“I am asking that all members have five days to update their statements and add material to the official record.”

“Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Stutzman). Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Virginia? There was no objection.”

“I oppose the Trump administration's plan to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and cut aid to other countries.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to open this Special Order to discuss the destructive, counterproductive, and tragic choice by the Trump administration to disband the U.S. Agency for International Development and to dramatically cut U.S. international assistance. I thank the many Members who will be joining me this evening to raise this important topic and for their leadership in fighting back against this senseless decision. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel).”

“We must bring back our foreign aid agency. Helping other countries with clean water, food, and schools keeps America safe. It stops diseases, prevents wars, and makes us friends around the world. Cutting this aid hurts our own national security.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Beyer for yielding and for bringing us together on this very urgent and important issue. This is very personal to me because after college, my son, Ben, was commissioned as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. He served overseas in two war zones, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Like so many military parents, I lived with the fear of getting that knock on the door. My family was blessed. Ben came home safely, and later he returned overseas, this time working for USAID, America’s civilian development and humanitarian agency. Ben taught me something I have never forgotten. That is because he said when he came home: Mom, the way to peace is not just through bombs and bullets. It is through soft power, such as helping people, building relationships, creating opportunity, and preventing conflict before it starts. That lesson changed the way I looked at America’s role in the world. When I came to Congress, one of my missions was to help keep our sons and daughters out of harm’s way by strengthening American soft power. Never has this mission been more urgent. For 6 months, we have been in a costly war with Iran with no clear end in sight. It is a stark reminder that real security requires not only military strength but diplomacy, development, and humanitarian leadership. I diverge because when Mr. Trump was elected, then came DOGE, and then USAID was eliminated. Programs were canceled, and thousands of experienced professionals were shown the door. Decades of experience and relationships were torn apart. The Trump administration dismantled one of America’s most important national security tools. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, what USAID looked like to Fatima, a mother in northeastern Nigeria. For most of her life, Fatima walked long distances to collect water from a stream shared with cattle, or she bought water from vendors when her family could afford it. She worried whether the water was safe for her children. Then a USAID-funded project drilled a borehole and brought clean water directly to a tap at her home. There was clean water for her children. There were no more long walks just to meet one of life’s most basic needs. That is soft power. Then there is Apsana, a 16-year-old girl in Nepal who had never attended a formal school. Her brothers went to school while she stayed home. Then a USAID-funded program brought teachers directly to girls like Apsana. For the first time, she was getting an education and a chance at a future beyond early marriage. Then the U.S. funding stopped. All over the world, teachers stopped coming. The classrooms disappeared. Here in Washington, we canceled programs. For Apsana and millions more, we closed the doors to classrooms with brighter futures. May I add, I think we went from 500 programs to 2. I know what Americans are asking. Why should we care? Why should American taxpayers care about a mother in Nigeria or a girl in Nepal? It is because helping them helps us. Clean water prevents disease. Educating girls creates stronger economies and more stable communities. Of course, we should reform programs that don’t work. We should demand results and accountability. Demolition is not reform. Foreign assistance is not simply a charity. It is national security. It stops disease before it reaches our shores. It restores and creates stability before the instability allows extremists to exploit it. It creates friends, allies, and future trading partners. It builds good will toward the United States without firing a shot. For Fatima, American soft power meant clean water. For Apsana, it meant a chance to choose her own future. For America, it means fewer costly crises, fewer wars, and fewer of our sons and daughters sent into harm’s way. That is what my son, Ben, learned after serving in war. Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, a well, a vaccine, a bag of food, or a schoolbook could do more for American security than a bomb ever could. To the thousands of USAID professionals who spent their careers preventing disease, fighting against hunger, educating children, empowering women, responding to disasters, and representing the very best in America, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your service, the lives you saved, the communities you strengthened, and the good will you built for our country because your work mattered, and your mission still matters. We may have lost an agency, but we will not abandon the mission. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues who are here, and I know they agree with me when I say we must work to restore America’s humanitarian and development leadership, rebuild the expertise and partnership that were lost, and make sure that America leads not just through military might but through the power of our generosity, humanity, and diplomacy. I know that is what my son taught me, and the mission stays ahead.”

• Little substance
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  Speech in the House

  Signal 33 of 100

  Much of this statement went to praise, blame, greetings, routine procedure or general stories rather than reasons, requests or specific points.

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“President Trump and Elon Musk cut foreign aid and shut down USAID. These cuts killed hundreds of thousands of children around the world by taking away food and medicine. The cuts also cost 23,000 American jobs, hurt our farmers, and made us less safe from diseases. We must rebuild our foreign aid programs.”

“Mr. Speaker, 19 months ago, President Trump took an axe to our foreign assistance, illegally freezing aid and demolishing the United States Agency for International Development. Thirteen days later, he ranted that USAID was ``run by a bunch of radical lunatics.’’ The very next day, Elon Musk bragged that DOGE had ``spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.’’ Well, the chips fell, and kids died. When I asked Secretary Rubio about the consequences, he told me: No children are dying on my watch. A year later, the hatchet men were still lying. Children are still dying. Elon Musk recently proclaimed that he cannot cite a single name of someone who died because of aid cuts. Just because Elon can’t name one of the 700,000 people killed by his cruelty doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. We know their names. Abdullahi Ibrahim was 10 years old when USAID-supported asthma treatment disappeared from his clinic in Nigeria. His family could no longer afford his medication. He suffered a fatal asthma attack. Mohammed Hashim was 2 years old. When food assistance disappeared from his refugee camp in Myanmar, he died of starvation. Gbessy Kiadu was only a 1-year-old. He died of malaria after clinics in western Liberia ran out of malaria medication because of USAID cuts. These are not just statistics. These are children. They had parents, dreams, and full lives ahead of them. Today, the warning signs are flashing that if these cuts continue, hundreds of thousands of additional children could die every year. Abdullahi, Mohammed, and Gbessy are three of the more than 700,000 no longer with us because of Trump’s choice to close USAID and decimate U.S. foreign assistance programs. We are seeing the consequences in Nepal, where deaths have risen after Trump’s cuts to lifesaving maternal health programs. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, cuts to USAID-funded disease-detection systems delayed detection and response to the Ebola outbreak. It is now the worst outbreak on record, with nearly 3,000 people dead and over 6,000 confirmed cases. Make no mistake, America is paying a price, too. Shuttering USAID eliminated more than 23,000 American jobs. American farmers and manufacturers who supply food products to USAID were left struggling. From peanut farmers in Texas to sugar farmers in Florida, to American longshoremen moving food through our ports to manufacturers in my home State of Rhode Island, Trump’s cuts left wounds across the country. Cuts to USAID disease monitoring and prevention systems leave Americans at greater risk of disease. As the COVID-19 pandemic clearly showed us, disease does not care about borders. Eliminating global health programs puts us at greater risk of a future pandemic. American security on the world stage is suffering, too, as Trump backs away from our strongest soft power tool: helping others. American taxpayers lost the return on an investment that made our country safer and stronger. Our foreign assistance was never charity. It was about American leadership, security, and workers producing food, medicine, and lifesaving technology. It told the world something powerful: When America gives its word, America keeps it. As the USAID logo reminded the world, it was from the American people. Now, that good will is gone because Trump threw that promise into the wood chipper. Our allies are left wondering whether they can trust us. Our adversaries are filling the vacuum. Families are burying children who might have lived. Mr. Speaker, as we look to the future, let’s be clear about what we must do. We must rebuild American foreign assistance, restore American leadership, hold accountable those who recklessly dismantle these programs, and remember every single life that was lost. Abdullahi was not a number, Mohammed was not a statistic, and Gbessy will not be forgotten. They were children. They were loved. They should be with us today.”

“I want to restore funding to USAID. Past budget cuts hurt programs that warn people about natural disasters and keep regions stable. Spending money on foreign aid now saves American lives and stops costly wars later.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for having this Special Order hour tonight. Mr. Speaker, when the Trump administration slashed USAID funding and fired its dedicated employees, they said it was a crowning achievement of fiscal responsibility because why spend money abroad, spend it on everyday Americans instead. Well, they didn’t spend the savings on Americans. They gave tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations and cut Americans’ health benefits and food assistance instead. Because of the cuts to USAID, we are now seeing how it actually puts American lives and American dollars at massive risk. If you think foreign aid doesn’t affect you, let’s look at the most recent example, because more than 70 Americans, including 9 Virginians, some in my district, are missing right now in Nepal because of the catastrophic floods that happened there last week. Over a thousand people are dead. USAID was running a natural hazards program to monitor and identify landslides, disasters, and climate events in Nepal and the project’s former director said that the cuts to that program undermined ``landslide situational awareness.’’ Imagine how many lives, and yes, even how much money we could have saved, and all the damage we could have prevented. It is more than just that. USAID was America’s frontline defense against global chaos by building peace, providing clean water, and stabilizing unstable regions. It aimed to stop humanitarian crises from exploding into violent conflicts, crises that affect Americans at home and abroad. Look at the trillions of dollars being spent on wars right now. We can spend pennies on the dollar instead to prevent them. In fact, Jim Mattis, Trump’s old Secretary of Defense said: ``If we don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.’’ Let’s refund USAID. It will save American lives and, yes, it will save money, too.”

“President Trump cut foreign aid, and hundreds of thousands of people around the world have died from treatable diseases and hunger because of it. I want him to restore this funding. Sending food and medicine costs very little, saves lives, and keeps America safe.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I have with me just some of the products USAID had used around the world to save lives and to protect nutrition. On February 19 of last year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 5-year-old Suza Kenyaba died of malaria. The shipment of antimalaria drugs that could have saved her life was stranded in a distribution warehouse just a few miles away from her clinic after United States Government payments to local contractors were frozen, ordered by the President of the United States. Suza was not alone. According to The Washington Post, 95 percent of malaria medication shipments in the first 6 months of 2025 were either delayed or did not arrive at all. In Suza’s province, death caused by malaria tripled. There is no mystery about what happened here. Suza died because President Trump, in his first year back in office, slashed humanitarian aid by nearly 70 percent and people died. Just look at USAID, which Trump’s billionaire buddy Elon Musk, now the world’s richest man, bragged about ``feeding it into the wood chipper.’’ The result of this deliberate, gleeful destruction has been nearly 750,000 deaths around the world, nearly one person a minute, an irreplaceable humanitarian loss. In sub-Saharan Africa, as many as 159,000 people are estimated to have died due to the interruption of critical USAID and PEPFAR funds. Nearly 700,000 more children are expected to develop malaria and nearly 164,000 could die from malnutrition. These figures are from researchers around the world, and I have seen the work close up right on these different countries. Due to the interruption of critical USAID funds, it is likely that the final death toll by 2030 is estimated to be even higher, maybe more than 9 million people. Nearly all of these deaths can be prevented, and they were being prevented for pennies on the dollar. I serve on the Appropriations Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have seen the numbers on how, sometimes for pennies a day, American food and medicine saves lives, but it does so much more. We often argue that we spend less than 1 percent of our budget on foreign aid. I argue we should spend more on foreign aid because it returns to us in our national security and, of course, in security around the world. What happens when we withdraw from that indispensable leadership position? Representatives from China or Russia, adversaries, visit these locations and say, how can we help you? And how would you ever trust America again? For less than 1 percent of the Federal budget, we save millions of lives. We save people from starvation, stop pandemics before they start, and build a network of alliances and goodwill that will help achieve America’s goals worldwide. This President may imagine a fortress of America, disconnected from the world, hoarding our tremendous prosperity for ourselves or for himself, but we cannot wall ourselves off from disease and disorder. One way or another what happens abroad affects us here at home. If America does not lead, our adversaries will. Mr. Speaker, I ask Mr. Trump to restore the funding to USAID.”

“I am giving my time to Mr. Sherman.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much for her eloquent words. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), a longtime leader of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a good friend, and a national leader.”

“I want Congress to fully fund foreign aid. We spend less than one percent of our budget on it. This aid helps stop deadly diseases like malaria and HIV in other countries before they mutate and spread to the United States. Cutting this aid has already cost many lives, and it puts Americans in danger.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Beyer for bringing us together. Mr. Speaker, foreign aid has been a political whipping boy in this country for decades. The American people believe, if you poll them, that we spend 25 percent of our Nation’s budget on foreign aid and they want it reduced to 10 percent. It is already less than 1 percent, less than a quarter percent of our GDP. Obviously, if you are moral, if you care about the world, these programs should be fully funded and that should increase. But what if you are only focused on America? What about our soft power that is dependent upon our image in the world? What about preventing enormous migration caused by desperation? But let’s focus on public health because what USAID does more than anything else is fight malaria, Ebola, tuberculosis, and HIV-AIDS. If we don’t fight those diseases over there, they replicate, mutate, and migrate. Every one of these diseases replicates in every body that it infects. Then one out of a thousand times or one out of a million times it mutates into a new strain that is either more drug resistant or more communicable, and then those diseases migrate back to the United States. Every one of those diseases is found here and none of them started here. Mr. Speaker, I thank 120 Members of the House who joined with my letter urging the Appropriations Committee to fully fund foreign aid. I thank every member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Democratic side for cosponsoring my Evan Anzoo Memorial Act. Who is Evan Anzoo? This was the first child killed by Elon Musk who took away his HIV-AIDS medicine in the first month of the Trump administration. This bill requires us to ask the GAO to calculate for us how many have died in the last year and a half. A Harvard professor says hundreds of thousands of deaths have already occurred. Boston University calculates that we have lost 781,000 people in the world, most of them children. A peer-reviewed study led by UCLA says that we are looking at over 14 million who will die if we continue these policies through the end of this decade. Hundreds of thousands have died already, millions will die in this decade if we don’t change course, and untold hundreds of thousands of Americans will die if we don’t fight the disease over there and instead give that disease a chance to replicate, mutate, and migrate back here.”

“President Trump and Elon Musk cut our foreign aid and shut down USAID under false claims of saving money. These cuts have cost our government billions in lawsuits and settlements, while causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths around the world. Foreign aid protects our own national security and stops deadly diseases from spreading here. I want us to rebuild USAID and our international aid programs.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Sherman for speaking. Mr. Speaker, last year, President Trump teamed up with his trillionaire donor Elon Musk to dismantle USAID and pause or permanently cancel a large portion of our international assistance programs. This was done in the name of furthering Trump’s America First policy, but it is mostly combating mostly fictional and exaggerated claims of waste. The authors of this policy claimed that their goal was to achieve deficit reduction, to further Trump’s America First policy on largely imaginary claims of waste. Far from reducing waste, the headlong rush to shutter USAID has forced the government to set aside billions of dollars for lawsuits, pay former employees to stay at home, and settle outstanding agreements with contractors. Our national debt passed $40 trillion this week, the latest in a strong string of facts to show how little Trump and company actually care about fiscal responsibility. The decision and the chaotic and callous way it was implemented has led to needless death, suffering, and damage to our national security and international reputation. But the worst impacts have been the devastation this has inflicted on poor and sick people around the world. In defense of the aid cuts, Elon Musk claimed zero people in Africa died. Secretary Rubio likewise claimed no one has died, claiming that lifesaving aid programs would be maintained or replaced. These statements are lies, and they are insults to our intelligence. Available government data shows large reductions of spending from 2024 to 2025, such as a 48 percent cut to global health programs, 39 percent cut to the Food For Peace program, a 65 percent cut in development assistance, and a 21 percent cut to international disaster assistance. Several large-scale independent studies and reporting from numerous news outlets have shown the human toll on these reductions. I thank my colleagues who pointed out names and photographs. Let me give some examples. The Gates Foundation estimates that child deaths will rise for the first time in the 21st century in 2025, and projects that if the aid cuts continue at a similar scale, we should expect an additional 12 million child deaths by 2045--12 million kids. Harvard University’s Atul Gawande, one of the leading public health experts in the world, published an analysis nearly a year ago finding that hundreds of thousands have already died as a result of the USAID cuts, less than 10 months after they were implemented. A study published by UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health projected that the elimination of foreign aid funding last year would lead to 14 million preventable deaths by the end of this decade, over a third of them children. In a more granular report, research from Oxfam has shown that cholera cases have risen by 62 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year, just as USAID clean water and sanitation programs were cut--one-to-one correspondence. These are numbers, but each statistic represents suffering and misery that our government chose to inflict on some of the most vulnerable people in the world. I love and greatly appreciate The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. He has gone to Africa and written in heartbreaking detail about the individual human costs of aid cuts. He writes about deaths of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Uganda dying due to the lack of ordinarily available food assistance, medicine, mosquito nets, and other U.S.-provided aid. I am a Representative that serves Northern Virginia, so I have heard from hundreds of former USAID employees and their private sector partners who worked on these cut programs. Besides the justifiable outrage felt by these men and women due to how they were treated by this administration, by Elon Musk, and his band of DOGE acolytes, what has really struck me is the grief that they feel being unable to continue to serve our country and help some of the world’s most vulnerable people. They understand that U.S. international assistance is not charity. It is a critical component of our national security strategy, alongside diplomacy and defense. They reduced the risk of lethal diseases, like Ebola and the avian flu, from spreading to our shores. They promoted economic growth and democracy in developing nations, enhanced counterterrorism initiatives, and alleviated international crises and disasters. But it is up to us to build and improve what remains of our aid infrastructure. We can and we should work to reduce the risk of this happening again, and I look forward to rebuilding USAID in the years to come. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of our time, such as it is.”