Well, this is awkward. A group of Democratic lawmakers thought they could just stroll into USAID headquarters on Monday and get some answers about Trump and Musk’s latest government overhaul. Instead? They got blocked at the door like they were trying to get into an exclusive club without a reservation.
According to The Hill:
“A group of Senate and House Democrats were blocked from entering the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday.
The Democratic lawmakers, who are opposed to President Trump’s efforts to shut down the agency, left without incident after a brief exchange with security officials. The group, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), were told the front office of the administrator of USAID was not available to meet.
A select group of USAID employees with the front office administrator were in the office Monday, an official told lawmakers outside the doors, but were not free to meet with the lawmakers.”
Translation: “Sorry, no one’s home. Please leave a message after the beep… Oh wait, we unplugged the phones too.”
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELOne Democratic lawmaker later tried to downplay the drama, calling the whole thing “underwhelming.” But let’s be honest—Trump and Musk are setting off sirens in D.C., and this is probably just the opening shot in what could be an all-out Congressional battle over foreign aid.
Dem lawmakers were barred from getting into the USAID offices, says Sen @ChrisVanHollen. They had slammed Musk and the Trump administration for what they’re doing to USAID, repeatedly calling it illegal. pic.twitter.com/Fn91CTVuKg
— Alex Marquardt (@MarquardtA) February 3, 2025
This all comes less than 24 hours after Elon Musk confirmed that President Trump “agreed” to shut USAID down. No bureaucracy, no endless meetings, just a simple “Are you sure?” followed by a hard reset on the entire agency.
Musk put it bluntly:
“None of this could be done without the full support of the president,” Musk said in a Sunday X Spaces event. “I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed with that we should shut it down. I want to be clear. I actually checked with him a few times. I said, ‘Are you sure?’ Yes. So we’re shutting it down.'”
And just like that—USAID was gone. Poof, like smoke.
Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD), had some words for Elon Musk for simply pointing out that USAID has spent money on ridiculous things that do nothing to help America, and most of it was just pushing a Marxist agenda on other countries.
Raskin, who is usually wrong about everything, did not disappoint when he tried to scold Elon, who remember, has no power in the government. DOGE is an advisory board. The president makes the final decision.
WATCH:
Unfortunately for Raskin, Congress did not create USAID. In 1961, President Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act into law and created USAID by executive order. And any president can rescind past executive orders.
“For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight,” the White House said Monday.
Monday morning, employees received an email telling them to stay home. The sender? Gavin Kliger, one of the twenty-somethings assisting Musk in carrying out Trump’s foreign aid overhaul. The email—now widely circulating online—came from an official usaid.gov address and basically told employees, “Don’t bother coming in. It’s over.”
According to CNN, the HQ was stripped clean:
“Logos and photos of its aid work have been stripped from building walls,” CNN writes of the HQ’s sudden closure. This after all web and social media accounts went dark over the weekend, now with a simplified version of its webpage on the State Department’s website.”
Meanwhile, thousands of employees found themselves locked out of their emails.
“We have been officially informed that the US Department of State now has access to all of our internal documents and our entire suite of files, documents, everything — all of our systems,” a USAID worker told media outlets.
Top officials were fired over the weekend, and Musk himself casually dropped this bombshell:
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper”…
Access to USAID’s Google drive and other sensitive data has reportedly been transferred straight under the State Department. It appears any future foreign aid programs will simply be run out of the State Department, with more executive branch oversight.
One big question that remains is how much noise Congressional leaders will make. Will Congress attempt intervention, also as there are reports that Musk and DOGE have access to the US Treasury’s payment system?
Well. That’s one way to describe a reorganization.
#usaidshutdown #trumpmuskreform #foreignaidscandal
