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Source: Congress.gov
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committee on foreign affairs will come to order I ask that everybody in the room regardless of your position please rise join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands and justice for all. The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the misuse of public trust through USAID's woke programming and explore ideas for reorganization to promote a stronger better and more prosperous United States. I now recognize myself for an opening statement on this hearing. I can tell you that we are here today very simply because many of the people and many of the programs in USAID have literally betrayed America. My colleagues to my left will say that I'm lying about these programs, and I know they damn well wish that I was lying. The programs that USAID and the State Department has spent money on are indefensible. They hurt America standing around the globe. And I think the fact is clear that America would have been better off if your money had been simply thrown into a fireplace. Instead, the Biden administration spent it imposing their far left wing ideology onto other nations. Under them, USAID spent $2 million for sex change surgeries in Guatemala, $22 million to increase tourism in Tunisia and Egypt.
That's not life saving. $520 million to pay consultants to teach people in Africa about climate change. That's not medicine. $4.5 million to teach people in Kazakhstan how to fight back against internet trolls. That's not life-saving. $20,000 to help LGBT individuals vote in Honduran elections. That's not medicine. $5.5 million to improve the lives of LGBT individuals in Uganda. $14 million to identify LGBT leaders in Cambodia. $425,000. to train Indonesian coffee companies on how to be more gender friendly. $15 million for condoms to the Taliban. And I have pages and pages more. That's not diplomacy. It's a slap in the face to every American who got up this morning and went to work. To this moment, you haven't seen or heard any of my colleagues apologizing for this being wrong or wasteful. Instead, for the left, their biggest concern is that the person assembling a team to make sure that these programs are not funded is a billionaire named Elon Musk. So out of touch that they actually believe these programs are bringing other countries closer to us, or that our adversaries are going to gain some kind of foothold if we don't continue doing these programs. That's not what competing looks like for the United States of America. On the contrary, last month when I participated in a Q&A with my colleague here to the left in the United States Institute of Peace, which we'll have to explain their funding, the Ugandan ambassador stood up and said these programs were not doing anything to improve relations between our nations. Take a look at the video. Maybe we'll get some audio on it.
Maybe we won't get audio on it. Or a 19-year-old, Mr. Burchett. Thank you. Maybe we won't do this video. But I have the video that shows exactly what the Ugandan ambassador was saying. And they were thanking us for not continuing these programs. That's what took place. And that's just one of the countless ambassadors that these programs will not continue. That they're going to come to an end. Yet my colleagues to the left are arguing for these programs to continue, arguing for the people who put these programs in place to go back to work, arguing that the agency that did this be allowed to continue wasting your money. They're going to argue that President Trump doesn't have the authority to do this, but the fact is, of those who were in Congress, All but three of them voted to give him the authority in 2024, and it says very specifically in SFOP's approach that the administration may potentially expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize covered departments or agencies or organizations. That's the language of the authority. It's not just the content of USAID that is the betrayal.
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