During my career as a foreign correspondent, I spent a lot of time in what could only be called roach hotels. It wasn’t out of choice but necessity. I often had no option where I slept at night. You were happy to have a roof over your head in war zones, cities under siege, or deep in the barely civilized scrublands of the planet.
Time and again, I would turn on the room or bathroom lights and watch as scores of cockroaches skittered into cracks and drains.
Today, in Washington, I feel like I am back in one of those roach-infested hotels.
Donald Trump has turned on the lights, and Washington’s ubiquitous bureaucrats are running for cover like so many terrified cockroaches.
Especially panicked are the leftist bureaucrats who infest USAID (the United States Agency for International Development).
Now that President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE have shined a light on their cozy left-wing empire and reduced its bloated staff from 14,000 to barely 300, the bureaucratic roaches are in full panic.
I am neither surprised nor unhappy by this.
During my career as a foreign correspondent in Latin America and Asia, I learned a lot about USAID and its mission, especially in third-world countries.
Sources I developed within and outside the agency shared many disturbing accounts of blatant mismanagement, political misbehavior, and corruption by USAID and the largely unrestrained people who ran its far-flung offices.
Like the United Nations UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund), UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council), and UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), USAID is populated by leftists, socialists, and communists.
They believe their job is to spread leftist/socialist ideology wherever they can. Many view the United States as a negative force in the world, so they structure their so-called aid programs to reflect that doctrine.
In addition to its direct funding programs, USAID is also a “back door donor” to UNHCR, UNRWA, and the United Nations World Food Program.
Perhaps a picture of USAID’s financial operation might be helpful here.
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), USAID distributed $43.4 billion for fiscal year 2023 out of an annual budget of $50 billion. Some 130 countries received USAID assistance, with Europe and Eurasia receiving the largest share, $17.2 billion.
This considerable allocation was because Ukraine was the top foreign recipient of USAID aid in 2023. Moreover, between 2022 and 2024, USAID provided more than $30 billion in direct financial support to the Ukrainian government in response to its ongoing conflict with Russia.
For a story I wrote a few decades ago, several sources explained how USAID operates its leftist legerdemain worldwide. Nothing has changed since I sat down with those courageous USAID staffers in a Southeast Asian nation.
Without going too deep into the weeds, it goes something like this:
A committee or group within or outside USAID formulates a plan, program, or grant. In this case, it was a project to provide several villages with improved irrigation systems, storage facilities for fertilizer, grain, and equipment, training in farming techniques, and the use of better seeds and tools. The project was budgeted at $1.6 million.
As with some 52 percent of all USAID projects, this one was directed at a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).
The NGO then contracted with local and foreign companies to construct the facilities and irrigation systems needed and provide the requisite training.
It all looks straightforward; however, looks can be deceiving.
Some NGOs are notoriously political and corrupt. In this case, according to my sources, the companies they contracted with provided kickbacks to NGO officials. Those companies, in turn, contracted with subcontractors, who were obliged to kick back cash to the general contractors.
In short, the $1.2 million provided by USAID was distributed with little or no accountability. This troubling pattern has been repeated hundreds, if not thousands, of times since President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 with an executive order.
And that is why DOGE chief Elon Musk says USAID is a “criminal organization” that should “die.
“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. We’re shutting it down.”
Musk and President Trump want either of two things for USAID—eliminate it entirely or merge it into a branch within the State Department. Neither of those two options is acceptable to Washington’s Democrat cockroaches.
USAID’s largess in spreading money around the world is not inconsiderable. In 2024, 42% of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations was provided by USAID. In 2023, the top five recipients of USAID-managed funds were Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Yemen.
On the surface, you might think this was simply USAID doing what it was set up to do.
But when you dig deeper, you find some problematic examples of how USAID spends taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
Last July, USAID sent $15 million to distribute oral contraceptives and condoms to Afghanistan, according to a private congressional funding notice reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The money was part of a $100 million package for the Middle Eastern country to support the “basic rights and freedoms” of women and girls who were living under Taliban rule.
You would think that USAID would have learned from its past adventures in Afghanistan.
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2003, USAID worked with the country’s Ministry of Health to establish a system that provided basic health care to the majority of the population. While the $236 million program showed significant improvements through vaccinations and neonatal care, it also included substantial corruption. A special investigative team examined the Ministry of Health’s accounts and couldn’t explain where $63 million of the U.S.’s $236 million investment went.
To a few Swiss bank accounts, perhaps? Or to the Cayman Islands? We will never know.
And the beat goes on. Here is how USAID has spent taxpayer dollars most recently:
- A $10,000 grant for “Beards on Ice” — an ice skating drag show on climate change produced by the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, a self-described “queer cabaret arts organization.”
- $20 million on a Sesame Street spin-off in Iraq titled “Ahlan Simsim” to promote “inclusion” and “mutual respect.”
- $45 million on DEI scholarships in Burma.
- $446,700 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal via the State Department.
- $3.2 million to help Tunisian migrants readjust to life in Tunisia after deportation by the U.S. State Department.
- $2 million for sex changes in Guatemala.
- $425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly.
- $47,000 for a trans opera in Colombia.
- $280,000 to promote diversity for birdwatchers.
You might think that making such stories public might derail Democrat opposition to Elon Musk and DOGE.
Think again.
Rather than joining the fight against waste and corruption, the cockroaches in Washington are not just hiding in the walls; they are in the courts, hoping to bog down and overload Musk and his team with legal red tape, obfuscation, and delay.
Democrat Senators and Congressmen and women see USAID and other agencies and departments, such as the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency, as enormous cash cows for providing munificence to their constituents back home as well as ways to promote their leftist agendas globally.
The cockroaches are not only scrambling, they are also fighting back.
Will our Exterminator-in-Chief weather the revolt?
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