Congressional Democrats tell skeptical protestors they’ll stop Trump’s elimination of USAID

Protestors chanting “U-S-AID” gathered near the Capitol on Wednesday in objection to President Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate the foreign assistance agency. 

Congressional Democrats who spoke at the rally expressed optimism that courts would block Trump from unilaterally shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development. They also see a March 14 deadline on federal funding as an opportunity to demand reversals of Trump’s actions against the federal workforce and agencies, as the GOP will likely need Democratic votes to avert a government shutdown. 

“This is part of a much bigger plan — make no mistake — to replace hardworking federal employees who were sworn to uphold the Constitution and replace them with Trump political cronies,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., at Wednesday’s rally. 

Democrats warned that Trump — with the assistance of billionaire Elon Musk, who has involved himself in cutting the costs of government operations — will try to close other federal programs. 

“If they can do it in Mongolia, they can do it in Virginia,” as put by Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev. “If they can close USAID, they can close down Social Security.” 

Still, some protestors seemed disillusioned about Democrats’ ability to effectively protect USAID. Members of Congress were occasionally drowned out by chants of “Do your job” and “What’s the plan?” 

While Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over USAID, was discussing the relatively low costs needed to prevent starvation, a protestor yelled back: “We know this! We do this for a living!” 

A USAID contractor, who as of Friday no longer has an income due to the 90-day pause and review of foreign aid, said the crowd was bigger than she expected, and that she couldn’t find her coworkers who were also protesting because of the turnout. 

“I want people to see that there’s a human face to USAID,” she said, preferring not to be identified for fear of retribution. “I don’t think people realize that there are humans that are losing jobs because of this. It’s not some mystery thing in some far away place.” 

Ollie Davidson, who spent 23 years at USAID, was one of the agency’s former employees who attended the protest. 

He worked in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969, resigning after President Richard Nixon bombed Cambodia. Davidson later rejoined, however, and spent two years in Ghana but had to leave because his wife experienced a medical issue.

“You can’t have good treatment overseas in a lot of AID posts as opposed to embassy posts,” he said. “State Department gets a little bit nicer places with better care.” 

Upon his return to the U.S., he worked at the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, where one of his accomplishments was getting companies like AT&T, IBM and American Airlines to help with disaster recovery. 

“We saved thousands of disaster victims’ lives by sending aid. I worked on 320 federally declared disasters internationally,” Davidson said. “Those people appreciate it. And they don’t come to the U.S. as terrorists, you know, they come as tourists.”