House and Senate Democratic lawmakers put up a united front today against the apparent seizure and possible shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by President Donald Trump and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk, which has put billions in humanitarian aid at risk.
At an outdoor rally in downtown Washington in front of the USAID headquarters building, 11 Democratic lawmakers spoke to a crowd of several hundred people saying that Musk and Trump’s moves to merge USAID into the Department of State isn’t improving efficiency – and that the move is unconstitutional because USAID was created by act of Congress.
“This is a constitutional crisis, the people get to decide how we defend the United States of America, the people get to decide how their taxpayer money is spent – Elon Musk does not get to decide,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., at the mid-day rally.
USAID, established in the 1960s, is the world’s largest humanitarian donor according to the United Nations. The agency employs 10,000 people and has bases in more than 60 countries. In the 2023 fiscal year, USAID distributed around $44 billion in aid across 160 countries around the world, with Ukraine listed as the top recipient of foreign assistance. Israel, Ethiopia, and Jordan all received over a billion dollars each in aid.
The agency has been the recipient of strong criticism from Musk, who has been tasked by President Trump with improving Federal technology and agency efficiency.
Musk shared early Monday in a discussion broadcast on his X social media platform that the agency is “beyond repair,” adding that President Trump has agreed to shut down USAID.
Actions over the weekend to order USAID headquarters employees to stay away from the office on Monday – and taking down the agency’s public websites today – infuriated Capitol Hill Democrats.
“Let’s not pull any punches about why this has happened. Elon Musk makes billions of dollars based off of his business with China, and China is cheering at this action today,” said Sen. Murphy. “There is no question that the billionaire class trying to take over our government right now is doing it based on self-interest … They’re shuttering agencies and sending employees home in order to create the illusion that they’re saving money in order to … pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations.”
“This is all a smoke screen and shelter in order to turn this government over to a vehicle of unelected billionaires and corporate interests, and we are not going to let them do that,” he pledged.
While Murphy didn’t provide details on next steps by congressional Democrats, he hinted that the court system could play a role and emphasized the importance of public opinion in shaping what comes next.
“The public has to weigh in about not just what’s happening here, but the seizure of their information at the Department of Treasury, [and] the pending actions at the FBI – in which it looks like there is going to be a broad cleaning out of anybody that doesn’t promise loyalty to Donald Trump,” said Murphy. “Personally, I think you’re going to see in the coming days, the American people raise their voices, and that will have an impact on my colleagues.”
The Trump administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material to Musk’s government-inspection teams, according to reporting from the Associated Press. USAID staff were then told to stay out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington after Musk confirmed Trump’s approval to shut down the agency.
“As we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is, is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a bowl of worms,” Musk said while accusing the agency of being “incredibly politically partisan” during his livestream. “It’s hopeless … you’ve just got to basically get rid of the whole thing.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was out of the country on a trip to South America today when he told reporters in San Salvador that he was now the acting administrator of USAID but had delegated his authorities to someone else – removing USAID’s status as an independent government agency. Rubio didn’t share who was now in charge of USAID.
“I’m hearing from my constituents who work for USAID and USAID contractors in Maryland, in Washington – all over the world, and they’re telling us that this is a killer in terms of their cutoff of HIV and AIDS preemption,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., speaking at today’s rally. “It’s a killer in terms of anti-malarial education. It’s a killer in terms of all of the efforts to shut down global viruses.”
Raskin noted that “multiple constituents” working in the U.S. informed him that all evaluations had been removed from USAID’s website – following what he described as “murmurings” that the “outrageous, scandalous, illegal” merging of USAID was only temporary to facilitate evaluations of the agency.
“There is a reason that USAID is an arm of American foreign policy, and it is because we understand that a stable world means a stable America,” added Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. “In the last 10 days, Donald Trump has done more to destabilize things across the planet than perhaps any other president in recent memory.”
“This is a bluff … they don’t have the law on their side, and so every civil servant, every contractor, every individual who is scared, stand in solidarity with each other – because if you’re going to push back on this kind of autocratic behavior, it’s not just members of Congress [that] should have to stand up,” Schatz said.
