WASHINGTON – This week, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took to the Senate floor to condemn the Trump Administration’s damaging and reckless actions against the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In her remarks, she warned of grave threats to U.S. national security and global health if life-saving programs are eliminated at the direction of the Trump administration, Elon Musk and Russell Vought.
You can watch her remarks here.
Key Quotes:
The Ranking Member’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
Last year, for the first time, thanks to PEPFAR more than half of new HIV infections were outside of sub-Sahara Africa—one of the most successful health programs ever in U.S. history, put in place by George W. Bush. And one of the only things that has stood between Americans and so many of the diseases that come from overseas is USAID.
Now, I was listening to the prayer breakfast this morning, and I heard President Trump talking about his admiration for Billy Graham, for Franklin Graham—for the good work that they do. And then a few minutes later, I heard the morning news, and I heard them talking about what's happening in Sudan— where we have a famine and millions of people desperate because of the conflict there and what's happening. And the news report said, if we don't get our foreign assistance turned back on to help the Sudanese, 8 million people are going to starve to death in the coming months. I can't imagine that Billy Graham or Franklin Graham supports the idea of 8 million Sudanese dying because we've turned off the foreign assistance that we provided, because Elon Musk doesn't like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). I think Billy Graham and Franklin Graham—Billy Graham, when he was alive and his son Franklin—would say, these are also God's children. And it's important for us to support people around the world who are dying.
And, you know, it's not just those kinds of situations like we have in Sudan. We have significant diseases that are breaking out in parts of the world, and we don't have people on the ground to make sure that the people who [can stop them]. The outbreak of Ebola that's happening in Africa—some of us remember in 2014 when about what came to the United States—we don't have any aid workers anymore because under Elon Musk's order, they've shut down those programs. They're bringing those people home. So, there's nobody there to make sure that that Ebola outbreak doesn't go across borders and doesn't wind up in the United States. There's a Marburg outbreak—another hemorrhagic disease that's happening in Africa. It has a 90% mortality rate. And right now, we have no real treatment and no vaccination for the Marburg virus. And yet again, we've taken our teams of people who help in-country to treat the Marburg virus, we've taken them home. We've said go ahead—cross whatever country lines you want. Come to the United States because we're not going to prevent that.
And, you know, we've got a bird flu epidemic now. You may have heard there's a new strain that's just been discovered in cows in Nevada. We've had about 70 people who have been infected with bird flu. We've had somebody die from that. We used to monitor bird flu outbreaks around the world, but under this shutdown of USAID and its programs, we're not monitoring bird flu anymore. So that bird flu can come to the United States—we don't know. Nobody seems to care in the Trump Administration, if that happens. You know, these things don't just happen overseas. They affect us here in America. It's in our interest to ensure that these efforts that help with diseases, that help prevent Vladimir Putin and Russia from its nefarious activities in Europe and Moldova and Romania and Ukraine—that's also happened to aid to help Ukraine in this war against Russia. That's all been cut off. That doesn't make America safer. That doesn't make us stronger. That doesn't make us more prosperous.
I hope my colleagues will stand against Russell Vought who has been the architect of so much of this carnage. Sadly, I don't think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will do that. And I hope that we can reverse some of this harm that's being done to so many people around the world that is going to come home to roost in America if we don't address it.
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