President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are undermining democracy and national security by taking over the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), say Democrats and the media. “This is a five alarm fire,” wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on X. “The people elected Donald Trump to be President - not Elon Musk. Having an unelected billionaire, with his own foreign debts and motives, raiding US classified information is a grave threat to national security.” ABC News described USAID as in a state of “on-going turmoil” and in “chaos.” A senior USAID executive told ABC, “The warp-speed of this mafia-like takeover has shaken USAID staff to the core.”
But there was nothing illegal, unethical, or inappropriate about DOGE’s takeover of USAID, and nobody has presented any evidence that it threatens national security. The American people elected Trump who appointed Musk to oversee DOGE, as Trump has a right to do. “With regards to the USAID stuff,” said Musk last night on X, “I went over it with (the president) in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down.” There is no evidence that Musk was illegally accessing classified information, as Ocasio-Cortez implied. Nor is there anything “mafia-like” about a new administration moving quickly to take control of the agencies it controls. Trump sought to merge USAID with the State Department in 2017.
