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USAID, as far as I can tell, is stoking anti-US sentiment in many places by importing their own cultural values, and that's a known thing State Department officials have commented on.
Additionally, to be specific on even worse activity:
A few months ago, $9M of USAID went to an organization affiliated with Al Qaeda.
The Middle East Forum recently found $164M in USAID grants to radical organizations.
Apart from that, we've since found lots of evidence of USAID funding Hamas specifically. $900K was given days before the October 7th attack.
There's even pictures of Al Shabaab terrorists inside a USAID tent.
It looks like in a week, they uncovered over $100M, maybe $200M in fraud (I'm not keeping close track), if you count million-dollar "executive coaching" contracts as fraud (I do). It's most likely telling their friend outside the government "hey, I got some extra budget — you be my 'executive coach,' and we'll split the proceeds."
They've found billions in things that we should not be spending our money on while our own people die of drug overdoses, homeless in the street. Things "we don't like" as you say.
I think they're moving as fast as possible right now, and it takes a while to investigate & report.
Musk said himself yesterday that he expects to be wrong, he has been wrong, and we should all scrutinize him thoroughly. So even he admits he's an unreliable actor.
To label someone as an unreliable actor is different than using our own free will and minds to analyze actions and determine truth.
How can you say he's not an unreliable actor? The man has unlimited resources, power, and the best information available to him. He also is in a position of dizzying public trust right now, so really he should be making the utmost effort to be above reproach. "Aw shucks man, what do you expect, I'm just human after all" is not reassuring. And I'm sorry that's not a charitable enough take, but we are far past the time for benefit of the doubt.
https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-government-made-236-billion...
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/02/05/usaid-spending-list-t...
Still seems weird to threaten the lives of over 20 million people over this.
None of this is okay to me, as an American, while my own citizens die in the street, homeless, of drug overdoses.
This money needs to be spent on our own country or, at the least, intelligently on our national interests.
Here's a couple:
On the morning of 2/3/25, 20 consulting contracts, mostly focused on "strategic communication" and "executive coaching," were terminated for immediate savings of $26mm.
On 2/10/25, the Department of Education terminated 89 contracts worth $881mm. One contractor was paid $1.5mm to "observe mailing and clerical operations at a mail center."
These things take months to years, and I don't believe we'll see fraud cases when it's been less than a month since the DOGE operation has started. If it's not fraud, it's grossly negligent with taxpayer money (which is not a crime), but I would bet at least a few of those sketchy contracts were with friends and former colleagues of the government bureaucrats in question.
And rather than set up a team to look for it and target the things they don't like, which would be more reasonable and more legal, they decided to shut entire agencies down and break 100% of operations.
PS it's a good thing that USAID is not a part of State.
On USAID being independent from State:
I personally would like our taxpayer-funded dollars, even if some insist on sending them overseas, to at least serve our national interest.
I know we set up USAID to counteract Communist aid from the USSR, but what do you think is the ongoing rationale for its independence from State? State is stuck fielding lots of questions from angry nations over USAID activity.