Former USAID officer -a possible agency connection, funding a decrease: “It’s not an overhaul. It’s destruction.”

Former Director of Global Health USAID Dr. Atul Gawande criticized Trump’s administration Plan to connect International Development Agency of United States in State Department and Function Financing they Put Key assistance programs in danger. Asked about changes, he said, “It’s not an overhaul. It’s destruction.”

GawandeSurgeon, medical professor and author of the best -selling, on Monday, CBS News said that “destruction” began a week after the White House Management and Budget Office Published a memorandum This ordered the freezing of federal aid. Memo was He returned back For days later and ordered freezing was stopped the federal courtbut the programs appear to be still stopped or in a recess.

“You’re talking about 20 million people in HIV Global Program This has reduced HIV around the world, they go without medicines that keep them alive, “Gawande said.” Talk about the epidemic of not stop illnesses, like bird fluwhere the monitoring is excluded in 49 countries. “

“Great damage is inflicted, and that change to take away independent status [of USAID] Only the nail is in the coffin after cleaning the staff that decimated the agency, “Gawande said.

Other former USAID workers expressed similar concerns.

Maura Reap, which was a work at USAID with the Global Health Office until last week, has just arrived on a two-week task in Ethiopia when State Secretary Marco Rubio Secretary Marco Rubio Ordered pause About all new US programs to help with foreign assistance that financed State Department and USAID. During the first week of task, Reap should have focused on designing a project that supports surviving sexual and gender -based violence. Reap, whose expertise is in mental health, said the program has been planned for months.

“We had several meetings over the weekend, and there were only a lot of uncertainty,” Reap told CBS News. “It was like a wreck of a slow train.”

In the end, she got E -mail, saying she had to go back to Washington, DC while she was in the air, she and her two colleagues received notifications about the breakup.

“This terrible spending a [temporary duty travel] With all the planning and investments that came into it, and it was for nothing, “she said.

Gawande also returned Mr. Trump and billionaire Elon MuskThe comments, both scored by the agency, and Mr Trump recently said that USAID “managed a bunch of radical lunations.” Musk said that the agency “is not an apple with the worm in it, which we actually have, just a ball of worm.”

Gawande opposed: “What we are talking about are workers for disaster help, we are talking about healthcare professionals and people who work well and protect America around the world.”

Trump administration is expected to publish details in the coming days about the disorder USAIDA 60-year-old organization that provides humanitarian aid more than 100 countries. The Agency provides humanitarian aid abroad, especially countries that are recovering from disaster and trying to avoid poverty. In the Fiscal year in 2023, USAID managed more than $ 40 billion approved, according to the Congress Research Service, which is a figure less than 1% of the federal budget.

Mr. Trump vowed to reduce the size of the Federal Government, and USAID was the recent target of his and musk Government Efficiency Departmentor Doge. Earlier on Monday, the White House posted the list Examples of what USAID considered wasteful consumption in recent years. Democratic legislators, however, warned that any attempt to change the structure and financing of USAIDs would require the rank of Congress.

Reap expressed an appreciation that “someone who is not chosen can enter and only take this 60 -year -old institution that has achieved so much … and have so much neglect and take it and turn it on and throw it on it its back and say, this is not -this is not -this is not -this is not -this is not – this, we throw it out. “

Gawande said it was “dangerous to deny” the agency for the country, saying that it was “the biggest civilian operating capacity in the country” for the progression “of the USA abroad.

“We’re talking about world class expertise. For example, a malaria program. Two -thirds are released and the exclusion of activities involves one of the global malaria experts for us. How does that make us more secure? How does that make us stronger?” Gawande said.

Reap also claimed that the work of USAID saves lives and supports policies that benefit from the United States.

“Because, I mean, there are so many things related to the job we do,” Reap said. “Stopping outlets, reducing the factors of pushing and withdrawal for migration on our southern – on our borders. The job we do opposes extremism and leads it – contributes to stable communities because of the work we do by maintaining healthy people so that they can contribute to their communities.”

Gawande noted: “Every administration goes through an overhaul that says they want to change politics, want to change some direction, but you do not decimacy and do not destroy the institution in the process. There was no need to close all its functions, which harms people.”