Elon Musk said Donald Trump agreed that USAID should be ‘closed’

Cnn
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Elon Musk said President Donald Trump agreed that the US Agency for International Development should be “shut down”, which follows speculation about the future of the agency after its funding was frozen and dozens of its employees were put on leave.

“As for the USAD, I went over it with (the president) in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said in an X Spaces conversation early Monday.

Musk said he controlled with Trump “a few times,” and Trump confirmed he wants to close the agency, which hand out billions in humanitarian help and development financing annually. CNN has reached the White House and USAID for comment.

Sunday night, before the X -Rufe conversation, when Trump was asked for a comment to USAID, Trump told journalists: “It has been driven by a bunch of radical madmen and we get them out and then we make a decision” about its future .

Musk’s comments come after two top security officials in USAID were put on administrative leave on Saturday night to refuse members of the Department of Government Efficiency Access to Systems on the Agency, Even when Doge Personal Threatened to Call for Law Enforcement, More Sources There Know with the situation told CNN.

About 60 senior USAID staff were put on leave last week on allegations of attempts to bypass Trump’s executive order to freeze foreign aid for 90 days. Another senior official was put on leave to try to turn that step after finding some proof of wrongdoing.

In the X-room conversation early Monday, to which he hosted with Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa and Vivek Ramaswamy-as was originally appointed co-chair of Musk, but has since left-X owner called USAID “incredible political partisan “And said it has supported” radically left causes around the world, including things that are anti-American. ”

Musk said USAD is “without repair,” including attacks he made against the agency created by Congress as an independent body.

We don’t have “an apple with a worm in it,” he said. “We have a worm ball.”

“USAID is a worm ball.”

USAID was established in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy’s administration and is the US government’s humanitarian arm. It releases billions of dollars annually around the world in an attempt to relieve poverty, treat diseases and respond to famine and natural disasters. It also promotes democracy building and development by supporting non-governmental organizations, independent media and social initiatives.

USID is an important soft power tool in the United States to promote relations with communities around the world, officials say, noting that US national security is approaching department, state department and USAID.

According to sources, staff from Musk-created office first tried physically access to the USID headquarters in Washington, DC, and were stopped. The Doge staff demanded to be released and threatened to call us Marshaller to access, two of the sources said.

The DOGE staff wanted to access USAID security systems and staff files, three sources said. Two of these sources also said that the Doge staff wanted access to classified information that only those with security preparations and a specific need to know are able to access.

Three sources told CNN that the Doge staff eventually were eventually able to access the headquarters.

The incident, which had not previously been reported, is the latest showdown as the Trump-affiliated DOGE seeks to exercise rising authority over the federal government as it aims to cut expenses.

In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday, Democratic members of the US Senate Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee “requested an immediate update on access to USAid’s headquarters, including the persons who were given access to the headquarters were allowed to be there and of whom.”

“The potential access to sensitive, even classified files that may include the personally identifiable information (PII) for Americans working with USAID, and this incident as a whole raising deep concerns about the protection and protection of issues that are related to US National Security, ”the letter said.

The senators also wrote that “Any effort to merge or fold USAD to the state department should be, and by law must be, preview, discussed and approved by Congress.

Katie Miller, whom Trump appointed to DOE in December, on Sunday seemed to confirm that Doge staff had access to classified information.

“There was no access to any classified material without proper safety preparations,” she posted at X.

On Sunday, in response to CNN’s report on the incident, Musk said that “USAID is a criminal organization.”

“Time to die,” He posted at X.

Other top Trump officials, such as Stephen Miller, who acts as Deputy Staff Head of Politics in the White House, have also aimed at USAID and accused his workforce of being overwhelming Democrats.

On Saturday, the USA’s site got dark and a new page for the agency appeared on the state department’s website. USAID X account also went offline on Saturday.

A source told CNN that the entire USAID office was put on leave and locked out of their systems.

Shortly after being sworn last month, Trump issued a sweeping executive order that paused all foreign aid for 90 days, led to widespread confusion, redundancies and program closures.

USAID -Director of Security John Voorhees and his deputy are among dozens of USAID officials who have been put on leave in the midst of fear that the agency will be deliberately dismantling -a step that some helpers claim would have huge negative consequences.

Help officials claim that the state department is not equipped to take over and maintain USA’s large number of development projects. It would also erase, they claim, unique and essential soft force that cannot be replicated.

The state department “does not have capacity, expertise, the education to do that kind of work. It is a completely separate effort made on Earth, ”said a former senior USAID official.

“One element of the US government bureaucracy on earth in foreign places that have been able to get beyond the cord and actually have a deeper understanding of the places where we work is USAID,” the former official continued and requested Anonymity to growing and widespread fear of being targeted by Trump administration.

“This ability to work in the way, the culture – and it is a culture that I think – is lost. And with that, I think we are losing a huge, incredibly valuable tool in US foreign policy. We will basically hit with one arm behind our back, ”said the person.

This story and heading has been updated with further reporting.