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Obama didn’t stop there, calling Trump’s cuts “a colossal mistake,” and warning that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realize how much you are needed.”
Bush, who’s typically avoided direct shots at Trump since 2016, broke his silence to voice sadness over the agency’s closure. He praised USAID employees for championing global health initiatives that have saved countless lives, particularly in the fight against AIDS.
“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work — and that is your good heart,” Bush told the USAID staffers. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”
Meanwhile, Bono, never shy about his disdain for Trump, took a more emotional approach. The U2 frontman delivered a poem lamenting the agency’s demise, warning of deadly consequences if U.S. aid disappears from the world stage. “They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,” Bono said, honoring the workers facing job cuts.
Trump’s critics, including Hillary Clinton, piled on as well, marking the official end of USAID on social media. “In all my years of service, I found that foreign service officers and development professionals were among the most dedicated public servants I encountered,” Clinton wrote on X. “Their work saves lives and makes the world safer. Today, and every day, I stand with them.”
USAID’s dismantling was a long-time goal of Trump’s push to trim the federal bureaucracy, which he repeatedly claimed was rife with waste and left-wing political agendas. Musk, now firmly aligned with Trump’s government streamlining efforts, famously labeled USAID a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.”
According to reports, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) worked closely with Musk to root out what they describe as billions in wasteful spending at USAID and similar agencies. Trump himself often mocked some of the projects USAID funded, blasting them as taxpayer boondoggles.
“Forty-five million dollars for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma,” Trump complained in one example. “Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is.”
Despite the howls from Bush, Obama, and Bono, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the move, portraying USAID as an outdated relic that accomplished little beyond inflating bureaucracy.
“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio wrote. “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”
Rubio argued that the Trump administration’s restructuring would channel foreign assistance through the State Department, leading to leaner, smarter spending focused strictly on national interests.
“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” he said. “Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency.”
It’s clear the dismantling of USAID has triggered sharp divides between those who see global outreach as core to American leadership—and those who believe it’s time to put America’s resources squarely back home.
While the Bush-Obama-Bono alliance might be making headlines, the Trump team seems determined to stick to its course: cutting bureaucracy, draining the so-called swamp, and redefining how America engages with the world.
