Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) argued that ongoing turmoil at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Trump administration is putting Americans around the world in danger and could result in some of them getting killed.
“The level of disrespect actually is, is criminal because there are crisis response teams that are around the world that really rely on having access to their emails — having access to apps that they can utilize if there’s danger to them,” Omar said in an interview on MSNBC’s “ReidOut” on Monday. “All of those accesses are cut off.”
“So we might actually see somebody get killed. An American who works for the American government might be harmed in, in, in some of those countries that they’re operating in,” she told host Joy Reid. “And so not only is this an illegal move by Elon Musk and the Trump Administration in taking away and gutting us aid, but it’s also actually endangering Americans around the world.”
Since President Trump’s executive order froze foreign aid, the fate of the agency has been put into question. USAID’s website went offline over the weekend, hundreds of contractors were cut and its employees were locked out of their work accounts. The moves have signaled the Trump administration’s intent to merge the global agency with the State Department.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, said Monday on social platform X that the president “agreed” to shut down USAID — an independent agency that supplies funding all over the world for development projects, dishing out funds to various contractors, universities and nongovernmental organizations, among others.
The agency’s headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington were closed on Monday.
“We are terrified,” one USAID employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Hill.
Democratic lawmakers, who are opposed to the administration’s push to overhaul USAID, made an attempt to enter the agency’s headquarters on Monday, but were unsuccessful.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who led the group, said legal proceedings will be filed to prevent Trump and his allies from “undoing USAID.”
The same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he would helm the agency as the acting administrator.
“There are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy,” Rubio said on Monday.
The former Florida senator also recently accused the agency of “rank insubordination.”
