U2 singer Bono joined former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush on Monday (June 30) to pay tribute to, and bid an emotional farewell, to the staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development. In a video address in which the former commanders in chief broke traditional protocol by delivering a public rebuke of the Trump administration’s evisceration of the global aid effort as part of its slash-and-burn efforts at government reform, Obama called the USAID shuttering a “colossal mistake,” according to the Associated Press.
Though the video was not shared publicly, the AP reported that it has viewed parts of the tape in which Bush, Obama and Bono addressed the thousands of USAID workers in a video conference during a closed-to-the-press event meant to allow “political leaders and others privacy for sometimes angry and often teary remarks.”
Monday marked the last day as an independent agency for the 60-year-old humanitarian and development organization created by President John F. Kennedy in an effort to promote U.S. national security by creating goodwill abroad via “soft power.” On Tuesday (July 1), after cutting 83% of USAID’s programs, Sec. of State Marco Rubio ordered the organization to be folded into the State Department’s portfolio under a successor agency to be called “America First.”
“Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come,” Obama told USAID staffers in his recorded message. It is highly unusual to former presidents to criticize or weigh in on a current president’s decisions, but Obama pulled no punches in telling the USAID staff that their work was important and that Trump was off-target.
“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” Obama said, crediting the organization with saving lives as well as being a crucial factor in global economic growth that has turned some of the nations receiving aid into reliable trade partners in U.S. markets. “Sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realize how much you are needed,” he added.
Rock star and longtime humanitarian advocate Bono, billed as “surprise guest,” showed up in a hat and sunglasses, jokingly praising the USAID workers as “secret agents of international development” in a winking nod to the unofficial nature of Monday’s event. He also passionately recited a poem he’d written honoring the agency that the AP said touched on the gutting of USAID, as well as children dying of malnutrition. The latter was a reference to the millions of people experts have predicted will die because of U.S. cuts to funding of food and health assistance abroad.
In the poem, Bono reportedly paid homage to the lifesaving work USAID did around the world, providing clean water and life-saving food shipments to the millions impacted by war and strife in Sudan, Syria and Gaza, as well as working to prevent disease outbreaks and sponsoring the “Green Revolution” that helped tamp down starvation and famine around the globe.
“They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,” Bono said.
On his first day in office in January, Trump issued an executive order freezing all foreign assistance funding, as well as a review of all foreign USAID programs. He claimed that the agency’s focus on disaster and poverty relief, as well as efforts to combat disease and climate change and encourage democratic reforms were part of a “radical left lunatic” agenda and an example of what his administration has tagged as “waste, fraud and abuse” in government. The dismantling came during former special government employee Elon Musk’s DOGE department push to radically reduce spending through deep cuts to funding, with the Tesla CEO specifically referring to USAID as a “criminal organization.”
Fellow Republican Bush also appeared in the recorded message with a rebuke of Trump’s efforts, noting that the cuts will drastically impact the landmark AIDS/HIV program started in his administration that is credited with saving tens of millions of lives globally. “You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work — and that is your good heart,’’ Bush said in the wake of the drastic reduction in funding for Bush’s popular PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) program that since 2003 has prevented millions of HIV infections, provided lifesaving treatment and improved health systems. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you,” he said.
