brri where we can't go now and this is something that we're going to talk about next month and the reauthorization and and I hope every it's a bipartisan uh effort and there's a lot of support but if we don't do it we're going to see that much more um influence
▶ 1:50:48and uh it goes to people that aren't friendly to the United States well 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 and and frankly frankly activity that undermines our national security time has expired votes have been called we're going to go through uh one more round of questions and then recess until the conclusion of votes so
▶ 1:51:18uh representative sheris McCormack you will be the last one to be recognized before recess thank you Mr chairman and thank you ranking member and thank you everybody for being here um us Aid along with the state department has been one of our strongest U mechanisms to secure the region and National Security and also build relationships throughout the entire world in Haiti we've seen huge support and H huge um forward movement when it comes to USA providing an option for many children who are either forced to join the gangs or
▶ 1:51:48um face starvation and their families dying but you 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 um people in Haiti and one of the things they bought 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
▶ 1:52:18but we also have to talk about how there is not enough people to be working working at us Aid 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's going to be sent um 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 us Aid is actually a
▶ 1:52:49good thing we can talk about where we agree and disagree however the real issue is implementation we're finding that this imp 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 the money we're hearing more and more about people who are exposed and who need life-saving treatment who are not g getting it despite the waivers and so I believe that the strength of our nation
▶ 1:53:19is US following that constitutional privilege of us in embodying and allowing Congress to actually determine the implementation um so I want to know for you how much of us Aid's programs are actually life yes up uh of the $38 billion last year uh 15 billion was humanitarian assistance in emergencies famine relief disasters uh Civil Wars 8 billion was for health
▶ 1:53:49most except for the Family Planning uh program which is I 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 um 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
▶ 1:54:20now uh that's people who are being denied uh who who can't get the ENT retrov virals because the system is is is shut down uh are are there's violence against the aid workers uh and against our off Aid officers there was an incident just now in uh in kinasa the capital of the Democratic Republic of the condo where the aid officers had to take their families and uh go across to brazaville across the river to another country because they were under attack
▶ 1:54:50for people who thought they were going to because they couldn't get this Aid it was there's a whole bunch of articles on this 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 us Aid is not a faucet that you can turn on in off right 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
▶ 1:55:20consequences and in fact protect not just our Farmers but the people who are using it we're hearing more and more um stories about people who are actually losing their lives because they were part of an experimental program they were part of a US aid program even hearing stories about people who have um objects and instruments who are still in their body and because there's a stop order they cannot remove them 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
▶ 1:55:50actually promote the agenda of the United States but still preserve our compassion and I have full faith and c 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
▶ 1:56:20which 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 representative uh we do have time to do uh one other round of questioning before we recess for votes and so we're going to recognize representative Salazar thank you very
▶ 1:56:50much Mr chairman and uh thanks to the witnesses uh my name is Maria Salazar I'm the chairman of the Western Hemisphere committee uh subcommittee here in the house uh foreign affairs committee and uh and I am um very distraught because some of the programs that we have been talking about come from the region that I represent many of many people in South Florida that come from those countries of origin Guatemala Venezuela and Peru so I understand uh uh Mr antios that um
▶ 1:57:21that you do not agree with the way that Elon Musk has conducted his investigation into usaid but I do believe you know coming from the world of Television that you are judged by the results not by the process and musk has discovered things that are completely and absolutely embarrassing and in my uh specifically in the region that I that I'm saying that I'm representing some a lot of constituents so I just I want to salute you because you said that you did the job you were the administrator that you went line
▶ 1:57:51by line that you were cleaning up the different programs that you took your job very seriously but apparently we are in different times and I'm just going to share with you within the time that I have three programs coming from Latin America which I think that are highly embarrassing let's start with Venezuela and I here's the video that chairman uh play before uh you know Venezuelans are fleeing uh Marxism uh they're hungry the average Venezuelan weighs 15 pounds less because of lack of food we know that uh that Chavis has destroyed
▶ 1:58:21the country they they make it to Ecuador I mean they're tired and then they uh encounter that the United States which is the Beacon of Hope is offering this this programmed to become a drag queen so I think there's something wrong with that picture and I think I'm not sure if we can play it again but I just want your opinion well that particular program was a state department program and and I have great respect for the state department but I
▶ 1:58:51I think it's appalling they did it to be very Frank with you so you do not agree with those $35,000 invested I don't I I think we should stick with our basic Mission okay well you know but you agreed that they have not not under you oh no they have not they have not I think I just want to hear your thoughts because unfortunately time is of Ence $2 million for Native Indians in Guatemala you know I I president jamat called me I mean I've never had a president from a country saying I don't
▶ 1:59:21want the United States money I mean highly conservative these are the Native Indians in Guatemala people who are just you know flipping the tortillas and they just want to learn how to do a job not sex surgeries what do you think about that I I that's beyond what this Aid mission is I don't think should good that's all we need to know Peru in the Amazon this is the jungle this is not Jeff bess's Amazon this is like where people
▶ 1:59:51have harsh conditions they need mosquito Nets to fight malaria so $225,000 for diversity recruitment events what is a diversity recruitment event in the middle of the junk I have no idea just one comment you can move Aid to do what you want by hiring a development professional a conservative who knows how to La manage a large complex
▶ 2:00:22operation Mark green was such a person okay under Trump but then what happened between your time and this time tell me what happened well politics gets involved oh politics but then Elan mus comes and tries to claim politics and go back to the original Mission of the program is that correct I think it would be useful if musk and some of his staff would go to the field and see the projects well I I don't
▶ 2:00:52I'm sure they don't have time sir to do that but what I'm saying is that he did something that according to what you just explained it's it has brings benefit to the US Aid programs the US Aid staff do what the political appointees tell them to do well they they don't initiate these things they don't no so that means that all this directives came from the White House the White House yes and the state department so that okay but then know the White House
▶ 2:01:23the the state department responds to the White House so you are telling me that under the Biden Administration the US Aid lost its course yes or no I think aid needs to be more independent of the told me he just told me that the state department is the one that directs that okay and the state department responds to the White House that's correct all right so that means then that the White House gave the wrong directives to USA in my view in my view in your view good thank you
▶ 2:01:53well that's all we needed to know so now we we have a new sheriff in town called Donald Trump and then that Guy brought another guy called Elan mosque to do the job something that no one else has done before so why do we need to criticize him because he's not do he doesn't know anything about development he may be a genius at technology he does not know anything about development wait wait wait development has nothing to do with what is what is the mission statement for usaid sec pure prosper
▶ 2:02:23and value values either $2 million for the Native Indians in Guatemala to change their sex surgeries nothing to do with that with that 15 billion dollar was spent on humanitarian assistance in emergencies and refugee camps there's particular skills you learn in doing that I did that I understand you're talking about what works I'm talking about what does not work General ladies time expired than appreciate chairman thank you sir for your I would also let you know Miss Salazar that uh I've had numerous calls from ambassadors
▶ 2:02:54during the Biden Administration who intend to provide us with the reprimands that they wrote against career employees who were undermining their work doing these programs that they didn't want but did them anyways and the administration didn't care and we look forward to bringing those things to light as well we are going to recess uh as votes have been called as I mentioned we are going to recess until 1050 and uh we will look forward to returning committee stands in re I just
▶ 2:03:25now for the world thank
▶ 2:28:49e e
▶ 2:29:22let's get these Witnesses back in their chairs committee will come to order chair now recognizes representative kamlager Dove for five minutes thank you Mr chair and to the ranking member you know I have noticed a theme with Republican hearing titles that always seem to have one word of
▶ 2:29:52Truth in them but they are strung together by callous duplicity oras the chair said lies uh betrayal is the word of Truth today and it is an incredibly accurate description of what musk Trump and Silent Republicans are doing to the American people by unilaterally dismantling our entire foreign assistance apparatus you have endangered every American who relies on that system to keep them safe from Global crisis
▶ 2:30:22and that relies on them to feed their own family not only that but you have betrayed some of the stakeholders that I thought my colleagues cared most about our Farmers our veterans faith-based groups diaspora communities and all of our districts and the Constitution not to mention the people who have tragically died because you have ripped away the life-saving assistance they need to survive and for no good reason I was struck by the opening remarks of the chair the chair mentioned helping uh
▶ 2:30:52people to vote and why do Republicans not support the right to vote there was a reference to all of these small dollars going to people in need who just happen to be of the lgbtq community and why are the Republicans who actually crashed grinder the gay dating app during the RNC so focused on the lgbtq community but let's Circle back to what the real betrayal looks like first there's the fact that Elon Musk ripped up the Constitution and our system of checks and
▶ 2:31:22balances by illegally dismantling usaid with zero Congressional input Congress is not a peanut gallery it has constitutional oversight authorities that have been categorically violated but this weaponization of government has been met with deafening silence betrayal and now to the so-called woke programming the farmers usaid's humanitarian assistance is a major source of income for American farmers 2.1 billion dollar in 2020 Farmers Supply
▶ 2:31:5341% of the food Aid that usaid uses to feed starving people around the world meaning that farmers livelihoods directly benefit from these programs the foreign aid freeze rips away their incomes while condemning vulnerable people to famine betrayal and Veterans American Service members fought for decades in Afghanistan many of them are only alive today because the heroic service of Afghan interpreters like my my brother-in-law who served and these folks we
▶ 2:32:23have worked with tirelessly to evacuate to the United States but Trump canceled the refugee admissions program and left them behind abandoned by the very people who Ed them for political gain and then ripped the rug out from underneath them at the first chance they got betrayal and then the Christians usaid supports numerous faith-based groups and implementing humanitarian assistance in some of the world's worst hotspots because their faith teaches them that every human life has dignity is sacred and is worth saving
▶ 2:32:54cutting off Aid has forced massive layoffs at these organizations and desecrated their life's work I guess no one cares about religious freedom when it interferes with a Billionaire's political agenda betrayal and diaspora communities usaid's support for Pakistani democracy organizations and flood relief efforts is now gone students in Burma benefiting from usaid scholarships have now been deprived of a better future Venezuelans who relied on usaid funded integration
▶ 2:33:24services to build a life outside of maduro's oppressive regime are now left in the Lurch and the Republicans are deporting them back into Terror you can claim to support any of these communities how you can do that is beyond me it is hypocrisy and it is betrayal and finally the American people every American is less less safe today because usaid is not out in the field stopping crises from reaching our Shores if there was a pandemic like disease outbreak
▶ 2:33:55that risked spreading to our Shores we could not respond if there is a natural disaster in Mexico or the Caribbean that would drive people to our border we could not respond the dismantling of those protections is an unequivocal betrayal of the American people oh but what about that new $400 million contract the state department is just signing with Tesla for cyber trucks because I guess people need cyber trucks more than they need malaria pills
▶ 2:34:25so now to my questions if I have time Mr Yoho in your testimony you touched on the important work of American farmers and the work of American universities in usaid feed the future Innovation Labs what Capac what capabilities do we lose domestically and what domestic constituencies do we hurt by eliminating these programs those are important programs that have worked and by the pause that we have right now
▶ 2:34:55I think the goal is instead of putting blame everywhere we focus on how we get these things back online to do the work they have done if you look at like the rutf program the ready to use therapeutic food program that saved over 17 million people children and it sources products from 27 different states in America that provide you know uh uh income for our Farmers you know and those those things that we need to get back online as soon as we can and I think you'll see that you know there is a reset it had to happen
▶ 2:35:25you know shame on us when I was in Congress that we didn't do these things earlier um it's done can't go back we can only go forward thank you and I yield back thank you for the time Mr chair you're welcome and an answer to the question the reason lgbtq is the focus is because that's what became the focus of UA Aid and state department it was not the exception it was the rule we're just reading off the lists of of Grants and pages and pages and Pages more I now rep uh recognize representative
▶ 2:35:56Kim for five minutes thank you chairman mass for holding this hearing I want to thank all of our Witnesses for joining us today the US foreign assistance has long been a very powerful soft power tool to advance our American leadership by building trust with our allies promoting democracy stabilizing terrorism prone regions and providing more Market access for American businesses however we have seen serious and credible
▶ 2:36:26cases of wasteful uses of American taxpayer funds abroad for example $2.5 million were sent through usid to build the electric vehicle charging stations in Vietnam how is this spending critical to US National Security or advancing our American interest they are not unfortunately these cases of unproductive spending abroad undermine the many targeted valuable and
▶ 2:36:56effective foreign assistance programs that are essential to our national security Mr yo as you know very well the strategic competition with China and its belon Road initiative is a top priority for the East Asia and the Pacific uh subcommittee that you once chaired and I now currently chair shijin ping is watching and he's waiting for the chance to fill any us vacuum and already there have been
▶ 2:37:26many reports of Chinese Communist Party officials signaling their willingness to replace usaid in Nepal and Dem mining activities in Cambodia and these are just the instances that we know about even critics of USA acknowledge the critical soft power value of targeted and efficient programming so let me ask you if usaid is fully merged into the state department what specific authorities
▶ 2:37:57will the state Department's Bureau of East Asia and the Pacific need to effectively Implement usaid programs to directly counter ccp's influence in the region such as training journalists to expose illegal CCP information tactics or strengthening critical infrastructures there I think the important thing they can do is get it back online as quick as they can and and and put people authorize them to get back into the field the implementors uh the state department might can do that
▶ 2:38:27but I don't know if they have the bandwidth or if they have the expertise and the capability the people that were there on the ground with usaid as um um and Minister nazio said these are the people that have institutional knowledge and they know how to do that they're not RS or D's they're Mission driven and I think we can get some of those people back in there that are are um experts in their field to move America's agenda forward of are we going to be safer are we going to be stronger and we going to be more prosperous
▶ 2:38:57and if we do that those countries will be too and it counters China and if we're not there China will be there sure uh so I'm glad that um secretary Rubio issued waivers for life-saving humanitarian Assistance programs however I'm also hearing many concerns regarding the lack of clarity on those scope of the waiver and challenges with getting paused programs restarted it's hard to restart them if we completely turn the lights off
▶ 2:39:27right so what recommendations do you have for the administration to ensure uh an effective waiver process again moving forward I think the the the quickest thing they can do and the most effective thing is identify the program that you want to do and then put the people in there that know how to implement that that could be at State um there's people at usaid and I know every there there's this big black eye on usaid but I think we need to look at what they did do good you know it's like a cake recipe one drop of kerosene
▶ 2:39:58in a cake batter ruins the whole thing so what happened and what's been exposed doesn't mean the whole thing was bad and like I said not all Aid programs are good not all of them are bad let's take the good ones and Implement them as quickly as we can so we do not seed that ground to China Russia anybody that doesn't like us thank you I'd like to ask a question to Mr primor uh what specific reforms can be implemented so the current adult uh audit and review processes
▶ 2:40:28ensured programming aligns with our US national interests I think transparency is probably the most important we have various websites where we're supposed to provide information to the American public as to what we're doing in all these different countries whether it's grants.gov or foreign assistance.gov but it's not consolidated and too often actually probably most of the time we don't have information as to who are the awardees who are the sub awardees if they're if those are made available
▶ 2:40:58and not only to Congress they should be made available to the American people I think by having this kind of transparency that a lot of these bad things happening people will be a little bit more careful because you know lots of people are watching I appreciate that thank you very much my time is up thank you representative Kim chair now recognizes representative Titus thank you Mr chairman thank you all for being here you know we've heard a lot this morning of kind of cherry-picking programs out of context and then a very narrow View and some that just aren't true about
▶ 2:41:29the bad things and the weird stuff that us Aid has been supporting uh there are programs in the Department of Agriculture that I bet we could pull out that show a waste of money and some weird programs that I certainly don't support but I'm not calling to for the dissolution of the Department of Agriculture it's kind of like Mr not said if there's a problem or you don't like a certain kind of program you can fix that you can address it you can discuss it and talk about how to make it better but you don't destroy
▶ 2:41:59it you don't just throw the baby out with the bath so why would we do that with USA ID when the programs that it does support are so much better so much more extensive so much more productive than some of these little things that you've been hearing ad nauseum from the other side of the aisle one of the areas that I'm particularly interested in that you've heard less about is how usaid supports democracy uh around the world whether it's backsliding in some
▶ 2:42:29countries or whether it's just trying to develop uh Democratic institutions and others people are on the front lines in very dangerous situations often trying to push Democratic principles and we have another number of programs through usaid that helps with that development uh Mr Nazi would you talk about what happens when we pull out when it comes to development of countries that would be friendly towards us or would be more democratic what happens to
▶ 2:42:59those people who are on the ground we know that this is a great source of soft diplomacy soft power we've heard generals say every dollar you spend on something like this is a dollar you don't spend on bullets and soldiers having to go and fight a hot War but if we're not there what are the consequences for democratic development uh my view is that the aid missions in the field are our greatest strength two-thirds of the staff of Aid are not Americans
▶ 2:43:30they're Kenyans or Nigerians they're cambodians they're uh Moroccans wherever you are and uh many of them go on to be the heads of state believe it or not the first woman Head of State in Costa Rica was an FSN with aid for 10 years the first woman vice president El Vador was a FSN with Aid the first lady of Peru was a FSN her husband got a PhD from the University of Chicago and economics he was the
▶ 2:44:00president of Peru and the first Inca president in the history of the country all of them devoted to the United States all of them right of Center and honest people I I was in Macedonia just before 911 and two of the FSN said I said any of you ever went for office two of them of our had just got elected to Parliament and they said we ran on the platform that we work for usaid so not having our emissions in the field has unintended consequences because we are a recruitment
▶ 2:44:31ground for leaders in the developing world who are pro-american wouldn't it be better to have someone who got their degree in the United States rather than Beijing to be the head of state somewhere I think it is we have a story from Nigeria just a couple years ago during covid where the minister of Health was presented with a Chinese vaccine Russian vaccine or our vaccin the minister of sell said I got my PhD in the United States or MD and an aid scholarship
▶ 2:45:01we're going with the American vaccines in fact I don't want these other vaccines in the country and they bought them this is not just a a contribution so having the missions in the field having scholarship having relationships with these countries through the missions is very important to build uh trust and um in in my view uh shutting them all down is not in our national interest I understand that secretary Rubio has sent out a a message saying none of the fsns will be laid off they'll be integrated
▶ 2:45:31into the embassy but they have to have Foreign Service officers from Aid or people who know development know procurement and understand all of the rules uh to manage them they can't do a lot of the stuff on their own so I I want one last comment about uh democracy I'm a little troubled because I'm looking at the patterns of what's been cancelled all the Democracy programs and governance programs have been cancelled exactly and I'm a little I I hope that's not a deliberate
▶ 2:46:01decision maybe I'm misreading it I don't think so if if that's the case it's it's a disaster because people around the world who want democracy and want freedom rely on us they look to the United States they certainly don't look to China uh Russia North Korea and Iran the KR Alliance as we call them in the the Pentagon uh they are enemies they're not our friends and we need to support those Democratic forces around the world in my view I agree thank you very much I Y back thank you representative
▶ 2:46:32Titus chair now recognizes representative Davidson I thank the chairman and look I appreciate this hearing it's certainly timely uh when we talk about woke and weaponized government it's easy to get desensitized to the long list of frivolous L pretty radical programs that are being exposed you know stuff like $1.5 million for Dei in Serbia $47,000 for transgender operas in Colombia $2 million the Ambassador
▶ 2:47:02former ambassador to Guatemala talked to me about this $2 million for transgender surgeries in conservative country like Guatemala it's a long list I mean usaid funded scholarships for people who became terrorists like anir aukee uh we've sent under the guys usad we sent money to unra uh which returned funds directly to Hamas uh in blatant violation of US law the Helms amendment pepar has funded abortions and killed babies uh what is happening
▶ 2:47:32in afria Africa is just the tip of the pro-abortion iceberg that the Biden Administration weaponized Aid agencies into uh it also happens to be against the law uh that Congress has passed so usad funded U Independent Media so-called in Hungary but it was actually trying to run a color Revolution Playbook to overturn the government very popular government of prime minister Victor Orban who's a NATO Ally uh so let's be clear this this color cultural revolution
▶ 2:48:03Playbook hasn't just just been weaponized against allies in foreign countries it's been brought home and weaponized against our own citizens right here uh if you had unapproved opinions of covid vaccines or origins of covid or maybe the hunter Biden laptop story there was almost certainly a puppet NGO working overtime on taxpayer dollars which contradicts the word NGO in the first place uh you know to to shut down or deplatform
▶ 2:48:33speech in America that's clear violation of the First Amendment so look our staff has heard every day from terrible stories about uh the abuse of our government in conflict with our own National interest in places like Uganda where they don't Embrace aborting babies they will be retaliated against and have Aid taken away from them I mean coercive coercive activities uh so thank goodness president Trump has brought us back into the Geneva consensus declaration protecting life
▶ 2:49:04building pro-life and other values that align with America First policies they Advance our interests but they also help our allies Advance their interests and that's probably the mo it's terrible to waste the money but it's also terrible to not just waste it to actually work against the interest of the United States so look I agree that there's probably some things and we'll get to those things that that are good but when you have a completely non-responsive agency actively working to undermine uh the guidance that Congress
▶ 2:49:34is giving them they don't steer so last July U margorie Taylor green a colleague of ours uh introduced an amendment to defund usaid and the amendment was defeated 81 to 331 now I voted yes uh but 331 colleagues were opposed to this you know somewhat radical change I bet the vote would be different today but thanks secretary Rubio is going to take charge and say yeah we're going to do the good things we're just going to turn it off and we're going to clean house and I think that's
▶ 2:50:04where they were we knew there were abuses there but you know that's what we're up against folks so let's just you know Mr peror um you've written about disgraceful efforts in the Abid Administration to bully conservative countries into accepting radical gender Theory abortion policies uh a far-left agenda in a piece last year you wrote that East African Faith leaders viewed USA Aid staff as quote missionaries of evil because the B Administration hijacked
▶ 2:50:35popular Aid programs to promote uh their their uh agenda could you elaborate on that I traveled to Africa a couple of times last year and and spoken to many of them who visit here in the United States and many of them like me remember the 1990s where I was involved in democracy development and we helped turn the former World Warsaw countries into allies of the United States but these were values that were akin to our to our Bill of Rights things have have really
▶ 2:51:05radically changed a lot I've spoken to a lot of faith-based organizations that are feeding hungry and Kenya for instance they have so many refugees from surrounding countries some of these uh dases they simply will not take us funding because it's tied to all it had been tied to all of these things I I did a uh mon I monitored a uh or moderated a panel on uh on on Africa at Liberty University and a governor from North uh from North the northern part of Nigeria had a conversation with
▶ 2:51:35Samantha power who told her that you have to tie food Aid with all of this other W stuff crazy leverage and look I wish I could talk more and I will submit questions for the record because Mr yo look nevertheless there are certain things post uh usaid's demise and the imminent funeral for this agency uh that we might want to keep intact so how do we advance our interest I look forward to collaborating with you all and I yield back thank you Mr Davidson chair now recognizes representative ammo thank you
▶ 2:52:06chairman Mr chairman it's ironic that that this hearing is called the usaid Betrayal because Donald Trump betrayed usaid he betrayed the agency's mission and its employees he betrayed the American workers and the businesses supported by usaid contracts and he betrayed the literal Starving Children who rely on food from us Aid to Stave off hunger I'd like to highlight a few of the groups that Republicans are
▶ 2:52:36leaving out in the cold with this freeze let's start with the usaid employees Americans around the world they feel abandoned by our government saying quote we have lost contact with Washington we are on our own some usaid employees again Americans have been forced to flee the country where they worked after protests over Frozen Aid turned violent what does it say about us
▶ 2:53:06when we turn our backs on our own citizens these Global helpers who are just doing their job but the Betrayal extends to every American worker who rep who relies on usaid including Farmers manufacturers and universities in my home state the University of Rhode Island works with usaid to improve aquatic food food systems and fight food insecurity right now the university is unable to access nearly $300,000 they are owed let me repeat universities
▶ 2:53:36are being stiffed for work they have already completed and that was before the funding freeze what kind of government refuses to pay its debts you know might be a government led by a multi-time bankrupt billionaires I suppose but of all the people affected the worst impact of this betrayal fall on those who rely on usaid for food and Medical Care people are already dying because of the aid freeze
▶ 2:54:07as you heard earlier yesterday we learned that a 70-year-old woman in Thailand died because the aid freeze cut off her oxygen supply and her access to care whether from lack of medical attention or from starvation more people will die because of Trump's decision and my colleagues on the other side having a collective silence it's mindboggling this food Aid was funded some of it was already purchased
▶ 2:54:38it is ready to feed people as this Inspector General general report finds right here before they were usid stop work orders jeopardized nearly $500 million in food assistance leaving $500,000 metric tons of American gran food at risk of spoiling look if Doge wants to eliminate waste it can start with the life-saving food that is
▶ 2:55:08literally rotting in our ports because of Trump's betrayal this Administration has failed us it has compromised our national security we beat our chest about National Security this is hurting it adversaries like China and Russia are salivating at our retreat they are reaching out to our allies and partners to undermine our work across the world Republicans are abandoning Global Health work that's an insane decision after a global Health pandemic
▶ 2:55:38that we've recently experienced right now there's a deadly Ebola outbreak in Uganda where more than a dozen Americans are exposed to this pH virus but where's the United States nowhere to be found look I worked on President Obama's response to Ebola domestically and President Biden's response to covid when I worked at the White House in tutin and the number one lesson from the pandemic Playbook is that we must contain the virus before it kills
▶ 2:56:08more people and makes its way to the United States it is in our best interests to get involved so I know I'm running short on time but uh former administrator uh naos if you could answer quickly do any of the betrayals that I have explained here today make America safer or promote America's abroad I I do believe that a robust foreign aid program
▶ 2:56:39properly managed is in our national interest I wrote an article for foreign affairs that came out two weeks ago February 7th with a realist policy policy not a liberal internationalist policy on how we should run our aid program during this period of great power rivalry the basic argument is that uh that uh humanitarian assistance and health should be based on need only all the rest of it should be based on the following uh standards one is
▶ 2:57:09uh there are 14 choke points in the high seas that control the food supply of the world we should be have Aid missions in these countries we do in in Egypt it's not just because Israel is security is is connected to Egypt it's because the Suz Canal is there Morocco they're not going to change the geography of The bral Straits we let Aid had a mission in Panama and we left because it's a middle- inome country we should not have left in my view
▶ 2:57:39there should be a permanent mission in Panama because the Panama Canal is not going to go away when we left guess who moved in the Chinese do and who is upset with this now properly so is the President we should have had an large age Mission permanently in Panama they I went down there for with my University and they all wanted it they they didn't want us to leave so I think we need to place our missions more strategically the the area around Russia and China are under severe stress all
▶ 2:58:09of the central a Asian countries want a larger age Mission you know the kazaks Kazakhstan we were going to move out and they president said said we'll pay for half of it I said what it's an aid program he said we don't want you to leave Mr naos we want Aid here we want the United States here and we value what you're doing so we will pay from our gas revenues half of the cost of the aid program thank the gentleman for his response gentleman's time chairman I ask unanimous consent to enter in uh the article from which I
▶ 2:58:42order gentlemen may want to find a time to apologize on Twitter to or somewhere else to the administration or thank the administration as uh 6 Plus million as one example has gone to the W uh the wfp the world food program 250,000 in on line item for Ebola response another 1.5 million for Ebola response another 250,000 for Ebola response the list goes on and on those are programs that have moved forward and it goes exactly to your point of being more strategic not
▶ 2:59:12doing the absurd crazy BS that has been done in the past it all comes to an end and can't wait to have the people come here and literally stand before us and answer for the craziness they've been doing representative Barett is recognized thank you Mr chairman and ranking member and thank the witnesses for being here and Dr Yoho it's always a good when I can see you so but you know I want to I want to express that the American people really deserve not to have their tax dollars spent on the programs
▶ 2:59:42that uh chairman Mast mentioned earlier in his opening statement uh and I really appreciate amerisist McCall reminding us about how uh the US Aid came about and it was really initially created as was said uh to combat the Soviet Union and their efforts uh to spread communism around the world so it's disappointing to hear about the billions of dollars being distributed to foreign countries and some of those are
▶ 3:00:12adversaries that uh Without Really accomplishing our mission so we have people here at home that are really struggling for example those that are still sleeping in tents after some of the hurricanes and it's cold winter time and so you I think you can recognize and I'm sure you recognize uh the importance of taking care of our own people but anyway uh Dr Yoho uh thank you for your service in the 113th Congress and I'm interested in agriculture just as I know
▶ 3:00:43you are so I would really be interested to hear uh your perspective as a veterinarian uh on the impact of early detection of zuntic diseases and the development of early uh detection and vaccines for controlling some of these diseases and sure uh thanks for that question because it's very important you know there's so many things that are going around the things that affect people in pandemics and epidemics and things like that originate in the
▶ 3:01:13animal world the zoonotics uh there's 27 viral families that come through and we saw the effect of covid I mean covid is in the animal world it's in the human world the thing we're looking at now is h5n1 highly pathogenic uh Aven influenza we were seeing it mutate and get into the mammals from the birds to the dairy cattle to the feline population into the porine population and into the human population this is a very dangerous virus if it gains a hold in the human population and get
▶ 3:01:43and and can get to the point of transmission uh the way influenza virus did uh CO as bad as it was had about a 97% recovery rate you get one of these bad strains of influenza or the marberg virus that's showing up um or the a new strain of Ebola they have a 40 to 50% death rate those things uh what we went through with covid was bad enough but it's nothing like what we're going to see and the research that we do through organizations like our land
▶ 3:02:13grant universities um those are the ones that are on The Cutting Edge of the but then you have multi- funded donor International organizations like sepy the Coalition epidemic preparedness innovators they are doing research on the the emerging viruses so that we can have the the platform for the vaccines to be developed ahead of time and this is a that platform um the United States provides about 5% of their funding roughly $170 million over the last five years
▶ 3:02:44out of a budget that they have of about four and a little over four trillion ion or yeah4 billion dollar the amazing thing is we've received about 1.25 billion back here in the United States of America that go into our research universities our biotech parks to do this Advanced research and that leads to um Global health and National Health and you can't have uh National Security if you don't have health security so could you um are you supportive of the idea that
▶ 3:03:14having people in some of these foreign countries uh allows us to have early detection it really does and I think as uh uh administrator and Nel brought up if we have missions in these we can monitor the spread of that and they're the first ones if they're trained in the medical field and they can follow these things we can see where it's breaking out we can do the mitigation of uh quarantining that area before it gets to a pandemic and it's again this is National Security um we don't want to Cloud the good that they do with some of these programs that
▶ 3:03:44we heard that were abused that should never have happened because that r Ru the whole credibility of us it ruins the credibility of the aid arm of the United States of America and it's uh um that's all I'm going to say thank you uh do either one of the other Witnesses have a comment we got about 28 seconds left I agree with every single word of what Dr Yoo just said he's absolutely correct that's and I I didn't think of adding in the the zuntic the animal diseases just from a Veterinary point of view in terms of monitoring
▶ 3:04:15that's a very good idea stick around while I would just add that well these are important ideas but we also have to strengthen the capability of other countries to be able to do it on their own countries in Africa and Latin America it's like year after year we're spending a ton of money and we're not getting ownership from these countries and that to me is a better more mature relationship thank you thank you and my time's up and I yield back Mr chair thank you Mr bar chair now recognizes representative jaul thank you
▶ 3:04:45Mr chairman 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 pass words of the Republicans own witness Mr primak quote increase C 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
▶ 3:05:15and Farms all while undermining our naal security diplomatic efforts and Global influence um it's great to be on this committee uh before coming to Congress I actually spent many years working for a seattle-based global Health nonprofit organization that employs about 1600 people uh 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
▶ 3:05:45the world the devastation that's being caused by this irresponsible funding freeze is alarming and painful 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
▶ 3:06:15have 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 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
▶ 3:06:46the extension of trump tax 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 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
▶ 3:07:16to spend it and they'll say 10% but guess what we actually don't even spend 34 of 1% of our entire federal budget on foreign assistance and so the reality is that usaid is 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 and Global presence
▶ 3:07:46on the stage um Mr naos you are the former Massachusetts Republican party chair you served as as the US administrator under George W bush can you briefly explain why the average American should care about usaid money and work and what what are the benefits to the average American and I have a couple questions for you so just be brief please first um you're we we can't shut ourselves off from the world because our borders
▶ 3:08:17we have a huge problem with the Border I 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 the uh Coastline and and you can't put walls up for the whole Coastline of the United States it's too big I live on 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 to walls up on on the coastline in Maine so how do you deal with that you you you
▶ 3:08:47make sure that if famines are starting you stop them before they get out of you know what people at the at the end of any famine people start moving in Mass uh 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 AC along the coast so we need a presence in the world to reduce Forest migration which the biggest forest migration crisis in the history history since World War II 125 million people are
▶ 3:09:17now not where they intend to be their their refugees are internally displaced number two that we already went through the diseases it's not an American interest to have a disease get out of control because it's going to be a catastrophe for all of us and and Dr yo was 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
▶ 3:09:47they working even in pepar are they working are we getting money to these lifesaving programs I have spoken to the Christian NOS because I know them that's the community I come from and they said they they they appreciate the waivers they have the waivers but they are not there's no money flowing to them that's what they told me a wer does no reason why many of them are old friends of mine they would not make this this up thank you I yield back thank you I just uh want to congratulate RFK who just been
▶ 3:10:17confirmed by the Senate say congratulations speaking of health and say now representative self is recognized uh thank you Mr chairman there is an advantage to being this far down the dis there's too much material to cover that's come out of this briefing uh so to my colleagues on the other side they like to talk about this um firing of the IGS they forget the 2022 law that specifically says
▶ 3:10:47uh 30 days paid then you can be fired and then the unelected uh people that are working in the executive bran as far as I know there are only two elected people throughout the entire elected Branch uh executive branch that's the president and the vice president every other one of the 2 million plus the 12 million contractors are unelected so everybody that we are praising as well as the people that we are condemning are all unelected um Mr
▶ 3:11:18naos uh it's either you or during one of your a colleague on the other aisle during your testimony said well it's only a small number and it reminded me of the reporter that said about the um argentinan gang taking over just a couple of apartment buildings well it's only a couple of apartment buildings this country is 36 trillion in debt we are trying in this Congress to do something about that but uh we have taken all of these small
▶ 3:11:48amounts now for decades and they now add up to $36 trillion in debt so every small amount crucial uh 40% you said that 40% of the usaid are compliance officers that's not the issue what are they complying to during the Biden Administration they were complying to things that were not in the interest of the United States I don't care about the percentage what are they requiring compliance of would be my
▶ 3:12:21so this is for Dr Yoho and so the title of this agency is agency for International Development is it not is that correct International Development so in the just in the few grants that we've been looking at there is a usaid for activities in DC to provide usid employees in
▶ 3:12:51DC with counseling organizational resilience wellness and work life balance now I realize that DC might be different than the rest of the United States but it's International uh we'll skip over the uh and having worked in both the the third world Africa and the Middle East we'll skip over the climate uh change because a poor country doesn't care about climate change they care about survival uh but I want to go to a US
▶ 3:13:22contract excuse me for activities in Albuquerque and this is for you Mr Yoho Dr yo excuse me emergency Dei support in Albuquerque now I assume that's Albuquerque New Mexico so it was in 20122 through uh 2023 so it may have been in your last budget were you aware of emergency Dei support probably not
▶ 3:13:52it's an unfair question uh in Albuquerque so and then the last one I want to talk about is another usaid for activities in DC now this one is really interesting because it is to hire an LGBT advisor for the usaid's US US personal services contractor program but the interesting thing about this is there to it is to contractor
▶ 3:14:23wow that one requires some sort of Investigation uh so my my question is to you Mr naos why do we have have activities in the United States if this is International Development well I I hav't read that so I can't tell the I can tell you microphone sorry I can tell you I was in a commission this is when I was teaching at Georgetown after I left Aid a number of officers came back from Afghanistan and Iraq whose colleagues had
▶ 3:14:53been murdered by Taliban we we lost a large number of contract staff in both countries and um they committed suicide and so they created a commission which they asked me to serve on and I did to see what we need to do when people come back because and this is true for the military my son was in Afghanistan I was in the first Gulf War as a major in the Army Reserves that was mobilized actually I was in the Bush Administration I left to to go to Iraq um and there is a suicide
▶ 3:15:23problem in the US military so I believe but I'm not sure that that may have been counseling because they did they do it in an organized way if they see depression when people come back from the field who've seen a lot of violence uh then they put them I'll actually give you that because you're right we still have 17 military veterans that commit suicide every day right I'm on the VA committee as well I was in Afghanistan and the go let me let me mention the compliance officers what they comply with it's a very good question Federal acquisition
▶ 3:15:53regulations which were passed by the US Congress I might add it's 2,000 pages long I tried to read it when I was the aid administrator I almost jumped out the four story window they are so complicated they're worse than the IRS code we have to comply with them when people say well why is the aid stuff so complicated let me stop you there because leadership matters and in the Biden Administration leadership came from the top we will not uh and Mr chairman I yield back but that is the central point it's not the regulations
▶ 3:16:24it's leadership at the top and I yield back thank you Mr self chair now recognizes Mr olety thank you Mr chairman uh and thank you all for being here and your service uh I'll just start with a point my my colleague just made about the inspector generals um in fact there are Provisions to remove an inspector General but again they were not fired in any of these cases uh Inspector General firings the president must provide Congress 30-day notice and quote substantive rational rationale including detailed and case
▶ 3:16:54specific reasons for the firing and to my knowledge that has not taken place um I really appreciate again you all being here I'll just reinforce the point that was made uh by a ranking member Meeks earlier that I think that as helpful as these conversations are it would be even more beneficial especially as a new member to have uh representatives of the administration also at the table so that we can hear directly from them about what they're doing why they're doing it as we exercise our oversight uh work um you know I just want to also say as someone new
▶ 3:17:24here uh Mr chairman and colleagues I welcome the opportunity to go after some of these programs and some of this spending I I want to be at the table uh with all of you I think that we can agree that that several uh examples that were cited today Merit investigation uh defunding if there was inappropriate action there should be action taken um I completely agree agree with that but I think there is a wellestablished process um that does not include wholesale elimination or pausing of funding I
▶ 3:17:54guess my concerns are twofold one of which is that in the meantime we are affecting Real Americans we talked about that earlier Real Americans who are either employees and have given their life to this country in service to it uh or there are those who are our farmers and other folks who are helping out um so as we think about this work um I'm particularly concerned about the funding freezes that are being taken place Congress explicitly has the power of the purse under article one of the United States Constitution in the wake
▶ 3:18:24of overreach by the Nixon Administration Congress passed the impoundment act of 1974 uh that said the president may only propose recisions or pulling back funding uh with uh specific notice to Congress and with approval of Congress within 45 days again um none of that has happened in any of these cases and I would just encourage colleagues to say again I want to be part of these conversations but let's do it through the legal and wellestablished process uh for those
▶ 3:18:54of you who don't know my background uh before I was a State Rep and a county executive I was a school teacher and so really believe in the power of Education both domestically and internationally and one of the things that worries me particularly now as a new member on the subcommittee of Africa is we know there are tens of millions of of individuals on that continent who cannot read uh there are tens of Millions of children now not in school um there were programs that were being uh afforded 44 million Learners young people
▶ 3:19:24uh under usaid supported programs uh were being taken place so in addition to the Democracy programs being defunded we talked about my understanding is there's no waiver and there's no funding for education I guess my question is uh would education programs and we can sort of do a a yes or no or if you keep your answer like do you see any concern for the education programs that were being supported by USA ID do I see any concerns with them or I see the benefit that we had with uh the education and
▶ 3:19:55when you go back to the 1961 they focus on agriculture and education and as Mr naio brought out we used to educate leaders around the world that when we go around as you go on delegations they were educated here there's over 300,000 students going to China that used to not that many coming here in the past but China has has jumped on this and they see the value and that effect from that will be 10 to 15 years down the road let me let me ask you one let me show you or mention one major benefit
▶ 3:20:25of Education that has to do with conflict they've done studies of all these militias that are so vicious and so destabilizing all over the world almost all of them the young men are completely illiterate they've never been to any schooling at all and that's how they recruit them I when I was in darur as a special Envoy I noticed that they didn't even know they didn't know what the United States was these people were that isolated from the world they didn't know what Europe was and that's not good it's
▶ 3:20:55it's destabilizing and it affects us when these when these groups uh start attack they sometimes they attack Americans yes so just reclaiming a little bit of time I completely agree with both of you thank you for that response I think as we think about Economic Development as we think about world security um people are less likely to endorse political violence to to join those when they are educated and so um as we're taking that step I would just welcome uh particularly uh you administrator naos um how you would go about through a legal framework if you were working in the position
▶ 3:21:25currently if you could follow up this committee how you would go through and actually make those changes to programs that are of concern uh without jeopardizing all of those other actions well you you can put some of it in statute and I certainly would but part of it is the two parties working together which is when I was in office the two parties did they supported Aid and they helped me a lot I have to tell you and when we needed support I got more support sometimes from the hill than I did from
▶ 3:21:56the other Branch I'll say sign me up and an amen to that thank you Mr chairman I I uh yield thank you representative volety and I would just say that the authority uh for secretary Rubio to consolidate reduce eliminate it does fall though you were not here in a law passed in the 2024 Appropriations esops Appropriations 7063 where you can expand eliminate consolidate downsize cover Department agencies expand or reduce the size of permanent Civil Service Foreign Service the
▶ 3:22:26list goes on and on uh and again I would also remind everybody that all but three Democrats voted for that uh that are on this committee that were here at the time and I now recognize representative moand thank you Mr chairman and as many of my co colleagues previously mentioned the US Agency on International Development is in dire need of reform and the chairman has already done an excellent job highlighting some of the wasteful and burden that has burdened the American taxpayer both in this hearing
▶ 3:22:57and on YouTube yet when we talk about how us Aid betrayed the American people it's also important to recognize some of the good us Aid has accomplished when done right being from Indo Pacific I know the critical role that US foreign aid has played in disaster response as an example when done right us Aid has provided much needed humanitarian assistance to Japan after the 2011
▶ 3:23:27Fu fujishima disaster specifically us Aid deployed its Disaster Assistance response team to Japan for almost two months with many similar examples elsewhere us Aid's track record in Disaster Assistance has proven to be a positive force when done right as an alumni I can also speak on the incredible partnership us Aid provides to the University of Guam
▶ 3:23:58and other academic institutions by offering internships fellowships and grant opportunities and when done right us Aid has made it possible for the US to connect with other nations on a societal level now as we look at America's diplomatic Effectiveness and when done right I commend the opportunities that us Aid has provided to students these successes
▶ 3:24:29make us Aid's wasteful programs all the more heartbreaking for every stride the agency has made to prevent disease they fund drag shows for every country they have helped after disasters they fund Dei seminars My Hope Is that secretary Rubio maintains what works but hopefully it's clear that usaid needs to change
▶ 3:24:59Dr yo your previous Foreign Affairs legislation highlighted the strong relationships between the US and partner Nations and Pacific and Asia where do you think usaid succeeded in this region and where do you think it needs to improve I think where it's succeeded uh there's multiple examples of that uh you look at the work they've done with organizations like sepi or in the food programs and the educational programs
▶ 3:25:29like you brought up those create Goodwill that make us stronger programs like we've heard talked about today uh drives Nations away from us and if they drive them away it makes us weaker so we need to focus on those um I work a lot in the agricultural sector um my whole life as a veterinarian and um working on food security and taking that knowledge and going into the island nations or whether it's in Africa wherever it is teaching them our best practices that we've learned and then teaming up with
▶ 3:26:00Aid um us Aid to carry these out and then wean these countries off it creates trading partners it just makes us stronger in the end and it creates that relationship that we have that's going to make us both more secure thank you U for Mr PR your contribution to project 2025 uh focuses on foreign assistance role to counter PR PRC efforts now despite the fraud waste and abuse the programs
▶ 3:26:30that work in US Aid are incredibly diplomatic tool how do you think we can maintain necessary us Aid programs like Disaster Response health and economic growth while trimming this mismanagement thank you actually uh when I was leading the Bureau for humanitarian assistance I had to deal with many disaster responses and we did it we did it quite well we also had a very good and robust counter China uh framework there unfortunately the the next Administration just tore
▶ 3:27:00it all tore it all down uh I think when we're talking about how do we prevent losing the Good by taking away the bad that we have to regain the trust of the American people and right now the more they learn the more they're distrustful that's why I think this review this pause and review is very important so that the American people can feel that no all of this bad stuff is gone thank you thank you and for my final question Mr naus um if you can could you please explain some of the challenges associated
▶ 3:27:31with the Pacific and Asia uh time during your please well China was not as big a threat when I was in office in fact huan was very helpful in getting uh the ch the sudin government to be responsible because President Bush called him and asked him and uh China was liberalizing then and that's been reversed by xiin Pang I think xiin Pang I shouldn't say this but it is a disaster for China I think hinau
▶ 3:28:01if they followed the route he was taking China would not be what it's doing now and and and I think it's it's really sad the the Asian countries feel very threatened I was just in Bangkok I think it was in October and we talked to uh my delegation talked to a prominent political scientist and this is what he said in there were Chinese in the room when he said it he said we love America we love freedom but you're unreliable you come in you
▶ 3:28:31come out you leave we can't predict what you're doing thank you very much and and the Chinese are always here thank you Mr chairman thank you thank you representative Morland chair now recognizes representative Jackson question thank you much chairman I think it's important to hear the voices of employees directly impacted by this administration's effort to dismantle usaid one Foreign Service member recently filed a declaration declaring how the chaos created by these abrupt
▶ 3:29:02actions of usad ID being shut down jeopardized his and his family safety during the recent evacuation from the DRC I asked unanimous consent that his account be entered into the record book Mr chairman it's a hering account of uh of we've left our employees abroad stranded because of the ration of this decision I have this Cent to the record chairman um Mr prar
▶ 3:29:32thank you and thank you Mr Yayo and Natasia for coming out today uh Mr permark you've written extensively in Project 2025 about your critique of usaid uh may I ask you do you work with any of the members of do or do how do you pronounce the name of the committee no not at all no in no communication whatsoever do you know the pronunciation of that organization
▶ 3:30:02I just call it Doge like others do okay is it a private firm or is it a government entity it's a government entity and the people working for it our government uh s uh approved it was formed by who the president of the United States and how is it funded I understand that most are working for free but any other costs are going to be covered by the US government if they're working for free who's paying them are they employees of Mr musk I have no idea okay I just know
▶ 3:30:32that you have an extremely close working relationship with the organization and uh how many years have you worked in foreign affairs and in 4 and8 about 35 years different capacities from ngos as contractor State Department working for the office of for the vice president and also directly with usaid thank you is there anything that a 19-year-old could tell you about usaid that you don't understand from your years of experience my understanding is that they're
▶ 3:31:02their technical staff can any of those 19 year olds teach you something that you don't understand about usid in terms of anything to do with data overview and looking at things I'm just clueless sorry okay well thank you so much I think it and uh for the record I'd like it to be clear that uh you and I would probably have a difference of opinion on what diversity means in this African-American history month Mr Frederick Douglas I had written a an article and a speech regarding
▶ 3:31:33composite nation that this is a land of many different cultures races ethnicities that have all come to call this great land home and if we're looking at the future of Africa in the year 2050 being one in four human beings on Earth that there should be a push for cultural diversity expanding how we reach out to people and so when we talk about America and usaid betrayal I'd like to put the eye on do G not one member on this panel has had
▶ 3:32:03anything to say or do with the cuts of food and let it also be entered into the record at this moment the irony of the richest man on earth taking food away from the poorest humans on this Earth let it also be entered into the record that the most powerful man on Earth is denying food assistance medical assistance malaria vaccinations to the poorest people on Earth we don't need to operate in this chaotic matter I would like to ask Mr naos uh how should this project work
▶ 3:32:33uh how should we be convened today that would make this more productive sorry I this is a more radical proposal but I had proposed this and Foreign Affairs some years ago I think we need to consolidate the MCC uh the DFC Aid and uh a couple of the foreign a parts of the state department into one Department uh and uh raise the visibility and integrate
▶ 3:33:04the programs more I don't think for example there'd be a representative for the DFC and the MCC in each country that they work in they can have the a mission do that they could be an inter great ad mission for all of these purposes there are countries where there's CDC and Aid running the same program pepar it's never been corrected there's frankly they fight with each other it's embarrassing and it's it's duplicative and there's no need for it I I think they should put
▶ 3:33:34one agency in charge of the whole thing and that's it that's what happened with the malaria program and it's worked very well uh the third thing I would do is decentralize now with with what's going on now no one will agree to this but the the literature on uh bureaucratic processes James K Wilson my favorite writer who's by the way a conservative he says decentralize every administrative function at the lowest level where people have um knowledge of what's going on you have to have oversight in
▶ 3:34:04Washington but Aid during the Cold War was the most decentralized agency and it drove the Russians crazy because the mission directors and the ambassadors could be responsive to the local president and the the local prime minister and that's one of the reasons we won the Cold War we helped win the Cold War through Aid because we were highly decentralized and very responsive right now there are 275 ear marks in Aid we tell the country what because we don't have any choice the whole there's no flexibility in the budget
▶ 3:34:35thank you gentlemen and I yield back thank you representative Jackson I would wonder how many transgender operas they funded during the Cold War probably not many chair now recognizes representative bigs from South Carolina thank you Mr chairman I appreciate your efforts in organizing this important hearing and thank you to our Witnesses for your testimonies today so today's hearing has provided a Target Rich environment of examples of funding allocations
▶ 3:35:05that while perhaps they were intended for worthy causes in my opinion they rais serious questions about our priorities and where our Focus truly lies these include and we've mentioned many but just to name a couple others 3.3 million for being lgbtq in the Caribbean and 37.6 million for sex workers their clients and transgender individuals in South
▶ 3:35:35Africa while I acknowledge the complex Global changes us Aid seeks to address we must ask a fundament Al question are we truly fulfilling our responsibility to the American people when we allocate tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars for programs abroad while neglecting critical and yes I said critical needs right here at home just like districts
▶ 3:36:06in South Carolina's Third District which I represent I struggle to explain to veterans in Newberry County who's fighting to find a job why our resources are directed overseas to programs that don't enhance our national security instead of supporting his career prospects we've mentioned health care I watched a veteran with his face in his hands sobbing because he
▶ 3:36:36couldn't get health care needs met we've talked about the mental health needs that he couldn't get met and he said to me I like I'm a hamster in a wheel I can't get out of the out of the process I find it difficult to justify to families in in Greenwood that are facing mounting medical bills while resources are being spent on programs abroad when those funds could expand access to vital Health Care Services
▶ 3:37:07in their in their own Community I question how we can prioritize funding initiatives overseas you know when we have cyber security vulner vulnerabilities in Anderson County that threaten local businesses and critical infrastructure for those of us who are Guided by Christian values the principle of Charity begins at home it resonates strongly with me while we are called to care
▶ 3:37:37for all of God's children there is also a natural and an understandable inclination to prioritize the needs of our immediate Community our fellow citizens and those within our own Nation let me be very clear this is not about abandoning our Global responsibilities it's about investing in the very Foundation of our nation our communities our families and our
▶ 3:38:07future it's about ensuring that the hardworking people of South Carolina's thirdd district and all across the nation are not left behind while resources are directed to woke programs that do not Advance American interest so my question to our Witnesses is very simple what went wrong and why did the oversight measures fail to prevent taxpayer money from being spent on wasteful programs that don't put
▶ 3:38:39First accountability and transparency and it's this body and I was a part of this body we didn't do our job is what I feel you know the American people sent us up here to do something we hear the IG reports you know this person that got fired he got fired he was the IG made a report gets fired there's an i IG report every year we don't act and if we don't act this is what happens you know we We complain about everything that's bad and then we don't act and then when somebody like Trump comes in and there'll
▶ 3:39:09be somebody after that and when they come in and they do this we get upset you know we've got to fix Congress that's why people send us here I would also add that I've what I've seen over the past 25 25 years is a progressive left have has gradually just seized control over the entire foreign a uh industrial complex and that's something the political sociology of the industry has to be changed if we're not otherwise we're going to have this same
▶ 3:39:40Vicious Circle occur again and again thank you just let me add there is large number of Mormons at Aid I've never met a communist Mormon before there aren't any that I know of I I I don't theologically agree with them but I have great respect for the Mormons there's a very large number of practicing Catholics in Aid and evangelicals and there's a large number as I said earlier today of missionary kids who were why because they speak the languages of the countries they were brought up in and they make wonderful Foreign Service
▶ 3:40:10offices and many of them have written to the senior risen to the senior levels of the agency is is there a contingent of younger very liberal yes there are but it's very mixed and my experience in the agency maybe it's changed is that when you ask officers to do something they do it I didn't used to have to ask their backgrounds I just said I want this done and if they didn't do it I would take action I actually fired 16 senior people when I was in office thank you Mr political gentle ladies
▶ 3:40:41time has expired even if they're Catholic if they're doing LGBT TQ musicals in Ireland their time is coming to an end j now recognizes representative Connelly thank you and uh Ted welcome back uh it's good to see you um Mr naos when you were a administrator did you uh oversee
▶ 3:41:11an agency that was Rife with lgbtq dances in Ireland and I don't know condoms to the tune of two million and Gaza and all kinds of iffy marginal flaky uh projects that were funded with US taxpayer money bringing dishonor to the United States of America that would that be a fair characterization of aid from your point of view well it certainly wasn't when I was there
▶ 3:41:42and I don't think it is now myself but I do think there are programs that I saw on the list that I would not have allowed in My AG well let's stipulate that but let's not let's not let that characterize Aid because all of us are losers if that succeeds it seems to me um global global Health what percentage of Aid's work would fall under the rubric of global Health fighting disease child maternal uh health
▶ 3:42:12care or rehydration projects on and on polio sister billion doll what's that eight billion doll8 billion dollar out of 40 out of 38 billion last out of 38 so big chunk what about food security and nutrition program the emergency response part of Eight Is Now by far the largest it's $15 billion dollar it just amazes me because it's so much more that I had when I when I was in office so so 23 of the 38 billion is just those two
▶ 3:42:42categories that is correct and those aren't Fringe projects those are really life- saving projects that fair characterization yes and what about disaster relief well the 15 billion is the food security is the food security for me is the emergency side agriculture is separate from that and that's what I think you're talking about in the longer term development sense but when we're talking about Disaster Assistance we're not only talking food no for example my my fire department is part of a FEMA Aid relationship where they can go
▶ 3:43:12to trouble spots overseas and again try to save lives right I don't know what part of the 15 billion is food versus what we call non-food assistance which is usually emergency medical care and uh Public Health like immunizing kids in refugee camps and that kind of thing so I don't know the breakdown so let's say one were sincere about wanting to clean up marginal fringy projects that should never have been funded is the way
▶ 3:43:42to do that to basically announce we're gonna fire 10,000 employees and leave 239 left it is not and what what would be the consequences of depopulating the agency to the tune of 10,000 out of employees uh my experience I've run seven institutions in the last 50 years now uh the eight officers that I work with were among the smartest and the best
▶ 3:44:13managers that I've worked with the most creative because the circumstances they deal with in the development are very challenging uh I think losing career people is like losing the Cadre of the Military Officers it's a disaster for the United States and the chairman seems to be under the impression that the Appropriations Bill provides blanket authority to Secretary of State Marco Rubio I beg to differ uh my view is that ultimately Aid was established by Statute in the foreign
▶ 3:44:43assistance Act of 1961 as amended and if you want to dismantle or fold it into another organization you must get statut or authority from the United States Congress and we certainly will fight that out final Point Mr naos and maybe Ted yo you may want to come in as well I'm worried about the vacuum being created by these actions that China is going to Wal right in there they're already big actors now we the
▶ 3:45:13United States are going to make them even even more so and I I struggle to see how that's in an American interest do why don't you comment it's going to drive people closer to China Russia the adversaries and we see this but I saw that before too with the programs um I had one of the past presidents of Ghana say that if we we want aid but if we have one party from the United States in power they have a short list if we have another one
▶ 3:45:43it's a long list he goes if we go to China they say here's your money but they said this I would rather do business with the United States that's something that we can take advantage and we need to we need to focus on those things because that makes us stronger safer and you know more more prosperous not just here but in those other countries we need to get back to the basic Mission here thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you representative Connelly gentleman from New Jersey representative Kane is recognized
▶ 3:46:13uh thank you Mr chairman chman and thank you to our Witnesses for being here today America is spending $40 billion 4 in in foreign aid yet much of that money never reaches the intended recipients instead it gets caught up in bureaucratic inefficiencies and organizations that have not always been transparent with the American taxpayer a usaid report published in June of 2023 under the Biden Administration noted that just one out of
▶ 3:46:44every $10 reaches the actual people in need abroad a recent study by the Middle East Forum revealed that us Aid awarded $164 million in taxpayer funds to extremist organizations including 122 million to groups linked to designated terrorist entities I believe that my colleagues here would agree that this Reckless spending has drifted from American interests and instead has benefited uh foreign
▶ 3:47:14interests is time that we commit to cutting waste Fraud and Abuse and government funding on programs and initiatives that do not align with American values American people deserve to know where and how are the money being spent and how they align with the US interest uh Mr Yoho should this reorganization include a comprehensive forensic audit of usaid spending over the past four years how should this audit identify wage fraud corruption and programs
▶ 3:47:45that may have undermined US foreign policy objectives absolutely but I mean you could go back years uh but it's a great opportunity for bipartisan leadership con conducing oversight and defining the priorities and the parameters of future USA Assistance programs uh that leads to to the certainty that where we at we're not wavering it creates um continuity in our programs and it makes us stronger yeah as you just I'm goad and it must be done in a by partisan
▶ 3:48:15effort if not it'll go away with it when Tides change well as you had just said in your previous answer to another question you're right the best policies here and abroad are consistent over administrations are they are transparent with the American people as well as people looking from abroad uh and so having that bipson strategy and consistency is extraordinarily important what are ways you think that we can ensure that they are consistent over time
▶ 3:48:45these policies I ponder that and if you look at we'll just take the jcpoa and Paris climate Accord um President Obama put us in both president Trump took us out of both President Biden put us back in both president Trump takes us out stand on the sidelines as another Nation looking in at America they're like these people don't know what they're doing we have no confidence that we're exuding Congress I think can direct it as this is the policy of the United States of America and give leeway to the
▶ 3:49:16to the executive branch in times of emergencies but if we don't have a policy of the United States versus a Democratic party or a republican policy and that's the spoils of winning an election but they should also focus on what's best for America instead of what's best for a party and until we do that we're going to go back and forth on this and it's up to us and of course the American people and and so how would you if you were structuring this legislatively on a and making it's bip parts and
▶ 3:49:46solutions that's consistent over time how would you structure that under your Best Vision I think it's just getting consensus and building a bipartisan movement in this and you've got a great opportunity you've got an this Congress has an opportunity you haven't had in over 40 years with the the the the Supreme Court ruling on the Chevron Defence case the Chevron deference when that came into effect allowed the administrative agencies to have all this power
▶ 3:50:16all right that's been repealed Congress can go ahead and move forward and say this is what an agency may do this is what they shall not do and if we don't do that in a bipartisan way it's going to go right back to these agencies and Congress has allowed their powers to be usurped again by administrative agency and you have administrative law and and as we're doing that and constructing it how um do we ensure that taxpayer funded Aid does not fall into the hands of uh corrupt government ments terrorist organizations
▶ 3:50:46or entities that are hostile to us interests Mr Yul Define the mission of what you want and then you have to have that oversight as U Mr nail brought up you got to approve these things and you have to have it done now um and I think there should be an immediate review after this stuff you know with every when you when you send out a check you want to get it back the IRS makes us do that and be accountable for our taxes and I think we should do the same thing in government programs thank you you back my time could I just add
▶ 3:51:16one thing in terms of suggestion gentlemen's time has expired so maybe in another round uh thank you thank the gentleman from New Jersey uh representative McBride is now recognized thank you chairman Mass it's a privilege to serve on this committee with you and ranking member Meeks it's also an honor to be here for my first uh foreign affairs Committee hearing I am looking forward to working alongside each and every one of you in a bipartisan manner in support of us
▶ 3:51:48unfortunately right now we are seeing a partisan attack on usaid one of the most effective tools of American leadership and our national security by gutting agency president Trump is not just turning his back on our Global commitments he's undermining American interests and our security and he is causing unnecessary deaths if president Trump can get away with gutting usaid he can do it anywhere
▶ 3:52:18that means that no part of the federal government including programs like Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid will be safe from Administration the president and the majority conference in this house are fostering opposition to vital government programs by mischaracterizing diversity efforts and using it as a trojan horse to gut programs that all Americans rely on on this hearing is is titled usaid betrayal but let's be clear
▶ 3:52:49the real betrayal is that Donald Trump promised to lower cost facing families but instead is pursuing policies that threaten American jobs and increase costs for workers foreign aid is not a charity it's an investment in stability security Global Health Economic Security American leadership and American jobs usaid buys food from farmers in Delaware to help prevent famine and conflict abroad usaid funds over $1 million
▶ 3:53:19of critical research at the University of Delaware on both energy and poultry production usaid collaborates with Delaware's businesses to expand agricultures in place agriculture in places like Ukraine these Cuts this effort to decimate us Aid doesn't just hurt people in distant countries it hurts delawarians and so my my first question for uh you you Mr naos I want to talk about everyone's favorite topic it may have come up
▶ 3:53:49already uh egg prices one reason for Rising costs is the spread of bird flu yet this Administration has stopped monitoring bird flu in 49 countries increasing the risk of its spreading to the us and decimating our poultry industry a Cornerstone of Delaware's economy with usaid halting its efforts on bird flu I'm curious what you believe could be the impact on prices and also of course the health of Americans
▶ 3:54:19well I have said before that I think the 80 usaid missions that used to exist are our Frontline defense for infectious disease generally and I'm now convinced by Dr Yoho that we should add in animal dise zoonotic diseases not that have jumped to humans although that's a huge problem but just that are in the animal kingdom because it affects our domestic indicated population of animals in the United States that whose food supply is critical
▶ 3:54:49to to our health in the United States so and I might add to to the developing world as well we have had some very successful programs over the years to to eliminate uh these zootic diseases uh in Africa and Central America Mexico and I think we should revive those I I I know when Bush was president that they um monitored all birds dying in Alaska because there's a billions of birds and we used to test them for
▶ 3:55:20virus I didn't but I think USDA tested them for uh viruses to see if bird flu was was was uh in the flocks and then try to take action so I think early Warning Systems in all areas are extremely important so we can do preparedness work uh to protect the American people but we also at the same time be protecting people in developing world too that's right one quick question because we've heard we've heard commentary about quote Fringe
▶ 3:55:50programs at USA ID you acknowledge that there are programs at usaid now that you might not have approved in the past um I think we've already seen that there have been most gross mischaracterizations of programs that there have been outright M mistruths said about usaid programs right now and that many of the sort of most outrageous things that we're hearing turn out not to be accurate and you led and I'm running out of time but you led uh usid when pepar was created under President Bush I'm
▶ 3:56:20curious if you believe that there are elements of pepar which have saved 25 million lives globally that there are elements of Pep far that could be mischaracterized and sound a bit outrageous I I suppose there are uh I actually wanted to include more local input into how uh they structured and how we structured the program in each country because it's very standardized and I'm not into Central standardization in Aid programs I'm a decentralist I'm I guess
▶ 3:56:50I'm a federalist you'd say and I believe all development is local and that we should allow the countries more discretion as to how we structure the pepar program but I I lost that battle 25 years ago 20 23 years ago if it were reauthorized I'd add a lot more local discretion in terms of structuring the program representative time has expired chair now recognizes representative radwagon thank you Mr chairman
▶ 3:57:21talofa I want to thank the three of you for testifying today Congressman Yoho it's good to see you I want to thank you for all the good things that you've done in the the region you've been a true friend of the Pacific in the past two weeks independent sore and the Cook Islands have signed deals with the PRC with kirbas to the north independent s to the West Cook Islands to our East my home District of American s is now surrounded on three sides
▶ 3:57:52by China friendly Nations I have a couple of questions during the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration the state department and USA proposed that USA take over and manage US economic assistance and federal programs and services to the three strategically vital compact of free association allies namely palao Marshall Islands and Micronesia we have uh made sure that was rejected because Congress has been
▶ 3:58:22providing all such assistance to those strategic partner island people through interior department since 1961 including under Kofa since 1986 now that assistance is appropriated so that interior continues to actually administer These funds and programs under Kofa for the next 20 years at least and that will continue until Congress changes it the state and those who have or will be exercising
▶ 3:58:52us Aid authorities understand that Kofa economic assistance is not discretionary grants but usually agreed to obligations that secure the highest level of strategic interests of the US in the Pacific Mr natos any one of you have freedom answer turn your mic on please C could you just repeat it
▶ 3:59:22I couldn't quite hear your question I'm running out of time now I don't know whether the chairman will let me uh roll that back a bit during the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration the state department and US Aid propos that us Aid take over and manage US economic assist assistance and federal programs and services to the three strategically vital compact of free association allies namely palao
▶ 3:59:52Marshall Islands and Micronesia we made sure that was rejected because Congress has been providing all such assistance to those strategic partner island people through interior department since 1961 including under Kofa since 1986 now that assistance is appropriated so that interior continues to actually administer These funds and programs under Kofa for the next 20 years at least and that'll continue until Congress changes
▶ 4:00:23it does State and those who have or will be exercising us Aid authorities understand that Kofa economic assistance is not discretionary grants but usually agreed obligations that secure the highest level of strategic interest of us in the Pacific uh congresswoman I don't know a lot about how the program works now so I don't want to render a judgment I would have some outside group
▶ 4:00:53that all of you agreed to evaluate uh the interior program and then ask Aid how it might change it and then you decide but I wouldn't dismiss aid but I if you are really uh devoted to the interior option then you keep it thank you my time is so brief and you had me repeat a long question I'm sorry Congressman yo yeah same question yes the compact has worked pretty well and I think you guys vote on it and you determine your destiny of what you
▶ 4:01:23want to do I would use usaid or whatever whatever entity comes back as a facilitator uh but I would sure certainly engage DFC MCC to do those structural projects that you need that really boost your economy down there do you think with the uh reforms for traditional USA for assistance now underway that the role of agencies like the US government's development Finance Corporation that was mentioned earlier will become more important
▶ 4:01:54as instruments of US foreign relations or do DFC and similar agencies that harness private sector investment also need to be reformed DFC was modeled after the Marshall Plan which creates jobs in the private sector overseas instead of handing out grants that can create markets for US exports so while we're promoting foreign investment in the US should we also be promoting us investment overseas to create jobs back
▶ 4:02:24here at home what direction are we headed in this regard it's imperative that we do that we need to revamp the reauthorization of the DFC and if you look at post World War II if we did not come in there with a Marshall plan or something like that would Germany Japan Vietnam South Korea and the other countries that benefited from that would would they be in our top 20 trading partners and if we didn't do that who would have been in there to do that it's either going to be our influence with our values or it's going to be the other people and we don't
▶ 4:02:54want there they're authoritarian and it'll it'll be a disaster for the world Liberty and freedom will go away Mr primac do you have anything you'd like to add communist China cannot compete with our private sector it's massive when you include our allies in Japan and elsewhere it's overwhelming China cannot come close so DFC as that tool to to be able to bring in that kind of capital power I think is a is a is a perfect solution thank you Mr natos oh
▶ 4:03:24Congressman do you have anything to add natos J L's time is expired General L's time is expired General L's time is expired thank you Mr chairman Mr chairman can we get a bathroom break can you hold two us are 70 plus can you hold it for two individuals or no I'm going to remind you that when you're 70 I I'll ask I ask in seriousness can you hold it for two individuals or no if you can't I'm
▶ 4:03:55happy to give you a restroom break I want you to be able to concentrate on answering uh to to our Representatives I don't want anybody to say you were distracted so all right we will continue We Will We Will muster on once more into the breach dear friend chair now recognizes representative Luna um chairman for the record I'd like to submit this letter saying that pepar funding was actually um resumed I know there's been a lot of push saying that the Trump admin had actually cut it but so ordered thank you
▶ 4:04:25um you know I want to start up by saying initially I think the idea behind USA ID 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 rogue capacity and usaid has absolutely broken the trust with the American people and not being transparent about where our taxpayer dollars are going there's an indiv individual by the name of Mike Benz he actually served over at the state department for a while and
▶ 4:04:55he'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 tax tax pair dollars are funding some of these items I mean to just put this in perspective in 2021 the Special Operations Command under Mark Millie as chairman of
▶ 4:05:25the 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 uh 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
▶ 4:05:56employment now as a member of Congress I ask myself did anyone in usaid get elected to congress 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 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
▶ 4:06:26so I guess the question for you guys is uh Mr naos is that something that you were aware of 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 Capac 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 well I completely agree with you I personally I doubt very much
▶ 4:06:56that what you've been told is accurate but let me just well look I'm telling you right now I brought the receipts 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 um Mike Ben's what he's exposing and bringing receipts I've confirmed it 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
▶ 4:07:26campaigns Illuminating controversy to a global audience I mean using disinformation campaigns is this happening here in our own country where's the oversight just to ask you who in the agency what Bureau I just said you can actually find that instruction in this manual that Milli milary manual is yes but Millie approved it you have it right here us Aid working with with government agencies I mean this is not wait a say did Aid say that or did the military say that would be the question for you sir me operations
▶ 4:07:57sorry 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 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 I'm sorry to interrupt you I'm frustrated I know it's not necessarily your fault as a head of AG that's not I'm telling what Ben's told you is nonsense that's not nonsense these are the
▶ 4:08:27information forms and Ben Ben put this out to am did write that sir I disagree with you on so many levels and I appreciate you being here to this is not easy how do I know what that any person can write Aid's name into Emanual it goes on all the time sir they are advocating that the US military work with taxpayer fund State Department us funds to destabilize Nations that is unacceptable I don't care who wrote it USA 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
▶ 4:08:57seconds with our time but sir I hope that you agree can I yes or no do you agree that this is wrong period the military should be held accountable I think it's condemn it nonsense to suggest should they condemn it the military should us should Aid also condemn this of course we don't comment Aid does not comment on Military Man Ladi of our bus since there have been a couple more members that have shown up I uh and I promise you only two let's do the uh five minute
▶ 4:09:28restroom break uh he's staying in recess for five
▶ 4:12:12e e
▶ 4:12:59you were moving you beIN that door better sir you too Mr chairman someday we'll be old no readers yet
▶ 4:13:42for e
▶ 4:14:15committee will come to order again chair now recognizes Representative Costa thank you very much Mr chairman I was here earlier in the hearing and then we had votes and I had a meeting to go to but I'm glad to be back although I seem to be walked into some of a what I seems to me was a surreal conversation I Mr y it's good to see you again having served with you and our other Witnesses thank you for your service um you know Mr yo like you and I we've had had debates with our opponents in the past and
▶ 4:14:45and I always think that's good um but I have a line that I like to use when I think of a person on the other side is is strain from the the facts I say you're entitled to your own opinion but you're not entitled to your own sense your own facts and and now that I guess we have alternative facts it doesn't matter but I want to talk about this this part of this discussion deals with oversight and article one of the Constitution gives not only as the strings part of the P string but oversight
▶ 4:15:15and I must say in 20 years that I've been around here I don't think that we do oversight as well as we should and I have a real problem with this whole issue of uh hiring someone or he's not hire but to to take over the role of what is this committee's jurisdiction and every other Committee in Congress to do proper oversight uh and then point the finger somewhere else I think is an abdication of our role uh not only here in in this this effort but also in advise and consent over
▶ 4:15:45in the Senate but let's talk about U the USA freeze that U and and I'm trying to understand where this Administration is now coming with their policy and the what I think is an illegal dismantling of the usia a because we can make changes we can make modifications as we discussed earlier this morning and we should and this Administration should put its inom moer on its own foreign policy as every Administration does I whether I agree or not um but the oversight is our responsibility not
▶ 4:16:15the executive branches so let me ask you uh in terms of China which is our adversary our adversary there's no clear strategy it seems to me the administration thus far is all over the place uh Mr not nasio uh do you think the actions on the usia frea uh freeze operations help us counter China and Russia I I I've said earlier that I I believe our Aid missions are one of
▶ 4:16:46our greatest strengths because they're in the country and two-thirds of them are from the country uh the Chinese do not have an aid system they're they're in the field they have a highly centralized system everything's done in Beijing they have no oversight over their programs so basically it's used as a tool usia to project us smart power soft power whatever you want to call it and our influence abroad right that's right it's not Al alteristic it it's in our national interests right
▶ 4:17:16that's right oh and and by the way it benefits American farmers by a tune of about2 billion right in purchase of American agricultural products right that is correct in farm country and I represent a significant Farm District um I want to focus on Ukraine for a moment USA allocated over $30 billion the fund supported projects to stabilize the energy G grid as mentioned earlier government efficiency programs Civil Society groups um these these efforts have bolstered and strengthened Ukrainian Society in the
▶ 4:17:46last three years especially and the resolve to fight back against Russian aggression Russia Mr yo is our adversary would you agree agreed and so for those who claim over the past two years to care about oversight on how the money is spent on usca staff um how do you think these investments in civil society and development based projects have helped to bolster Ukraine's fight against the Russia invasion the hostile invasion you know there's there is a need on the humanitarian
▶ 4:18:16side with the food programs and things like that uh Health Medical those kind of things um but I I I question the role of NATO you know how why why is NATO not there stronger than we are well I'll give you some numbers and we can do that offside but really when you add the EU support and NATO support it's pretty close to what we've done uh when you look at the totality of the numbers let me go to another place Armenia uh that I've worked with over the years uh USA's
▶ 4:18:47played a significant role in helping uh Armenia is wanting to turn to the West Russia has uh abdicated its role under the treaty uh and sided with azerbajan uh Mr nuso uh have have you were you involved with the support for Armenia when they they they they found out or Mr yo you care to comment about the the precarious position they're in right now you asking me yes I'm sorry um
▶ 4:19:17trying to remember if we were we had an aid Mission there it was not huge uh but the the uh relationship between aaban and Armenia which is the problem you're talking about was stable in uh so it's not now it's not now it's and the Russians are deeply involved and the Iranians in fact the Iranians almost went to war uh with azerbajan um and the in fact I was told by one of our professors that they had actually started to put in
▶ 4:19:47military Bridges from Iran into aeran this is about eight eight or nine months ago and they're worried about a middle eastern War over because then Russia would have been drawn in and turkey would have been a catastrophy I don't know what caused them to pull back but they did well my time's expired but more to be discussed and and and thank you for your testimonies today chair now recognizes representative Isa thank you and I want to thank Mr Lawler for TR Trading Places with me and allowing me to go a little early you know it's this has
▶ 4:20:17been interesting because I've been in and out of here but I've kept it on the television if I had to be out we seem to have an agreement to disagree because I think we agree on the following at least some of the programs that each of you have seen when you've gotten into it are wasteful unnecessary a uh and or or would be better reprogrammed to some other use can we all agree on that
▶ 4:20:48so are we dealing more with a stylistic complaint here today that this Administration has said stop go back to Baseline justify your programs and we'll restart versus uh as Andrew did you said 80 programs were stopped in a very short period of time and that money was reprogrammed to better use many of the programs that were talked about here and some of them did turn out to be State Department so
▶ 4:21:18let's assume for a moment that we really talking about State and usaid and for that matter maybe the XM Bank maybe a lot of places that that disperse our funds have been used for purposes that the new Administration rightfully objects to and has the power or the desire to reprogram can we all agree that that's the case so now I'm going to ask a couple of questions uh one uh earlier there was this question that
▶ 4:21:48I objected to based on my 25 years of experience here and it was why did we need a special IG for Afghanistan and why did we need a special ID IG for Iraq and I'm going to answer that for you folks and if any of you really disagree having since the question came the answer came from there that we as though we didn't need it these were unique High expense areas like Ukraine is today in which it was very difficult
▶ 4:22:18to audit and certainly difficult for one IG that does the whole state department to do so can we all agree that that was the reason the prompting of the special IGS okay I I don't agree with you but no no but that was the reason for prompting you to agree with that so you disagreed that it made sense even though those IG found time and time again things and brought them to Congress so we could consider whether to change the
▶ 4:22:48programs and I'm going to ask you not rhetorically but directly because I believe we'll need special IGS at time from time to time in the future do you really believe that we would have gotten the same level of oversight if we'd simply had one IG sitting at State Department rather than somebody who had a more direct mandate and less politically motivated because those special IGS transcended Administration after
▶ 4:23:19Administration I want uh we had three audits from three different inspectors GAO the special IG and then the regular Aid on the same program at the same country at the same time that is nuts okay so you your point for us in the future so we can do our job better is if we have two IGS with overlapping try to deconflict them them so you only get one request from one of them I agree with that but I'm going to ask you a follow-up question in the limited time I
▶ 4:23:50left during the entire four years because the other day we had this big question about IGS 19 of them being uh dismissed and they're going to be replaced during your time in in uh Bush 2 in W bush you had an IG and you had a IG but you didn't have uh an i IG for the entire for the state department for the entire period of time that Hillary Clinton was was the Secretary of State so if
▶ 4:24:20we had not had a special IG that's that transcended that Hillary Clinton would have had four years with no IG looking at what was going on in a very expensive two expensive combat zones isn't that true uh we also you're correct but we also didn't have an IG I have to say this for State during the Bush Administration and I'm not criticizing my own president but state department does not like IGS um during the last Administration I
▶ 4:24:50I left Congress for two years to work for president Trump and was heading the trade development agency so I've been on your side of the fence uh advocating for the good work that an agency can do but my question to to all of you is don't we need more oversight so we don't have each Administration coming in and saying halt we need to look at this and wouldn't it been better if before we got to this point Congress had been more
▶ 4:25:20aware sooner of the need for the kinds of changes we're hearing about here today I have to agree 100% with you you can get it report after report after report but if you do not act on it the report's worthless okay I want to thank all of you and again my thank my colleague from New York and yield back thank you representative Isa chair now recognizes representative Lawler thank chairman how many of you uh use some form of online banking and get email notices for
▶ 4:25:50your credit card statements have you ever had the moment where you get the email notice you open it you're look and go oh my God what did I spend this month and then you go check the online portal and you look and you see the itemization you go oh wow I didn't realize that that's what's happened here here very simply uh usaid has an important Mission uh and unfortunately
▶ 4:26:21they have gone a skew on that mission uh pepar is a program that I have been in strong supportive and 60% of the program is administered by usaid it is a vital program um humanitarian assistance and when you think humanitarian assistance you think food you think shelter you think supplies medical supplies you think testing for uh different types of diseases um unfortunately
▶ 4:26:52as we peel back the onion here we're finding more and more that billions of dollars of taxpayer money are being misappropriated and so what secretary Rubio has done by putting a 90-day freeze in place uh per President Trump's executive orders uh is to have a comprehensive review now during that review they have granted
▶ 4:27:22a waiver for life-saving treatment and care and humanitarian assistance inclusive of pepar and food and that's what they should do now some of my Democratic colleagues will say under what Authority are they doing this well section 7063 of the 2020 for Appropriations gave the secretary the authority to do this and I would remind my colleagues that under the Clinton Administration meline Albright tried to bring usaid
▶ 4:27:53under the control and uh of the state department so this is not some New Concept uh and certainly um usaid wouldn't have been in the crosshairs as much as it has been had the people working there abided by the order issued by the Secretary of State instead they thought their judgment uh should be substituted
▶ 4:28:23uh and that in fact they as unelected have more Authority than the elected president Congress or the confirmed Secretary of State now when it comes to oversight we had Samantha poin here last Congress we asked her numerous questions we asked her for information and as is often the case when Congress as a coequal branch asks for information the executive tries
▶ 4:28:53to stimy that and because it was a republican controll house the Democratic White House and Democrat controlled usaid did not want to cooperate with these investigations and request for legitimate information and so frankly in three to four weeks Doge has gotten more information than Congress ever could because
▶ 4:29:24the executive often times refuses to cooperate and for those saying there's no transparency here how is it not transparent you're hearing about it it's being released it's being reported upon this isn't happening in the middle of the night now one of the things we've is the fact that a congressionally appropriated fund the needy Middle East partnership for peace act and neoy being one of my predecessors
▶ 4:29:54was a $250 million fund controlled by usaid and it was set up for the purpose of cultural dialogue and usaid under this program gave $3 million to tomorrow's Youth and the head of that has produced numerous anti-semitic anti-israeli songs as part of this cultural dialogue
▶ 4:30:24now given what has happened in the Middle East and given what happened on October 7th do any of you actually believe that is a good use of American taxpayer dollars to promote anti-semitic rap songs in the Middle East those are criminal activities that need to stop I would add that any institution University or otherwise that is engaged in anti-semitic Behavior or stopped it on their campuses should be disqualified from getting any kind of forn Aid I
▶ 4:30:55too well that's what we're talking about and that's what we're dealing with and for those saying where is Congress we're here we're having this hearing we're providing this oversight that is our role but it is the role of the executive to manage the agencies and departments and that that is exactly what they are doing and frankly they have provided more information to Congress in the last few weeks than Congress ever got under the Biden Administration and the Biden Administration is the one that approved that $3
▶ 4:31:25million to go to an anti-semitic rap artist to promote Jewish hatred that is what we're talking about that is why the 90-day pause was put in place and that is why this nonsense needs to end and with that Mr chairman I yield back good points thank you representative Lawler representative Jackson was hoping uh he was advocating for you to get another 5 to 10 minutes but I told him we have to move
▶ 4:31:55on to representative McKenzie our final person for questions you are now recognized thank you Mr and I appreciate the hearing that we're having today because it relates to some of the biggest challenges that our country faces today and first is we have an economic crisis in this country millions of Americans are still struggling to make ends meet we have $36 trillion of debt we have a $1.8 trillion
▶ 4:32:26deficit and so it is incumbent upon us as members of Congress to scrutinize every tax dollar that is spent so I'm a little surprised when some of our colleagues here today want to diminish the fact that we are talking about $40 billion it's still $40 billion of taxpayer money that we are about and so usaid does provide in some cases very good services that Advance our interests around the world and
▶ 4:32:57help others and that's that's something that we want to maybe continue but that should come before Congress at the same time we have seen illegal immigration devastate our country that is the other big challenge that I believe our country is facing we have had a wideopen southern border where the Biden Administration took their executive powers and used them to not build a border wall there were
▶ 4:33:27funds that were appropriated through Congress to build a border wall I was down on the southern border I saw the equipment laying by the side of the Border not being built and so Mexican drug cartels were bringing in weapons and human trafficking and drugs right across our border and there was nothing being done about it so those are two of the biggest challenges that we Face we've heard about the absolute waste that is going on in usaid
▶ 4:33:57today total waste of taxpayer dollars adding to our debt and to our deficit at the same time we have seen usaid has actually made some kind of attempt to stem IL legal immigration but it seems to have totally failed and so I want to bring up in 2021 usaid announced Central America local a fiveyear $300 million initiative to
▶ 4:34:27pay local organizations in El Salvador Guatemala and Honduras to address the quote root causes of migration the GAO found that this initiative did not require training of staff to detect and reduce fraud risk because Aid us Aid did not actually regulate the training of agency-wide individuals so we have money that is going to this cause at the same time uh we have people who
▶ 4:34:57in this chamber still want to fight us on building a border wall and border security in fact many of the members that were part of the longest shutdown in US Government history over a border wall are still here and we still hear about them saying that they may potentially shut down the government so I would like to ask the members of our panel today if they have thoughts on is the usaid initiative to stem the root causes of migration the right way to go or is building
▶ 4:35:28a border a wall the right way to go I've written on this and we've looked at all of the numbers and the amount of money that we spend no matter how much has absolutely no impact on migration it's having a firmly sealed enclosed border that's what the solution is well thank you I appreciate that response and I agree with you and so I look forward to as we move through this Congress providing funding for a border wall that will secure our country and also
▶ 4:35:58I look forward to scrutinizing every single dollar of the billions that are going out through usaid for absolute waste and programs which are not effective or efficient in actually achieving their mission and so that is the prerogative of Congress but the reason that we are having this hearing today is because of the executive branch shining a light on all of this waste and inefficiency and so we can work in collaboration with an Administration
▶ 4:36:28to provide for our American citizens safety security actually protecting and spending taxpayer dollars in an efficient and effective fashion not putting our children and grandchildren in billions of dollars of debt I believe that we can do all of that and we are going to do that this Congress and with this Administration so with that I will yield back my time to the chairman but I want to thank all of our panelists and everybody for today's hearing thank the representative from Pennsylvania not going to recognize
▶ 4:36:58representative Jackson for any closing remarks that you may have I'd like to thank you so much chairman math on behalf of ranking member Meeks I'd like to say very much thank you for the time that you all have spent with us today your candid your forth rights and the amount of time and sacrifice that you've made in not making your bodies more comfortable earlier in the program so continued success and I know we have many things in common we will have continued success together and we're going to continue to work for the best outcome
▶ 4:37:29for our nation our great people with that I yield back chairman Mass great to work alongside you sir thank you representative Jackson I also thank the witnesses for their testimony on this important topic today I have no doubt that we'll be speaking on this further president Trump in my opinion is absolutely making America immeasurably Stronger by gutting usaid and gutting the state department forthcoming he is making it clear that there is
▶ 4:37:59no more stupid social engineering programs that will continue no more comic books for $5,000 or $50,000 trans operas no more $800,000 job fair in Bangladesh for Trans individuals specifically in a country where the average monthly wage $220 these things come to an end asking the questions are Americans better because that dollar came out of their pocket and went to these
▶ 4:38:29programs or not that is a bar that we have to hold ourselves to should somebody working today have kept those dollars in their pocket instead of sending their dollars to programs like those there's not a more important question that we could ask are President Trump and secretary Rubio and Elon Musk and his team are they eliminating waste absolutely yes are they making the system accountable where the buck stops with
▶ 4:38:59secretary Rubio yes secretary Rubio is in fact encouraging important lifesaving programs to continue America is significantly stronger every minute the wasteful programs are ended and we are weakened every minute that they are allowed to continue we gave the Biden Administration and my Democrat colleagues the chance to work on oversight one easy example that I worked on personally would be the expansion
▶ 4:39:29of Atheism in Nepal with 500 th $500,000 grants my colleagues played the game admit nothing deny and lie about all of it and make counter accusations even with all of the documents laid directly in front of them that's what took place we tried they wouldn't do it I know Americans are not stupid they know there is no value for them in a $100,000 Dei
▶ 4:40:00survey in Ghana they know that there's not value for them spending $520 million to pay ESG Consultants to teach people in Africa about climate change also what is extremely telling to all of us is the amount of Grant recipients who are not asking for waivers they know that the gig is up and do not even want to try and justify
▶ 4:40:31what it is that they had been doing the way that they were grifting off of Americans who are going to work each and every day what is not surprising is that my have tried to lie to American people saying that people are dying we've heard that argument before again and again my colleagues have said about 10 times at least in this hearing that there was an elderly lady in Thailand who died because they couldn't get her the oxygen she needed because America cut off Aid let's
▶ 4:41:01tell the truth about what really happened the NGO who was providing oxygen International Rescue committee known as IRC their CEO David milbrand has a salary of about $1.2 million a year that is the theft the Larsen that's going on at usaid where the grants while even possibly life-saving grants are paying for high salaries for former British members of parliament parts of
▶ 4:41:31pepar have been approved for waiver because it provides life-saving medication to people who need it certainly not the abortions they were conducting but that took secretary Rubio shutting down the program reviewing the BS that was going on and correcting it combating the spread of Ebola has been approved for waiver because it's life-saving World F food program Aid in Haiti has been approved for waiver because it's life-saving
▶ 4:42:01what hasn't been approved is the waste the grift and the Larsen now despite the arguments that we've had today we do agree that Aid can be effective and that Aid can advance can Advance America's interests but the countries that receive Aid will not receive it if they are taking the United States of America and its people for granted and it will be life-saving Aid period not social engineering in that
▶ 4:42:32I will ask that members of the committee have some addition if they have additional questions for the witnesses that they do respond that you do respond in writing pursuant to committee rules all members may have five days to submit those statements and questions and extraneous materials for the record subject to the length limitations without objection the committee stands adjourned M Mr chair can I say one comment committee stands adjourned Mr Yoho okay but I'm happy to speak to you following this I'll do that
▶ 4:43:05you TR safe brother and my friend I wish you the best God bless e