Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera.
Deee-lish!
Rubio’s firing of Marocco ignites a MAGA world meltdown
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/18/marco-rubio-peter-marocco-usaid-firing-00297812
Judge Chuang found that #ElonMusk is unlawfully exercising power under the #AppointmentsClause. However, because some of the #USAID dismantling was done by #PeterMarocco — #Trump’s #State Dept Director of #ForeignAssistance — not #Musk, & the dismissed employees didn't sue #USAID, he limited his preliminary injunction.
#Trump in Jan ordered a stop to #ForeignAid, incl’g #military #aid, except to #Israel & #Egypt, w/o a waiver. On Fri, the admin said it was sending Israel nearly $3B in new #weapons, incl’g >35k new 2k pound #bombs, invoking an emergency rule under #US arms control laws.
Secy of #State #MarcoRubio in recent wks signed a waiver to exempt #Ukraine from the ban imposed on foreign assistance, but snr State ofcl #PeterMarocco hasn’t sent a required letter to the #Pentagon to allow the aid to flow….
« On Wednesday, Rubio and [top aide] Marocco completely ended nearly 10,000 aid programs in one fell swoop — including those they had granted waivers just days earlier — saying the programs did not align with Trump’s agenda. The move consigns untold numbers of the world’s poorest children, refugees and other vulnerable people to death, according to several senior federal officials. Local authorities have already begun estimating a death toll in the hundreds of thousands. […] Since the initial decision to suspend foreign aid, humanitarian organizations and labor groups have taken the government to court, arguing that only Congress can dismantle USAID and that Trump’s blanket actions are unconstitutional. » https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-usaid-rubio-marocco-canceled-programs-gaza-syria-congo-hiv-ebola
The axing of some 10,000 programs has consigned untold numbers of children and refugees to death, officials say. Documents and interviews reveal that the State Department appears to have made the cuts without the careful review it described in court.
[ProPublica]: Trump Administration—Trump Official Destroying USAID Secretly Met With Christian Nationalists Abroad in Defiance of U.S. Policy. by Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester, February 15, 2025
Now one of the most powerful people in the U.S. government, Peter Marocco’s turbulent tenure during the first Trump administration sheds light on his current efforts to dismantle the American foreign aid system from the inside out.
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