The United States Agency for International Development (usaid) is being shut down. It is one of the latest agencies to be cleaned out by President Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (doge). Most of usaid’s employees were placed on leave beginning February 7, and any overseas staff must return home within 30 days.

“We spent the weekend feeding usaid into the wood chipper,” doge head Elon Musk wrote on X last week. “I went over it with [President Trump] in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down.”

The shutdown has revealed some shocking waste, including:

• $32,000 to promote a transgender comic book in Peru
• $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia
• $70,000 on a diversity, equity and inclusion (dei) musical in Ireland
• $1.5 million on dei in Serbia
• $20,000 for drag shows in Ecuador
• $2 million for sex changes and lgbtq activism in Guatemala
• $3 million for lgbtq individuals

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst found usaid also gave:

• $2 million for pottery classes in Morocco
• $20 million to fund a Sesame Street tv show in Iraq
• $2 million to promote tourism to Lebanon—despite the fact that the State Department warns against travel to Lebanon

The press has been uncovering wasteful usaid spending for years, including:

• $10 million spent on meals for al Qaeda terrorists (Washington Times, November 2024)
• $5 million to the EcoHealth Alliance, which then gave millions to the the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which in turn gave the world covid-19 (Washington Examiner, 2021)
• $200,000 to Michigan-based charity Helping Hand for Relief and Development, which has ties to terrorist organizations like the Pakistani Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (Washington Examiner, February 2025)

usaid money has also been used to manipulate global media.

Former State Department official Mike Benz found the agency paid a journalist $20 million to write a hit piece on President Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani who helped lead to an attempt to impeach President Trump in 2019.

There is also evidence usaid gave over $8 million to fund Politico llc, a left-wing journalism company. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained the grant was “essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the taxpayers’ dime.”

What Is USAID?

Founded in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, usaid was created to administer America’s overseas economic assistance programs, which includes anything from assisting developing countries to giving humanitarian aid. In 1998, Congress passed a law with support from President Bill Clinton that established usaid as an independent agency within the executive branch. Today, it receives over $40 billion every year to fund U.S. foreign aid programs.

But among its efforts to feed malnourished children and spread democracy, the agency has spent billions of those dollars promoting liberal ideas, such as transgenderism, environmentalism and so on. Much of usaid’s funding has also gone toward influencing media and political campaigns in other nations. It has been accused of being a front for the Central Intelligence Agency, and there is even evidence it has supported terrorist organizations.

Musk called it a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.” President Trump told reporters, “It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out.”

The Fight to Stay Open

Some of America’s largest government workers’ unions are suing President Trump’s administration for trying to shut down the agency. On February 6, a lawsuit was filed in Washington by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, claiming President Trump’s “unconstitutional and illegal actions” have created a “global humanitarian crisis.” Their argument is that it requires an act of Congress to abolish usaid and is therefore beyond President Trump’s authority to shut down.

Some of usaid’s missions and programs are still operating under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Just under 300 of the agency’s 10,000 workers are being kept on to administer primary humanitarian aid. The future of the agency is yet to be fully determined, but one option is making it a branch of the State Department. For this to happen, however, the agency would have to undergo some massive changes, as it has a history of not cooperating with the government.

Shortly after his inauguration on January 20, President Trump signed an executive order that put a 90-day pause on all new foreign aid programs. Within about a week, nearly 60 senior usaid staff had to be put on leave for attempting to side-step the order.

When doge staff requested access to review systems at the agency, usaid refused to cooperate. Two usaid security staff had to be placed on leave for physically preventing access.

A History of Obstruction

This isn’t usaid’s first attempt to evade scrutiny. In November 2022, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst examined the agency’s spending on facilities and administrative costs in its Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreements (nirca). In February 2023, it claimed it was “not possible” to track it. Ernst responded with a link to a publicly reported nirca database. usaid then admitted the database existed but said it was confidential. It took almost two years to access records of taxpayer money sent to businessmen in Ukraine.

“These requirements were all presented to my staff under the false pretense that this data was classified,” Ernst wrote to Rubio. “Only after demanding to speak to your usaid Office of Security, my staff uncovered that this data was, in fact, unclassified.”

While reviewing those documents, Ernst’s staff found that over 5,000 Ukrainian businesses each received up to $2 million of U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance. In some cases, it was used to bankroll business owners attending film festivals and fashion shows.

Corruption Exposed

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has explained that a lot of the corruption in America will be exposed and dealt with under President Trump because God is temporarily saving America through this man.

Mr. Flurry wrote in “A Miracle Victory”:

Many people are calling this the greatest political comeback in the history of the nation, or possibly the world. Some are likening it to a resurrection. Some recognize it as a miracle from God. …

God has been protecting and empowering this man. In fact—it is more than a miracle: It is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. …

Bible prophecy says that Donald Trump is going to lead a resurgence in America. Based on the scale of his victory, this resurgence could be significant and impressive. We must see that this is not the work of a man. This is God’s doing. God issued the prophecy, and God is bringing it to pass.

This prophecy can be found in 2 Kings 14.

Tides are shifting under President Trump. But there is a purpose for it. And there is a reason the U.S. suffered from this corruption in the first place. The Bible warns we bring curses on ourselves if we sin and disobey God (Leviticus 26). America has left God, but the temporary resurgence God is giving the nation through President Trump is allowing people one more opportunity to repent.

To better understand these prophecies, read Mr. Flurry’s article “Why God Is Saving America Through Trump.”