[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 40 (Monday, March 3, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1449-S1450]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 USAID

  Madam President, since taking office just over a month ago, Donald 
Trump has rapidly obliterated America's standing as the leader of the 
free world. Decades of hard work, extraordinary sacrifice, and 
painstaking bipartisan diplomacy to lead our allies and partners 
against the forces of autocracy and repression have been crushed, and 
America's reputation as the indispensable Nation is in tatters.
  It started with the illegal dismantling of the U.S. Agency for 
International Development and continued with the unlawful elimination 
of virtually all foreign assistance and culminated this last weekend--
Friday--with the Oval office meeting with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy 
last week.
  Trump has undermined American values and interests at every turn. 
This is not a doctrine that somehow puts America first. Past Presidents 
of both parties, with different words and different means, have 
aggressively pursued American interests.
  I have to say on the specific question of how USAID operates with the 
State Department, you hear Secretaries of State of both parties saying: 
Hey, it would be great if USAID and the State Department were better 
aligned.
  I am the top Democrat on the SFOPS Committee, which is the funding 
committee for foreign aid, and I sat down with the chairman, Lindsey 
Graham, and I said: I think there is some opportunity to do some 
bipartisan work here in reforming the foreign aid enterprise.
  We had a really constructive conversation. That was 2 days before all 
hell broke loose at USAID--all hell broke loose at USAID. Trump froze 
all foreign assistance and then moved to illegally shutter USAID, which 
is responsible for implementing most of our foreign aid.
  None of it was about achieving efficiency or rooting out waste; it 
was about Trump trying to wish away whatever parts of the Federal 
Government he doesn't like, in violation of the law, in violation of 
the Foreign Assistance Act, in violation of the Constitution, in 
violation of the Prompt

[[Page S1450]]

Payments Act, in violation of every appropriations bill that we have 
ever passed as it relates to U.S. aid since the original Foreign 
Assistance Act. This is not actually a close call.
  You can hate USAID--I don't; I think it is great--or you can think it 
needs reform. I also think it needs reform. But the way to enact a law 
is to enact a law. The way to enact a law is not to just break a law 
and see if a judge will impose parameters on you. Trump literally fired 
the people whose job it is to identify and combat waste. That is not 
the kind of thing that you would do if you were interested in combating 
waste.

  There was a person at USAID who basically wrote a bunch of factual 
memorandums to senior staffers saying: This is the consequence of what 
you are doing. Among other things, it said, specifically: Hey, you 
might have a waiver program in place to allow lifesaving aide to 
continue, but you sent everybody home and locked them out of their 
email.
  They sent everybody home and locked them out of their email, and then 
we are to believe that this waiver process is somehow going to push 
through the billions of dollars for lifesaving aid that are needed and 
expected.
  So what is happening? These big providers--I won't even name them 
because they are so terrified--good organizations, no political 
valence. If they have any political inclination, they tend to be 
Christian organizations doing, literally, God's work all across the 
planet. They are laying off people. They are literally closing up 
tents. People are flying home back to the continental United States or 
Hawaii or Alaska--wherever they live--and just saying: We are out of 
here now.
  So babies are getting HIV AIDS from their moms now because the PEPFAR 
funding is frozen. And don't let anybody tell you that PEPFAR is 
unfrozen. Everything is frozen. Why? Because--I might be getting this 
number slightly wrong, but as I recall it, there is about 70 people 
left. And this is a tens-of-billions-of-dollar enterprise.
  How the hell are you going to consider a waiver for 5,800 individual 
programs when you have 70 human beings, not all of them in this 
particular bureau, to try to process the waivers?
  What I have been told is: Hey, if there is anything especially 
important to you, sir, let me know. I am thinking, I am not here to 
petition the King for mercy. The way this works is everybody operates 
within the law.
  We lost the election. Democrats lost the election. We lost the House, 
we lost the Senate, and we lost the Presidency. And we lost it all fair 
and square. But now it is on Republicans to operate fair and square.
  What is happening at USAID--I understand this is not the most 
compelling issue for people back home in Hawaii or people back home in 
Alabama or people back home in Illinois or anywhere. It is not like 
most people's burning desire. But people do understand following the 
law or not following the law. What is happening right now is plainly 
unlawful. They are violating multiple statutes, and the consequences 
are not some arcane discussion about legal principles or the rule of 
law. Millions of people will die.
  I am still new enough to the Senate--I am not that new to the 
Senate--but I am still new enough to the Senate where I don't say 
anything I don't mean to say on the floor. I want anybody who is 
listening to understand, if we don't resolve this, millions of people 
will die. Millions of people will die because of an illegal decision 
made by this administration.
  We all have to decide: Are we going to stand up for some basic 
American values? What are those American values? We are the good guys. 
When people see that USAID logo, they should say: Awesome, the 
Americans are here. When they see that food grown in Georgia, processed 
in the mid-Atlantic States, grown in Kansas and other places--when they 
see that food arriving to prevent malnourished kids from going in the 
wrong direction, they should say: I am so thankful that America exists, 
not just as a country but as an idea.
  We are the good guys. And part of being the good guys is even if you 
hate something, if it is a law, it is a law. There are a lot of laws on 
the books that I hate. The Global Gag Rule is the first one that comes 
to mind, but there are probably a dozen more I could come up with. It 
literally never occurred to me to ask Joe Biden or Barack Obama or 
Donald Trump or anyone else to violate the statute and see what the 
judge says.
  We as the article I branch and we as patriots have to wrap our arms 
around this problem, get the aid of the enterprise back up and running 
for humanitarian reasons, for geopolitical reasons, for legal reasons, 
for moral reasons, and for reasons related to what we are here to do, 
which is we are here--if this enterprise needs to be reformed, count me 
in. But this is a lawmaking process, not a lawbreaking process.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from 
Hawaii. If he can spare 30 seconds, I would like to tell him a story.
  Years ago, I went to India to the dusty villages--not the big 
cities--just to see what USAID was doing. I heard about it. I wanted to 
see it. The most graphic example I can remember from that experience 
was when they showed me a bag of some grain supplement, and on it was 
written ``USAID from the people of the United States of America.'' What 
they were doing with this was making a lunch for the children in the 
village. I don't think your kids or mine would have touched it. It 
looked like some odd rice crispy ball that was held together with 
water. They sat with little tin plates with this rice crispy ball on it 
from the USAID package to eat their lunch. But before they ate their 
lunch, they paused. I said, ``What is going on?'' The guide said to me: 
They are saying a prayer of thanks to this United States of America for 
giving them food to eat.
  I thought to myself, for goodness' sake, it is 1 percent of our 
Federal budget--1 percent--that we spend in this manner to try to give 
kids around the world a chance to survive. There are many other things 
we do, but that basic example with those kids sitting in the dust of 
that village eating that rice crispy ball and thanking the United 
States of America for it touched my heart and still does to this day. 
Thanks for what you said. I appreciate it so much.