Marco Rubio ‘Acting Director’ of USAID

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he is the acting director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“My frustrations with USAID goes back to my time in Congress. It’s a completely unresponsive agency, it’s supposed to respond to policy directives of the state department and it refuses to do so,” Rubio said.

“Every dollar we spend and every program we fund will be aligned with the national interest of the United States,” he added. “USAID has a history of ignoring that and deciding that they’re a global charity. These are not donor dollars, these are taxpayer dollars.”

“We owe the American people the assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest,” Rubio continued.

“I am the acting director of USAID,” he stated, when asked by a reporter. “I’ve delegated that authority to someone, but I stay in touch with him.”

Rubio further explained that “USAID is not an independent, non-governmental entity. It is an entity that spends taxpayer dollars, and it needs to spend it, as the statute says, in alignment with the policy directives that they get from the secretary of state, National Security Council, and the president.”

Elon Musk said during a live session on X that President Donald Trump “agreed we should shut [USAID] down.”

“As we dug into USAID it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. If you have an apple with a worm in it, you can take the worm out. If you have a whole ball of worms, it’s hopeless,” Musk said. “USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple you just need to get rid of the whole thing. That’s why it’s got to go. It’s beyond repair.”

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