Bush and Obama Unite Against Trump Over Dismantling of Global Aid Programs
Former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama are teaming up against President Donald Trump to denounce his slashing of international services they claim are critical to U.S. interests.
Bush appeared alongside Obama and U2 frontman Bono, praising USAID staffers and slamming Trump’s cuts.
“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy,” Obama said in a video shown to departing USAID employees on Monday.
“Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world.”
Obama called the decision “a colossal mistake,” adding that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realize how much you are needed.”
The remarks came as employees of the United States Agency for International Development find themselves out of work.
Trump, alongside Elon Musk and his U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, dismantled the sprawling global agency except for a small skeleton staff while operations wound down.
While the video was not made public, the AP obtained snippets of the trio’s comments.
Musk once referred to USAID as “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.”
On Tuesday, USAID was officially absorbed by the State Department.
Bush spent his video remarks lamenting the loss of staffers he credited with contributing to global stability by reducing the spread of AIDS and HIV through a program.
“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work — and that is your good heart,’’ Bush told USAID staffers, according to the Associated Press.
“Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”
Bono tried to regale the group with a poem written about his worry that millions will die as a result of USAID’s shuttering.
“They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,” Bono said.
Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton marked the end of USAID with a public message.
“In all my years of service, I found that foreign service officers and development professionals were among the most dedicated public servants I encountered,” Clinton posted to X Tuesday.
“Their work saves lives and makes the world safer. Today, and every day, I stand with them.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s remarks sharply contrast the trio’s messages.
“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio wrote in his statement.
“Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”
“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” he continued.
“Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance.
Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency.”
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