(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Talking heads on CNN and MSNBC went ballistic Monday night over President Donald Trump’s move to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday that he took over as acting director of USAID during a gaggle with reporters after he touched down in El Salvador.
Democrat politicians ranted and raved Monday outside the USAID headquarters building to protest bureaucrats who were instructed by the Trump administration not to come to work to waste American taxpayer dollars.
"I'm the acting director of USAID."
— Secretary of State Marco Rubio pic.twitter.com/F1RR9TY9PL
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) February 3, 2025
The corrupt politicians “protesting” outside the USAID building are the ones getting money from USAID.
That’s why they’re there – they want your stolen tax dollars! https://t.co/5yVDqg0mjw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2025
Later that night, MSNBC’s Joy Reid spun Trump’s crackdown on wasteful spending as a “coup” as she suggested that stopping corruption at USAID was akin to overthrowing the government.
“If this were happening in any other country right now, I promise you, I’d be on air calling it a coup,” Reid raged.
Reid’s sentiments were echoed by other liberal pundits, including former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who claimed that Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk targeted USAID because he was “uncomfortable” with how USAID fought against “corruption.”
“[USAID] not only leads on humanitarian assistance around the world but also works to combat corruption and foreign aid programs. I kind of see how that could make Elon Musk a bit uncomfortable,” she said.
In an equally ridiculous media moment, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested that Elon Musk targeted USAID because he was “uncomfortable” with how the agency combatted “corruption.”
“[USAID] not only leads on humanitarian assistance around the world but also… pic.twitter.com/VBCtM2zhZa
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) February 4, 2025
CNN’s Van Jones was even more hysterical than his female counterparts, claiming that the president’s effort to reform USAID was a message for the rest of the world to “die.”
“Donald Trump says, ‘We don’t care. You go die.’ That’s the message from the United States government,” Jones said, adding that cutting off USAID’s gigantic foreign aid programs will lead to “people dying in very large numbers around the world.”
CNN token conservative Scott Jennings, for his part, defended the Trump administration’s actions. He told his anti-Trump colleagues on a panel that the “soft stupidity” of USAID has got to go.
“There is a difference between smart soft power and dumb spending by the leftwing ideologues who inhabit this bureaucracy,” Jennings said.
The only moment of clarity from the mainstream press came when Scott Jennings methodically schooled his fellow CNN panelists as they vainly tried to defend USAID.
“There is a difference between smart soft power and dumb spending by the leftwing ideologues who inhabit this… pic.twitter.com/eSODA8tSoX
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) February 4, 2025
He added, “There is a difference between soft power and soft stupidity. So whether you’re funding like DEI musicals in some country or transgender surgery somewhere or whatever, that is not what most Americans would say is an effective part of U.S. foreign policy.”
Contrary to what the liberal talking heads told their viewers, the USAID has a long history of being used essentially as a CIA cutout.
In 2003, for instance, the Bush administration used the USAID to foment a coup against the Georgian government. More recently, the Biden administration’s head of USAID, Samantha Power, was involved in numerous regime-change efforts—most notoriously, in Libya. Power was also accused last February of fomenting unrest in Hungary, where Viktor Orban crushed his globalist opponents in the nation’s 2022 elections.
Along with those cases, intelligence expert Mike Benz made the case earlier this week that USAID was responsible for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro losing his country’s election to socialist-leaning Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022.
“If USAID did not exist, Bolsonaro would still be the president of Brazil and Brazil would still have a free and open internet,” Benz said on Catch Up.
Mike Benz on how USAID spent tens of millions of dollars of US taxpayer funds to remove Jair Bolsonaro from power and end free speech in Brazil:
"When populist waves swept the world within the U. S. in 2016 with Trump and with what happened all over Europe with Marine Le Pen… pic.twitter.com/D8NAtGIpoy
— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) February 4, 2025
Julianna Frieman is Deputy Editor of Headline USA. She is also an author at the Daily Caller, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on X at @JuliannaFrieman.
