Political Quotes

“And they dressed that up for, like, 2 days, suggesting that they were reviewing USAID for efficiencies. For 1 day, they said they were folding it into the State Department because it would be more efficiently run inside the State Department. That was never the plan. I mean, I would just sort of have to call out the fabrication. The plan clearly from the start was to eliminate USAID, and they willfully pretended for a handful of days that the agenda was efficiency when the agenda was, in fact, the wholesale elimination of the Agency. The stated on-the-record reason for the elimination of the Agency is bananas--bananas. They are calling USAID a ``criminal organization.'' I mean, it is extraordinary. I was on a radio program the other day, and the interviewer wanted to talk to me about the constitutional crisis and whether legally the President can dismantle USAID. The answer is no, he cannot. But the interviewer was like: You know, they say it is a criminal organization, and let's just set that aside for a minute. I was like: No, no, wait a second. Don't let them get away with the idea that USAID has to be shuttered because it is a criminal organization. Apparently, the conclusion that they have come to--the allegation that they are making is that because many of the USAID employees in their free time may support Democratic candidates for office, that it is a criminal enterprise, because you are apparently not allowed to have any political views.…”