The last straw for Democratic lawmakers came when Elon Musk’s team of 18 to 25-year-old geniuses pulled back the curtain and exposed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as little more than a global charity for progressive causes. In a collective frenzy, what looked like the majority of House Democrats along with several senators, converged outside of the Treasury Department building to let their voices be heard. Why, it almost sounded as if they were calling for an insurrection.
New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver bellowed into the microphone, “We will not take this! We will fight back! And godd*** it, shut down the Senate! We are at war!”
Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley directed her ire toward her Republican colleagues. With California Rep. Maxine Waters grinning at her side, she yelled, “Pay attention. We’re here today in the hopes that you will see the light. But if you do not see the light, we will bring the fire. Resist!”
She referred to Musk as a “Nazi nepo baby.”
Next, Waters herself took the microphone and delivered a reprise of her infamous 2018 rant where she encouraged supporters to harass Trump Cabinet members wherever they may be. Except this time, her anger was aimed at Elon Musk. “We have got to tell Elon Musk, ‘Nobody told you you could get all of our private information. Nobody told you you could be in charge of the payments of this country. Nobody elected your a**!’ This is not Elon Musk’s country!”
Naturally, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) weighed in. “Not one Democrat in America voted for Elon Musk, not one. Not one Republican in America voted for Elon Musk. Not one independent in America voted for Elon Musk. Not one libertarian in America voted for Elon Musk, dammit, not one vegetarian in America voted for Elon Musk, and yet, Elon Musk is seizing the power that belongs to the American people.”
Warren forgets that no one elected USAID’s leadership either, yet they have the power to distribute $40 billion in taxpayer funds as they see fit.
She also appears to forget that no one voted for the individuals who actually ran the government during President Joe Biden’s four years in office. He was clearly incapable of governing.
Even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer showed up. He said, “We cannot allow Elon Musk and a small group of people to secretly, behind closed doors, take away our privacy, take away our dollars, take away everything we have! We are going to fight this fight. I am going to stand with you in this fight. And we will win!”
Conspicuously missing from Schumer’s list of what Musk is supposedly taking away from Democrats is the real reason for their outrage: their power. Over the years, Democrats have concealed their reckless spending on progressive causes by calling on independent government agencies like USAID and government-funded NGOs to bankroll their projects. This strategy has allowed them to appear as heroes while taxpayers remained blissfully unaware of where their tax dollars were going. By shutting down the USAID gravy train, Musk is stripping them of that power.
Fox News’ Jesse Watters discussed this story on the Tuesday night edition of his eponymous show. He highlighted some of the wasteful projects USAID has spent money on. Examples include: “$27 million to give gift bags to illegals before we deport them,” “millions to help Afghanis grow crops instead of opium … opium production doubled,” “$300 million to build diesel-fueled power plants in Afghanistan,” and “$9 million to Syria for humanitarian aid, but someone messed up and it went to Al Qaeda.” Watters concluded that “USAID is a deep state $40 billion slush fund.”
Then he addressed the more nefarious projects the agency has been involved in. Watters said, “USAID is an American intelligence cutout. They’ve been caught staging coup after coup across Latin America and funding paramilitary groups.
He continued, “USAID was pouring billions of dollars into open borders group. We were literally funding the invasion and buying them gift bags as they left.”
Watters reminded viewers that “USAID is only 0.7% of the federal budget. If they found this much fraud and corruption in this one tiny agency, imagine how bad the rest of it is.”
Watters played a recent clip of Trump advisor Stephen Miller describing USAID:
There’s probably no entity in the government that is more of an entrenched power center of unelected bureaucrats with less accountability, less oversight than USAID. They funnel money to their cronies all over the world through a swampy network of NGOs – non-governmental organizations … focusing on such things as regime change and destabilizing foreign countries. This is not about America’s interests.
…
Americans voted for one man. … They voted for Donald Trump to make government accountable to the taxpayer.
DOGE is to Democrats what a pail of water is to the Wicked Witch of the West. Expect to hear even more shrieking from the Left as this group continues to expose wasteful spending in the federal budget. That outcry is simply proof that DOGE is fulfilling its mission: to “giv[e] power back to the people.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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