ABC News’ Linsey Davis spoke with Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former lead official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, about President Donald Trump’s recent efforts to dismantle USAID, which provides critical foreign assistance worldwide.
The conversation came after representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency last weekend infiltrated USAID offices in Washington, D.C. — and after its workers received an overnight email on Sunday that the headquarters would be closed the next morning, according to a copy obtained by ABC News.
It also followed comments from Elon Musk, who is leading DOGE, that he was in the process of “shutting down” USAID, and the Trump administration appointing Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the acting head of USAID on Monday.
In their discussion, Konyndyk highlighted the severity of the situation at USAID and its potential global consequences.
Find excerpts from the interview, which aired on “ABC News Live Prime With Linsey Davis” on Monday night, below:
ABC NEWS: Joining us now for more is the president of Refugees International and former lead official at USAID for COVID-19, Jeremy Konyndyk. Thank you so much for your time, sir. You also were the director of USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance under President [Barack] Obama. A former USAID employee told ABC News people are going to die because of how they’re doing this. Your response to what many are calling the “hostile takeover” of USAID?
KONYNDYK: I think that’s an accurate way to characterize it. USAID every day save lives around the world on behalf of the American people, whether that is in disaster zones, deploying teams after earthquakes to pull people from the rubble. Fighting famine right now in Sudan, providing urgent medical care. And it’s the ceasefire in Gaza and also longer-term work through the Global Health Bureau. Things like keeping 20 million people who have HIV on antiretroviral drugs to keep their infection suppressed so they can live their lives. These are the critical things that USAID does all around the world, every day. All of those are now badly disrupted. All of those are now at risk.
ABC NEWS: If you could get a message directly to Elon Musk tonight. What would you tell him?
KONYNDYK: I would tell him: Look past the stereotypes and the caricatures that you have seemingly created about what USAID is and actually talk to the people working there. I served in that agency twice. Some of the images that you’re seeing on the screen of disaster relief, those are the sorts of things that I actually led and oversaw. All of that is offline right now. The people [there], because they are professionals, they care deeply about the mission. Fairfax County Search and Rescue — these are the people who go out after an earthquake and save lives. That is why the staff at USAID does what they do. That is why they are there. They are. They just want to do their jobs. They want to be supported. And it is really heartbreaking and frankly enraging to see the kind of misinformation, disinformation, that is now spewing on the Internet about this agency — none of which bears resemblance to the reality that I know and have experienced myself.
ABC NEWS: Now, we might be here for a while if you listed off all the important work USAID has done around the world: 25 million lives saved from HIV, beating Ebola, expanding child literacy. What are you hearing tonight from former colleagues who made helping others, with the backing of our government, their life’s work?
KONYNDYK: Well, they feel they feel abused. They feel betrayed. There are staff who are deployed on disaster and humanitarian responses around the world on behalf of the U.S. government, who tonight — in the last night with no preamble, no warning and no communication — were kicked off their email, kicked off their U.S. government computer systems. They don’t know if they are still government employees. They are now in disaster zones and crisis zones, unsure whether they are still even under embassy protection. It’s incredibly, incredibly dangerous and it is incredibly disrespectful to people who have gone into dangerous places to serve their country.
ABC NEWS: Talk about the soft power America has been able to wield through USAID.
KONYNDYK: You mentioned earlier 25 million lives saved that would have been lost to HIV. That’s an incredible benefit to the world. It’s an incredible legacy of the George Bush administration, which which first launched that program called the PEPFAR program: the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief. But it’s also things like democracy programs helping helping Ukraine during the war to keep their economy going, to be able to keep their agricultural sector going, providing disaster relief to communities that have been bombed by by the Russian invasion. It is supporting people who are being you who have been trafficked, people who have been forced into human trafficking. It is human rights work, supporting human rights defenders, supporting democracy activists. You know, it really runs the gamut of everything from health and disaster relief to long-term economic development. It’s also a really critical way that the U.S. just shows up in the world, vis-à-vis some of our geopolitical rivals. So one of the things that I’m very worried about is the ways in which rivals of the United States will take advantage of the vacuum left if USAID is pulled from the field. Just last night, Dmitri Medvedev, the former president of Russia, still very close to [current Russian President Vladimir] Putin, was cheering on Elon Musk on [X.com] for taking down USAID. American politicians and particularly some of the Republican members of Congress who have been quite silent should ask themselves: Why does Dmitry Medvedev think it’s a good thing for Russia if USAID is gone?
ABC NEWS: What’s the answer?
KONYNDYK: Well, because he knows that what USAID does is advance American values around the world and show a good face — a positive face of American generosity, support and solidarity to countries around the world. That’s very hard for Russia to compete with. That’s very hard for China to compete with. And it removes one of the main strategic advantages that the U.S. has in our foreign policy, if we pull back the positive solidarity and support that USAID provides in so many countries.
ABC NEWS: Why do you think the Trump administration is specifically targeting USAID, its $50 billion budget? After all, is is really a small fraction of the overall government expenditures.
KONYNDYK: Well, it is certainly not about saving money. The USAID budget is less than 1% of the federal budget. That is a rounding error relative to the size of our deficit. It’s far less than the tax cuts that Trump passed in his first term. I suspect what it is, is it is a soft target. They assume not too many people are going to stand up for foreign aid. It’s an easy thing to caricature and demonize. And, you know, the playbook that they are running here at USAID, which is a playbook by which an unelected private citizen with cover from the president can go in and just destroy an independent federal agency without any sort of congressional oversight, without any sort of restraints from the law. That is a really, really dangerous playbook. And I think they’re assuming that if they can get away with it at USAID, they can export that model elsewhere.
ABC NEWS: I understand Refugees International does not receive money directly from USAID, but if this funding pause continues, is it even possible for organizations like yours to to pick up the slack?
KONYNDYK: Well, I think this is if this goes forward, it really is an extinction-level event for the global aid sector in the United States — and really for much of the global relief and development sector around the world. The U.S. is the largest single development donor, the largest single humanitarian donor. And if that goes away, there’s no way that others can fill that gap. But it will also destabilize the budgets of many of the largest aid organizations and [United Nations] organizations around the world. So, you know, it threatens really the collapse not just of what USAID does, but of this huge ecosystem of relief and development organizations that are doing good around the world every day.
ABC NEWS: Jeremy Konyndyk, we thank you so much for your time.
KONYNDYK: Thank you.
Maria Olloqui and Luca Balbo contributed to this report.
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