Bush and Obama Join Forces to Blast Trump Over USAID Shutdown
In a rare show of bipartisan unity, former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have joined forces to sharply criticize President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—a move they argue undermines America’s global standing and abandons life-saving international initiatives.
Appearing in a recent farewell video alongside U2 frontman and long-time humanitarian activist Bono, both ex-presidents praised departing USAID staff and condemned the administration’s sweeping cuts. Bush, who has typically avoided publicly attacking Trump since 2016, used the moment to highlight the agency’s role in combating AIDS and HIV, particularly in Africa, where U.S.-backed programs are credited with saving 25 million lives over the past two decades.
“You have demonstrated the great strength of America through your efforts—and that is your compassionate spirit,” Bush said, as reported by the Associated Press. “Is it in our national interest that 25 million individuals who would have perished are now alive? I believe it is, and so do you.”
Obama’s message was far less restrained. Calling Trump’s move to dismantle the agency “a disgrace” and “a calamity,” the former president argued that USAID represents “some of the most critical work being conducted anywhere globally.” Labeling the decision “a monumental error,” he predicted that “eventually, leaders from both parties will come to understand how essential you are.”
A Target in Trump’s Government Overhaul
Trump’s decision to gut USAID came in partnership with Elon Musk and the newly formed U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The administration cited widespread waste, fraud, and abuse within the agency as justification for its closure. USAID operations have been wound down over recent months, leaving only a skeletal staff before the agency was formally folded into the State Department earlier this week, according to The New York Post.
Musk, never one to mince words, previously branded USAID “a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who despise America,” making it an early target of Trump’s broader effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy.
A Divided Narrative on USAID’s Legacy
While Bush, Obama, and Bono portrayed the agency’s closure as a devastating loss to global stability, Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a starkly different assessment. In a statement marking the end of USAID, Rubio accused the agency of failing to achieve meaningful development goals since the Cold War, arguing that its projects often led to increased instability and heightened anti-American sentiment abroad.
“Aside from establishing a global NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to demonstrate since the conclusion of the Cold War,” Rubio said. “This period of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially concluded.”
Rubio added that under the Trump administration, U.S. foreign assistance will be fully realigned to serve national interests. As of July 1, the State Department will directly oversee any foreign aid programs deemed consistent with White House policy.
“Foreign assistance programs that are in line with administration priorities—and that promote American interests—will be managed by the State Department, where they will be executed with greater accountability, strategy, and efficiency,” Rubio said.
The End of an Era
The dismantling of USAID represents one of the most dramatic reorganizations of U.S. foreign policy tools in recent memory. For Bush and Obama, it also marks a moment where political rivalry took a backseat to defending what they see as a defining element of America’s role in the world—its capacity for humanitarian leadership.
Whether history views the move as a necessary purge of wasteful spending or a self-inflicted wound to U.S. influence abroad remains to be seen. For now, the end of USAID leaves a sharp dividing line between those who see foreign aid as a moral obligation and those who believe it should be strictly tied to national self-interest.