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John Oliver on Trump's dismantling of USAID: 'What this administration has done is beyond cruel'
John Oliver on Trump’s dismantling of USAID: ‘What this administration has done is beyond cruel’ - The GuardianLast Week Tonight host examined the devastating impact of the demise of USAID, the primary federal agency for foreign aid
On [a recent] Last Week Tonight, John Oliver examined the Trump administration’s gutting of USAID, the international aid agency once described as “the world’s single largest humanitarian donor”. Donald Trump, naturally, called it “a scam” where there was “very little being put to good use”.
Trump was “fixated” on USAID and its spending, even though it represented less than 1% of the federal budget. So when Elon Musk arrived in Washington to begin his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) cuts in early 2025, he tweeted that he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper”.
Those cuts “have had real impacts on people around the world engaged in the act of saving lives”, said Oliver, and have led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in 2025 alone.
Oliver dug into what exactly USAID did, and the devastating toll of its absence. The agency, created in 1961 by John F Kennedy for both humanitarian reasons and to increase US soft power abroad, has generally enjoyed bipartisan support, particularly thanks to scenes of international disaster relief. But the Trump administration “brought USAID to its knees”. By 1 February of last year, its website had been taken down; a week later, all its nearly 10,000 employees were put on leave. By March, 83% of its programs had been terminated.
Trump was “fixated” on USAID and its spending, even though it represented less than 1% of the federal budget. So when Elon Musk arrived in Washington to begin his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) cuts in early 2025, he tweeted that he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper”.
Those cuts “have had real impacts on people around the world engaged in the act of saving lives”, said Oliver, and have led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in 2025 alone.
Oliver dug into what exactly USAID did, and the devastating toll of its absence. The agency, created in 1961 by John F Kennedy for both humanitarian reasons and to increase US soft power abroad, has generally enjoyed bipartisan support, particularly thanks to scenes of international disaster relief. But the Trump administration “brought USAID to its knees”. By 1 February of last year, its website had been taken down; a week later, all its nearly 10,000 employees were put on leave. By March, 83% of its programs had been terminated.
https://youtube.com/shorts/_QJRbB9S1HM?si=CyBfCjL_sarzkxTa
And Trump's / MAGA'S War on Children and Families Doesn't Stop at International Aid:
While Spending Billions on Iran War, Trump Quietly Moves to Boot Millions More Off Food Aid - Common Dreams “Americans can’t afford their groceries, they can’t afford their medicine, they can’t afford the cost of living, and yet we’re dropping a billion dollars of bombs, it seems, every day in Iran,” said one Senate Democrat.
The Trump administration is quietly pursuing a regulatory change that would strip federal nutrition assistance from an estimated 6 million low-income Americans—including nearly two million children—as it spends billions on an illegal, open-ended war on Iran that has killed more than a thousand people and plunged the global economy into chaos.
The change sought by the US Department of Agriculture would curb broad-based categorical eligibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Broad-based categorical eligibility allows states to automatically qualify residents for SNAP if they are already enrolled in other aid programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, thus reducing administrative hurdles and costs.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimated in a blog post published late last month—the day before Donald Trump announced the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran—that gutting broad-based categorical eligibility would likely strip modest federal food aid from around 6 million people, including nearly 2 million children.
“The people losing access to food assistance from SNAP, school meals, and [the Women, Infants, and Children Program] would mainly be working families, older adults, and people with disabilities,” the think tank noted. “In other words, the change would primarily harm groups that federal and state policymakers from across the political spectrum have long sought to help: people who work but are living near poverty; older adults and people with disabilities with low, fixed incomes; and people trying to build modest savings in order to become more economically independent.”
The change sought by the US Department of Agriculture would curb broad-based categorical eligibility in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Broad-based categorical eligibility allows states to automatically qualify residents for SNAP if they are already enrolled in other aid programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, thus reducing administrative hurdles and costs.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimated in a blog post published late last month—the day before Donald Trump announced the joint US-Israeli assault on Iran—that gutting broad-based categorical eligibility would likely strip modest federal food aid from around 6 million people, including nearly 2 million children.
“The people losing access to food assistance from SNAP, school meals, and [the Women, Infants, and Children Program] would mainly be working families, older adults, and people with disabilities,” the think tank noted. “In other words, the change would primarily harm groups that federal and state policymakers from across the political spectrum have long sought to help: people who work but are living near poverty; older adults and people with disabilities with low, fixed incomes; and people trying to build modest savings in order to become more economically independent.”
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