Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough has slammed Elon Musk, saying his shuttering of USAID could lead to terror groups gaining strength and children starving to death more quickly.
Scarborough, who had tried to be more sympathetic to the new Administration for a few days, was discussing the billionaire’s joint effort with President Donald Trump to scrap USAID, an agency whose foreign aid and developmental assistance are a lifeline for millions of people in over 100 countries.
However, Musk in his DOGE cap sees President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 humanitarian brainchild as yet another costly federal bill that will face the chopping block.
Scarborough, speaking on Thursday’s Morning Joe, highlighted its importance. He honed in on the billions of dollars of aid USAID provides to countries battling acute poverty and said American dollars have a role in feeding hungry mouths in Africa. “There really is something so horrifying about a child starving in Sudan being far more likely to starve to death because the world’s richest man is going around calling people that are administering that aid ‘worms’.”
The host was referencing a quote from the Tesla and SpaceX chief that described the agency as “a ball of worms.”
“Some of us believe that America really is, and it should be, a city shining brightly on the hill for all the world to see. That is one of the reasons why we do it.”
He also highlighted the more selfish reasoning behind spending money on American influence in Africa, drawing a line back to Cold War strategy. “But we’re also doing this because hungry mouths become communist mouths, become communist foot soldiers,” Scarborough continued.
“It is so short-sighted, Elon Musk calling these people worms and this and that and the other. Our aid work in the Ivory Coast. It helps us get intel on al Qaeda. Our aid work in Sudan. It helps us get intel on ISIS.
“We can do two things at once, all over Africa, all over the southern hemisphere where people wish to do America ill. Our aid work not only wins hearts and minds, but it helps us draw in intelligence on those who would blow up buildings in New York City, in Washington D.C., in Charlotte, North Carolina, across America. That is what is so extraordinarily short-sighted about this.”
He rubbished suggestions that efficiency was the name of the game for Musk, claiming that the $40 billion USAID budget only represents 1 percent of the federal budget.
Scarborough also claimed that the vacuum left by the U.S. could be filled by a key competitor, China. “I just don’t think Elon Musk or anybody in this administration has thought about how quickly the power of the United States that took so long to build up can begin to unravel,” he concluded.
