Trump Somehow Still Spending Billions to Shut Down USAID |
Trump Somehow Still Spending Billions to Shut Down USAID
The Trump administration is trying to divert billions in funding to finish shutting down the agency.
The Trump administration wants to take $2 billion away from global health programs to pay to finish closing USAID.
CNN reports that the administration wants to use the money to pay for legal costs, invoices, and asset sales resulting from its closure of the aid agency last year. Congress originally appropriated $1.2 billion of the funds to go to international development, and the rest to go to programs that take on malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, nutrition, global health security, HIV/AIDS, and other world health issues.
Taking away that $2 billion could lead to 121,000 preventable tuberculosis deaths and 47,600 preventable deaths from malaria, according to estimates from the Health Security Policy Academy. It could also lead to 22.9 million children under 5 losing critical nutrition, and 5.7 million women losing safe places for childbirth, according to a CNN source.
This would add to the rising death toll resulting from the closure of USAID. As of November, an estimated 762,000 people have died because of USAID cuts, including over 500,000 children.
The Trump administration told Congress last month that it has reserved over $19.1 billion of USAID funds to shutter the agency. Democrats are demanding that the White House “put the funds to their intended use to save lives and advance U.S. interests as directed by Congress last year.”
“The Administration should immediately begin using these foreign assistance funds to deliver results for the American people. There is no reason for this FY25 funding to be withheld to cover the wasteful costs this Administration has incurred because it chose to dismantle USAID,” 17 Democratic senators wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, and acting USAID administrator Eric Ueland.
ICE Abducts Disney Cruise Staff Right Off of Ship in Horrific Raid
At least 10 staffers were detained, some of whom were zip-tied as they were led off the boat.
Disney likes to say it makes dreams come true, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making life a nightmare for its workers.
At least 10 crewmembers aboard a Disney Magic cruise were detained by ICE after the ship docked in San Diego late last month, according to immigrant rights groups. The federal agents “stormed onto the vessel” following the five-day trip, wrote The Independent on Wednesday.
While disembarking the ship with her family, passenger Dharmi Mehta said she was stunned to see the ship’s head waiter led away with his hands zip-tied behind his back.
“We got to know him fairly well,” she said at a news conference Tuesday. “He had actually been serving us probably 45 minutes to an hour before he was in restraints.”
Mehta witnessed crewmembers being taken into custody while still wearing Disney uniforms and without their belongings. She said the head waiter had told her he had two daughters, and he was excited to see them once ashore. She called the experience “disheartening and unsettling,” and expressed concern about what would happen to the staff.
The harbor police department told a local NBC outlet it had no part in the raid.
Two days after the raid on the Disney cruise, immigrant rights groups said four crewmembers aboard the MV Zandaam, operated by Holland America, were captured by ICE.
“This is not an isolated incident,” Benjamin Prado of the advocacy group Unión del Barrio said at the Tuesday news conference. “It has become a growing pattern, not only here in San Diego, but throughout this country.”
Prado alleged that the crewmembers were being denied due process and access to their national consulates, crimes the Trump administration has been accused of before.
ICE has alleged the detained individuals are suspected of serious crimes. On Wednesday, spokesperson Sandra Grisolia sent CBS the following:
“HSI San Diego arrested twenty-three crewmembers from multiple cruise ships at the Port of San Diego as part of Operation Tidal Wave. The arrests targeted individuals suspected of involvement with Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), based on information received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The arrestees were transported to Los Angeles for processing, and their visas were revoked.”
Iran Can Survive Blockade Way Longer Than Trump Insists
Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted Iran is on the brink of collapse.
An analysis from the CIA has seriously undermined President Donald Trump’s claims about Iran’s economic resilience.
A confidential CIA analysis delivered to policymakers this week found that Iran can survive three or four months of the U.S. military’s blockade before facing more severe economic hardship, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Iran also retains significant ballistic missile capabilities, three U.S. officials familiar with the report told the Post.
Despite weeks of bombing by U.S. and Israeli forces, Iran still has 70 percent of its prewar stockpile of missiles and 75 percent of its mobile launchers, one official said. Iran has also been able to recover its underground storage facilities, repair damaged missiles, and assemble new ones.
The analysis suggests that Iran can survive the U.S. blockade for another 90 to 120 days, casting serious doubt on Trump’s repeated claims about Iran’s supposedly crashing economy.
“They’re failing,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office........