After employees were asked to leave the State Department’s Washington headquarters, it was reported that the Trump administration plans to combine the US government’s primary foreign aid agency with the department.
As the acting head of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which disburses billions of dollars in aid globally, Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed reporters of his new role.
Democratic lawmakers have referred to it as a “illegal, unconstitutional” action that would impair national security, impoverish people overseas, and diminish US power internationally.
The agency has been under heavy fire from President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of his main advisors.
Trump claimed the agency, which is run by “radical left lunatics,” was getting away with “tremendous fraud” in an interview with reporters at the White House on Monday. He did not name or specify the wrongdoing.
President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961. It employs about 10,000 people and has a budget of about $40 billion (£32.25 billion), which is a portion of the $68 billion that the US government spends on overseas aid.
Secretary Rubio referred to USAID as “a completely unresponsive agency” and stated that many of the organization’s operations “are going to continue”.
He informed reporters in El Salvador that “they’re going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy.”
How the government intends to carry out such a move is unclear.
Rubio and Trump were retaliated against by a former USAID administrator who claimed that the agency represented “the best and brightest that the American government has to offer.” Gillian Caldwell told the BBC that Trump’s administration had “literally decapitated the agency” and that there was “absolute chaos and fear” at USAID.
Despite being merged into the state department, USAID will continue to provide humanitarian relief, three officials told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
The events come after Musk, the leader of an unofficial cost-cutting organization, stated that the government intended to shutter USAID.
The agency’s website fell down over the weekend, and two senior security personnel were put on leave. Since then, employees have been instructed to remain at home. According to an internal message that the BBC was able to receive, hundreds of colleagues have also been shut out of their email
After President Trump stopped all US foreign aid upon his return to the White House late last month, the world’s aid was upended in a matter of days.
In nations like Afghanistan, where American aid has been providing life-saving services for women and children, the unrest was felt. According to a midwife who spoke to the BBC, all USAID-funded medical facilities had closed, and numerous staff members had been instructed to remain at home.
Hundreds of employees running the Al-Hol displacement camp in northeastern Syria also received a “stop work” notification. Humanitarian personnel are tasked with stabilizing the camp, which is home to 40,000 people, primarily women and children, who were fled from areas that were once under the authority of the Islamic State group.
After President Trump stopped all US foreign aid upon his return to the White House late last month, the world’s aid was upended in a matter of days.
In nations like Afghanistan, where American aid has been providing life-saving services for women and children, the unrest was felt. According to a midwife who spoke to the BBC, all USAID-funded medical facilities had closed, and numerous staff members had been instructed to remain at home.
Hundreds of employees running the Al-Hol displacement camp in northeastern Syria also received a “stop work” notification. Humanitarian personnel are tasked with stabilizing the camp, which is home to 40,000 people, primarily women and children, who were fled from areas that were once under the authority of the Islamic State group.
Musk is in charge of a project known as the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which is not a formal government agency but has been given extensive authority by Trump to reduce government expenditures.
Its legal standing and the power to order the termination of federal programs without first contacting Congress—as in the case of USAID, for instance—are also unclear. Doge has previously been challenged in court on multiple occasions.
Musk sent dozens of messages over the weekend, claiming that the agency was plagued with corruption and fraud.
He termed USAID “evil,” a “criminal organization,” and a “radical-left political psy op” on his social network, X. The word “psychological operation,” which is frequently used online to accuse someone of a conspiracy or cover-up, is short for “psychological operation.”
He told viewers during an early Monday live feed on X: “You really need to get rid of the entire thing. It can’t be fixed…. We’re going to shut it down.
According to US media on Monday, which cited anonymous White House officials, Musk was appointed as a part-time “special government employee” with no pay, a position that may potentially subject him to a number of regulations regarding conflicts of interest and financial disclosures.
Musk had “access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him, and it’s only if we agree with him,” Trump said at the White House in defense of Musk’s handling of the problem.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” he stated.
Nongovernmental organizations, assistance groups, and non-profits worldwide get billions of dollars in aid from USAID.
Several important information sources, such as decades’ worth of relief records and a worldwide hunger tracker, were unavailable due to the website’s outage.
The Washington Post and CNN reported this weekend that top officials have been put on leave or resigned in recent days after clashes with Musk’s Doge, including over requests to grant access to a highly secure area used for reviewing classified information to staff members of the unofficial department.
“No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” Doge spokesman Katie Miller posted on X.
According to CBS, this led to the administrative leave of USAID’s deputy director for security, Brian McGill, and director for security, John Vorhees.
According to the Washington Post, USAID chief of staff Matt Hopson, a high-ranking political appointee, also resigned.
The number of injured victims was unclear in the initial hours following the attack.
When the police first provided an official briefing at 15:30 local time, they stated that just five persons had been hurt, despite media claims of fatalities.
Before authorities verified in an update at 18:00 local time that “around ten” people had died, Swedish media continued to claim that many individuals had perished.
This was changed to 11 dead, including the shooter, later that evening.
According to Mr. Forest, the local police chief, the expanse of the school grounds was the reason it took so long to announce the dead toll.
How rare are school shootings in Sweden?
quite uncommon. Sweden has experienced school shootings in the past, but none have been as severe.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called it “the worst mass shooting in Sweden’s history” and asked people not to make assumptions about the cause.
A 15-year-old is suspected of injuring a classmate in a school shooting that occurred south of Stockholm last September; nonetheless, the attack was connected to Sweden’s broader issue of gang violence.
Further coverage by Francesca Gillett
Sweden searches for answers after country’s deadliest shooting
Normally, 16-year-old Ismail Moradi would bring his textbooks to school.
On Wednesday, however, he was holding a bundle of red roses to honor the victims of the worst mass massacre in Swedish history.
“I was shocked and didn’t know if I wanted to come to school today after what happened so nearby” he tells us.
The adult learning center that was the target of yesterday is located close to Ismail’s own elementary school.
Ismail, who is Kurdish, says he worries there was a blatant racist component to the shooting, even though authorities have not yet provided a cause for the incident.
“The only students at this school are new to Sweden. The Swedish population is rather small. Therefore, I believe it was directed at a particular demographic.
Locals have been lighting candles and looking over at the still-sealed-off school site in a constant procession all day.
The feeling of shock that has seized many Swedes over the last 24 hours is reflected in the blank faces in the freezing wind.
Witnesses of the school massacre in Sweden were horrified to say, “There was blood everywhere.”
What is known about the school shooter in Sweden?