The Resis­tance Media Fran­ti­cal­ly Scram­ble to Save USAID

The Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Efficiency’s decap­i­ta­tion strike against USAID over the week­end has caught the media off guard. Nonethe­less, they are mus­ter­ing a des­per­ate response in hopes of sav­ing the agency that embod­ies both the Deep State and the worst excess­es of bloat­ed gov­ern­ment bureau­cra­cy.

Most rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the over­all report­ing is the brief that ran on the CBS Evening News, which pro­vides both a con­ve­nient sum­ma­ry of the story’s nar­ra­tives now and going for­ward:

CBS EVENING NEWS

2/3/25

6:38 PM

JOHN DICKERSON: Doors were locked at the Wash­ing­ton head­quar­ters of USAID today at the mutu­al agree­ment of Pres­i­dent Trump and bil­lion­aire Elon Musk, whom he has empow­ered to remake the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. The USAID, estab­lished by Pres­i­dent Kennedy and Con­gress, fights star­va­tion and dis­ease in more than 100 coun­tries includ­ing Sudan, scene of the worst human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis on Earth. Deb­o­ra Pat­ta will take us there lat­er this week.

The nar­ra­tive ele­ments are all there. Trump and Elon, Elon is a bil­lion­aire, USAID is a nice agency that helps poor and starv­ing peo­ple over­seas. In addi­tion, view­ers learn that Debra Pat­ta is doing a sup­port­ing sto­ry from Sudan, where there is an ongo­ing famine.

ABC and NBC took sim­i­lar approach­es to this emerg­ing nar­ra­tive. Jon Karl han­dled the assign­ment for ABC and pro­vid­ed a sim­i­lar human­i­tar­i­an angle:

JON KARL: Tonight, back­lash after Elon Musk seized con­trol of USAID, the agency that pro­vides U.S. human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance around the world. Lock­ing out employ­ees, essen­tial­ly shut­ting it down. It’s Musk’s first major move to slash gov­ern­ment spend­ing.

ELON MUSK: As we dug into USAID, it became appar­ent that we have here is not an apple with a worm in it but we have, actu­al­ly, just a ball of worms.

KARL: USAID’s $43 bil­lion bud­get is a tiny frac­tion of what the gov­ern­ment spends. About 1%. But its sup­port is a crit­i­cal life­line for peo­ple in need around the world. Help­ing an esti­mat­ed 32 mil­lion chil­dren suf­fer­ing mal­nu­tri­tion and bring­ing food, water, shel­ter, and health­care to vic­tims of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

Karl’s report would dis­close that the sal­vage­able rem­nant of USAID is get­ting fold­ed into the State Depart­ment, under super­vi­sion of Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio. But not before hilar­i­ous­ly air­ing a woke USAID employee’s efforts to mask their wok­e­ness as DOGE approached:

ABC actu­al­ly aired a USAID employ­ee’s descrip­tion of the scram­ble as DOGE rolled up to the office, and their hur­ried removal of woke iconog­ra­phy a la the doc­u­ments burn­ing scene in Down­fall:

“@DOGE was in the build­ing. We start­ed — we took down our pride flags, we took down- I… pic.twitter.com/gSsx3H6Mgc

— Jorge Bonil­la (@BonillaJL) Feb­ru­ary 4, 2025

KARL: But Elon Musk’s influ­ence is sweep­ing through­out the admin­is­tra­tion. It was late last week that the DOGE team showed up at USAID offices in Wash­ing­ton and demand­ed access. USAID employ­ee Kristi­na Drye described the scene.

KRISTINA DRYE: DOGE was in the build­ing. We start­ed — we took down our pride flags, we took down- I took out any books I felt would be incrim­i­nat­ing. No one was talk­ing, We heard they start­ed tak­ing tran­scripts auto­mat­i­cal­ly of all of our Google meets. We — they unplugged the news in the lit­tle kitchen gal­leys. It did­n’t feel good. And then Sat­ur­day, all of the web­sites went down. And then I lost com­plete access to my com­put­er.

NBC News also pushed the human­i­tar­i­an aid angle: 

KELLY O’DONNELL: A top Musk tar­get, the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment. He argues there’s too much waste in its $42 bil­lion bud­get. USAID deliv­ers food, med­i­cine, vac­ci­na­tions and human­i­tar­i­an sup­port to 60 coun­tries, help that is con­sid­ered vital to U.S. nation­al secu­ri­ty. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, Kel­ly O’Donnell fea­tured protest­ing Democ­rats, and a for­mer USAID doc­tor before piv­ot­ing to poten­tial fir­ings at the FBI. It goes with­out say­ing that the reports didn’t air all the OTHER stuff that USAID noto­ri­ous­ly funds, from trans­gen­der opera in Colom­bia to gain-of-func­tion bat coro­n­avirus research at the Wuhan Virol­o­gy Insti­tute, to Soros DA can­di­dates in the Unit­ed States.  

Gut­ting USAID was a deep strike to the beat­ing heart of the Amer­i­can left and all that it funds. The media are aid­ing and abet­ting the left in their scram­ble to save their revered cash cow.

Click “exoand” to view the full tran­scripts of the afore­men­tioned reports as aired on their respec­tive news­casts on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 3rd, 2025:

ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT

2/3/25

6:36 PM

DAVID MUIR: Tonight, there are new ques­tions about Elon Musk’s role. He’s now been clas­si­fied a ’ ”spe­cial gov­ern­ment employ­ee”, so, what does this mean? ABC News had already learned that Musk has been giv­en access to the Trea­sury Depart­men­t’s pay­ment sys­tem, includ­ing the per­son­al infor­ma­tion of mil­lions of Amer­i­can work­ers. And tonight, Musk work­ing to shut down USAID, or vast­ly reimag­ine the agency. Work­ers informed to stay home. Today in the Oval Office, Pres­i­dent Trump was asked, “why has Musk been giv­en access to the Trea­sury, the pay­ment sys­tems, the infor­ma­tion involv­ing mil­lions of Amer­i­cans?” The pres­i­dent answer­ing on Musk: “to let peo­ple go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him.” Here’s Jonathan Karl.

JON KARL: Tonight, back­lash after Elon Musk seized con­trol of USAID, the agency that pro­vides U.S. human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance around the world. Lock­ing out employ­ees, essen­tial­ly shut­ting it down. It’s Musk’s first major move to slash gov­ern­ment spend­ing.

ELON MUSK: As we dug into USAID, it became appar­ent that we have here is not an apple with a worm in it but we have, actu­al­ly, just a ball of worms.

KARL: USAID’s $43 bil­lion bud­get is a tiny frac­tion of what the gov­ern­ment spends. About 1%. But its sup­port is a crit­i­cal life­line for peo­ple in need around the world. Help­ing an esti­mat­ed 32 mil­lion chil­dren suf­fer­ing mal­nu­tri­tion and bring­ing food, water, shel­ter, and health­care to vic­tims of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. But Musk, the world’s rich­est man, says the agency is hope­less, post­ing on X, quote, “we spent the week­end feed­ing USAID into the wood chip­per.” This comes as sources tell ABC News Musk’s team at the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy, known as DOGE, now has access to the Trea­sury Depart­men­t’s pay­ment sys­tem. This is essen­tial­ly the gov­ern­men­t’s check­book. It process­es tril­lions of dol­lars in pay­ments and includes the per­son­al infor­ma­tion of hun­dreds of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans.

REPORTER: Mr. Pres­i­dent, why is it impor­tant for Elon Musk to have access to the pay­ment sys­tems at Trea­sury?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, he’s got access only to let­ting peo­ple go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him. And it’s only if we agree with him. He’s a very tal­ent­ed guy from the stand­point of man­age­ment and costs.

KARL: Democ­rats are out­raged.

PATTY MURRAY: An unelect­ed, unac­count­able bil­lion­aire with expan­sive con­flicts of inter­est, deep ties to Chi­na, and an indis­creet axe to grind against per­ceived ene­mies is hijack­ing our nation’s most sen­si­tive finan­cial data sys­tems and its check­book.

KARL: But Elon Musk’s influ­ence is sweep­ing through­out the admin­is­tra­tion. It was late last week that the DOGE team showed up at USAID offices in Wash­ing­ton and demand­ed access. USAID employ­ee Kristi­na Drye described the scene.

KRISTINA DRYE: DOGE was in the build­ing. We start­ed — we took down our pride flags, we took down- I took out any books I felt would be incrim­i­nat­ing. No one was talk­ing, We heard they start­ed tak­ing tran­scripts auto­mat­i­cal­ly of all of our Google meets. We — they unplugged the news in the lit­tle kitchen gal­leys. It did­n’t feel good. And then Sat­ur­day, all of the web­sites went down. And then I lost com­plete access to my com­put­er.

KARL: And this morn­ing, all the agen­cy’s employ­ees received a notice, telling them not to come to work today. Now, what is left of USAID is going to be fold­ed into the State Depart­ment under the direc­tion of the new Sec­re­tary of State, Mar­co Rubio.

MUIR: All right. Jonathan Karl and our team fol­low­ing all of this from Wash­ing­ton. Jon, Elon Musk now clas­si­fied, as I men­tioned, as a ’ ”spe­cial gov­ern­ment employ­ee”. So, tell us exact­ly what this means tonight.

KARL: A ’ ”spe­cial gov­ern­ment employ­ee”, David, is basi­cal­ly some­body who is on the job tem­porar­i­ly. A max­i­mum of 130 days. They are not bound by the same ethics require­ments that full-time gov­ern­ment employ­ees are, but again, can only be on the job for 130 days. Elon Musk is not being paid for his work at the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy, but David, his com­pa­nies have tak­en in near­ly $19 bil­lion in fed­er­al con­tracts over the last ten years.

MUIR: Jon Karl in Wash­ing­ton tonight, Jon, thank you.

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS

2/3/25

6:35 PM

HALLIE JACKSON: Also play­ing out tonight, a sprawl­ing effort to scale back parts of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, and a push led by Elon Musk. And Pres­i­dent Trump fac­ing new ques­tions about the role of the unelect­ed bil­lion­aire. Here is Senior White House Cor­re­spon­dent Kel­ly O’Don­nell.

KELLY O’DONNELL: Tonight, this part­ner­ship of pow­er under intense new scruti­ny. Pres­i­dent Trump and the world’s rich­est man Elon Musk, upend­ing fed­er­al agen­cies, to over­haul gov­ern­ment and/spending. The pres­i­dent acknowl­edged that Musk can get inside sen­si­tive gov­ern­ment com­put­ers, like the Trea­sury Depart­ment Pay­ment Sys­tem.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, he’s got access only to let­ting peo­ple go that he thinks are no good if we agree with him, and it’s only if we agree with him.

O’DONNELL: The White House says in his role run­ning the Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy, Musk is des­ig­nat­ed as a ’ ”spe­cial gov­ern­ment employ­ee” with top-secret secu­ri­ty clear­ance.

TRUMP: Elon can’t do and won’t do any­thing with­out our approval and we will give him the approval where appro­pri­ate. Where not appro­pri­ate, we won’t.

O’DONNELL: A top Musk tar­get, the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment. He argues there’s too much waste in its $42 bil­lion bud­get. USAID deliv­ers food, med­i­cine, vac­ci­na­tions and human­i­tar­i­an sup­port to 60 coun­tries, help that is con­sid­ered vital to U.S. nation­al secu­ri­ty. Musk spoke on his X plat­form, declar­ing the agency must be shut down.

ELON MUSK: What we have here is not an apple with a worm in it but we have, actu­al­ly, just a ball of worms.

O’DONNELL: Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio says core life-sav­ing pro­grams will not be frozen dur­ing a 90-day review.

MARCO RUBIO: These are not donor dol­lars, these are tax­pay­er dol­lars. (VIDEO SWIPE) So far, a lot of the peo­ple that work at USAID have sim­ply refused to coop­er­ate.

O’DONNELL: USAID is autho­rized and fund­ed by Con­gress. Today, Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers blast­ed the shut­down as ille­gal and dan­ger­ous.

JAMIE RASKIN: Elon Musk did not cre­ate USAID, he does­n’t have the pow­er to destroy it. (VIDEO SWIPE) We are going to stop him.

O’DONNELL: USAID work­ers told to stay home as many relief pro­grams are halt­ed.

Are lives on the line because of this?

ATUL GAWANDE: Lives have already been lost because of this.

O’DONNELL: For­mer USAID offi­cial Dr. Atul Gawande says the relief work­ers he knows are dev­as­tat­ed.

GAWANDE: They’re in fear for what this means for Amer­i­ca, what this means for the peo­ple that they touch and they are in fear for them­selves.

O’DONNELL: Fear is also rat­tling the FBI tonight. Eight top career offi­cials fired Fri­day, and a top offi­cial seek­ing names of agents who worked on Jan­u­ary 6th cas­es. The FBI Agents’ Asso­ci­a­tion in a state­ment described agents as “extreme­ly fear­ful of being removed”, and some “start­ed to pack up their desks.”

JACKSON: Kel­ly is join­ing us now from The White House and Kel­ly, all of this is hap­pen­ing as the Sen­ate is con­sid­er­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s nom­i­nee for FBI Direc­tor, Kash Patel.

O’DONNELL: That’s right. And in his hear­ing and under oath, Kash Patel pledged all FBI employ­ees would be pro­tect­ed against polit­i­cal ret­ri­bu­tion. But tonight Sen­ate Democ­rats are now demand­ing addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about all of this. Hal­lie.

JACKSON: Kel­ly O’Donnell. Thank you.