The Worst Person Possible Just Took Over USAID

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday he’s now in charge of the US Agency for International Development, just hours after billionaire Elon Musk announced Donald Trump had signed off on shutting the agency down.

“I’m the acting director of USAID,” Rubio told reporters on a visit to El Salvador, criticizing the agency’s “insubordination” in complying with national interests.

“It’s a completely unresponsive agency. It’s supposed to respond to policy directives with the State Department, and it refuses to do so,” Rubio said. “Every dollar we spend and every program we fund, that program will be aligned with the national interest of the United States. USAID has a history of sort of ignoring that.”

The decades-old independent agency employs more than 10,000 people and works on the ground in more than 60 countries. It has been a target for both Musk and Trump in recent days, both of whom claim that its work is a waste of government funding.

The USAID overhaul is part of a larger assault on foreign aid funding, which Trump halted for 90 days in an executive order he signed January 20. Rubio later froze all funding, projects, and contracts at USAID, and at least 56 officials were placed on leave. On Saturday, the USAID website went offline without explanation, and two days later, USAID employees were told to stay home.

“These are taxpayer dollars and we owe the American people the assurance that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest,” Rubio said Monday.

Rubio told reporters that some USAID programs will continue, but under the umbrella of the State Department, an alarming move Democrats warned could be detrimental to national security.

“Congress established the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as an independent agency, separate from the Department of State, to ensure that we can deploy development expertise and U.S. foreign assistance quickly, particularly in times of crisis, to meet our national security goals,” Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a letter to Rubio on Monday.

“For this reason, any effort to merge or fold USAID into the Department of State should be, and by law must be, previewed, discussed, and approved by Congress.”

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump and his fans are framing his agreement with Mexican President Claudia Sheibaum to back away from tariffs as some huge strongman victory. They are sorely mistaken. 

At midnight Monday, Trump placed 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico over claims the countries aren’t doing enough to stop “drug smuggling” and undocumented immigrants from crossing the border. Canada and Mexico were prepared to retaliate with its own retaliatory tariffs, but before that could happen, Trump and Sheinbaum announced they had come to an agreement: His tariffs on Mexico are delayed for a month, and she sends 10,000 Mexican soldiers to the border.

“I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States,” Trump announced on Truth Social. “These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country. “

“We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a “deal” between our two Countries.” 

The MAGAsphere immediately rejoiced. “2 weeks in:Mexico caved, Panama caved, Colombia caved,Venezuela caved…” right-wing X account End Wokeness wrote.

“At this rate of achievement, not only should President Donald Trump be on Mount Rushmore, I want to personally work the chisel!” fawned Elon Musk, quoting the End Wokeness post. 

There are multiple issues with this facade that the Trump administration is putting on. 

Firstly, the number of Mexican soldiers Sheinbaum is sending to the border is routine. Mexico sent 15,000 troops to the border in 2019, and sent 10,000 again in 2021. 

“By the way, Mexico has sent its national guard to the border before, and it did jack shit to reduce fentanyl flows because the vast majority of fentanyl comes in via US CITIZENS GOING THROUGH LEGAL PORTS OF ENTRY,” wrote housing advocate Armand Domalewski.  

The economic timing of this “deal” also feels way too convenient. After Trump announced massive tariffs against some of our biggest trading partners, the U.S. stock market plummeted. Now, Trump is walking back those tariffs while Mexico just sends their usual soldiers to the border. 

“The Dow opened almost 1000 points down and Trump already caved on Mexico tariffs,” one popular X user wrote.

“Ooof! Mexico, Canada and Wall Street call Trump’s Tariff bluff. NOW he wants to talk to Canada, delay tariffs on Mexico for a month and Wall Street is telling him real time his tariffs are ‘dumb,’” former RNC Chair Michael Steele wrote. “Ahh, the price of eggs, cars, avocados…”

The last part of the facade is the one Trump conveniently left out of his victory post: the guns. Sheinbaum wrote after speaking with Trump that “the United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico” as part of the tariff deal. It seems that Trump left this fairly important detail out of his own verbose post to keep up the strongman appearances. 

So Mexico is sending extra troops to the border, as it regularly has in the past, and Trump agreed to shoulder a heavier burden in stopping the flow of American semi-automatic weapons into Mexico. How exactly did Mexico fold to Trump here?

Donald Trump’s tariff war is too much for his otherwise steadfast ally Senator Ron Johnson, who compared the decision to impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada to Great Depression-era trade policy and warned of the consequences.

“I don’t believe that is productive. It is going to hurt American companies, American exporters, it will hurt American consumers long term,” Johnson told the far-right news outlet NewsMax on Monday.

A hardcore fiscal conservative, Johnson blames government spending for pretty much everything. He’s lauded Trump’s massive federal budget cuts and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. But when it comes to limiting free trade, Johnson said he “can’t predict where this all goes.”

“I’m concerned,” the Wisconsin Republican told NewsMax.

On Saturday, Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on the United States’ top trading partners, which will make everything from avocados to children’s toys more expensive. The decision naturally sparked outrage and disbelief from both countries, leading to an agreement with Mexico to delay the tariffs for at least a month. Canada, meanwhile, has already taken retaliatory measures.

“Tariffs are a tax. When you tax something, you get less of it, so we’ll probably get fewer imports, but then with retaliation, fewer exports,” Johnson warned.

Johnson compared the tariffs to the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which raised import duties on imported goods to protect American farmers. The heavily protested policy wreaked havoc on global trade and worsened economic conditions for Americans in an already precarious time.

Several other Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, have also slammed Trump’s tariffs, but most remain determinedly loyal in light of a decision that will harm American consumers and likely unleash global economic chaos.

The stock market took a downturn Monday morning after Donald Trump’s planned tariffs went into effect at midnight Monday.  

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all hit two-week lows of 43,921, 19,196, and 5,932, respectively. High performing companies like Apple and Nvidia slumped, along with American car companies like General Motors and Ford. Investors fled to safer investments like bonds and gold, with the precious metal jumping in value. 

The markets are struggling with Trump raising 25 percent tariffs on Canada and 10 percent on China. Trump had also planned to impose 25 percent tariffs on Mexico—but announced a one-month delay at the last minute on Monday. Still, the news wasn’t enough to save the stock market from plunging.

Canada has retaliated with 25 percent tariffs of its own on $107 billion on U.S. goods, with tariffs on $20.4 billion worth of goods on Tuesday and the rest following within 21 days. Prices on everything from beer to gas have gone up in the U.S. The Canadian province of Ontario is banning American companies from contracts with the province, including a $68 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink company to deliver high-speed internet to remote areas. 

Meanwhile, China pledged to take “necessary countermeasures to defend its legitimate rights and interests” on Saturday, including bringing a case against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization.

This morning’s market plunge comes after stocks took a dive Friday after the Trump administration announced that he would sign an executive order on tariffs the next day, sparking fears among investors. Those fears will not be easily assuaged in the coming days, as the full scale of Trump’s ill-thought economic plans have yet to hit Americans.

Trump is elevating a known racist to one of the highest positions in the State Department. 

Darren Beattie, a conservative journalist who was fired from the Trump administration in 2018 after revelations about his attendance at a conference with white nationalists, will serve as the acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, ABC News reported.  

Beattie has a long list of public viewpoints that range from problematic to despicable. 

“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work,” Beattie wrote on X in October. “Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.” 

“Britain treats its own native white people far worse than China treats its muslim Uighur population,” he wrote in August of that same year. 

“I have more respect for Jeffrey Epstein than Bill Barr,” he tweeted in 2020, referring to the infamous sexual predator and former attorney general, respectively. “At least Epstein wasn’t a pussy.” On January 6, 2021, he spent the day on X warning Senator Tim Scott, “BLM,” Ibram X. Kendi, and Kay Cole James to “learn their places” and “take a knee” to MAGA. 

Beattie’s appointment—along with those of Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, and others—is another indication that white supremacists are flooding Trump’s White House.

Negotiations between Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have delayed U.S. tariffs on America’s neighbor by at least a month.

The news came Monday after Trump reportedly spoke with Sheinbaum about her country’s commitments at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We had a good conversation with President Trump with great respect for our relationship and sovereignty; we reached a series of agreements,” Sheinbaum posted on X Monday morning.

“1. Mexico will immediately reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, particularly fentanyl. 2. The United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico,” she continued.

“3. Our teams will begin working today on two fronts: security and trade. 4. They are pausing tariffs for one month from now.”

The White House has not yet released an official statement on the sudden deal, but Trump did post about it on Truth Social.

He called the discussion a “very friendly conversation” and revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would participate in negotiations with Mexican officials during the one-month pause on the tariffs.

“I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a ‘deal’ between our two Countries,” Trump wrote.

Trump signed an executive order on Saturday imposing a 25 percent tariff on goods and a 10 percent tariff on energy products from Canada and Mexico, as well as a 10 percent tariff raise on goods from China for the country’s purported failure to intervene in the dissemination of chemicals used to develop the lethal drug fentanyl. Practically overnight, the tariffs launched America and its biggest trading partners into a multinational trade war that raised prices on everything from gas to beer.

Canada immediately announced retaliatory tariffs of its own, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing an equal tariff hike on $20 billion in U.S. goods starting Tuesday. China, meanwhile, has vowed to bring a case against the United States before the World Trade Organization, the entity that oversees global commerce.

On Sunday, China’s Foreign Ministry threatened to take “necessary countermeasures to defend its legitimate rights and interests.”

“China calls on the United States to correct its wrongdoings, maintain the hard-won positive dynamics in the counternarcotics cooperation, and promote a steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relationship,” the ministry said.

The FBI is investigating more than 2,400 agents and employees who worked on cases related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

According to an internal FBI document obtained by NBC News, the agency is using its own case file management system to track down agents who worked on January 6–related cases. Targeted employees are being asked to fill out a questionnaire about their role in the investigation.

Employees must provide the information by Tuesday afternoon, ABC News reported. The request for information came from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove just days after the Justice Department swept its own agency of prosecutors who worked on January 6–related cases.

The FBI questionnaire asks agents what role they had in any of the cases, whether they made any arrests, and whether they appeared in court, among other things. It was sent to employees on Friday, the same day six senior FBI officials were ordered to resign if they didn’t want to be fired.

But the agency of more than 38,0000 employees is pushing back against the Justice Department’s incessant witch hunt for Donald Trump’s enemies, urging affected agents to hold their ground.

“Do NOT resign or offer to resign. While we would never advocate for physical non-compliance, you need to be clear your removal is not voluntary,” the FBI Agents Association wrote in an email obtained by CNN.

In a letter to Bove released Sunday, lawyers for implicated FBI agents warned that the firing of agents who worked on cases involving Trump is a “direct assault on the national security of American citizens.”

“If you proceed with terminations and/or public exposure of terminated employees’ identities, we stand ready to vindicate their rights through all available legal means,” the letter reads.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump are trying to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

In a live broadcast on his social media site X Sunday, Musk said the Trump administration was in the process of getting rid of the entire agency, saying, “It’s beyond repair.”

“As we dug into USAID it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. If you have an apple with a worm in it, you can take the worm out. If you have a whole ball of worms, it’s hopeless,” Musk told his online audience. “USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple … that is why it’s gotta go. It’s beyond repair.”

USAID staff were sent an email telling them not to come into the office Monday unless they had  essential on-site duties. Trump seems to agree with Musk’s plan, telling reporters Sunday that the agency had “been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out … and then we’ll make a decision (on its future).”

Staffers at the agency say about 600 employees lost access to USAID computer systems overnight, and the Trump administration placed two security chiefs at the agency on leave over the weekend after they refused to turn over restricted classified information to Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” henchmen. On Saturday, the USAID website was taken down. 

Abby Maxman, president and CEO of prominent charity Oxfam America, said in a statement that “dismantling USAID would be a callous, destructive political power play that would have deadly consequences for millions of people living in dire humanitarian emergencies and extreme poverty.”

If Trump and the tech mogul–fascism enthusiast succeed in destroying the agency, it could have devastating results. USAID is the largest single contributor of humanitarian assistance worldwide, and the president’s foreign aid freeze last week has already wasted thousands of dollars’ worth of perishable food and forced international organizations to make hard decisions regarding their beneficiaries’ lives.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to walk back the aid freeze last week, only to cause more confusion, and this latest news about USAID is going to cause shock waves across the U.S. and the world. With the president’s ill-advised tariffs kicking in over the weekend as well, America’s international image is taking a nosedive.  

Canada is ready to fight fire with fire—and burn Republicans in the process.

As Trump’s aggressive 25 percent tariffs on the country went into effect at midnight, Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced over the weekend that the country will impose 25 percent tariffs on more than $105 billion worth of U.S. goods like alcohol, coffee, clothes, and furniture. On Sunday, he clarified the retaliation will also include “precision strikes” against red states, with tariffs on Kentucky whiskey, Florida oranges, and appliances from South Carolina, according to The Wall Street Journal. This set of tariffs drops Tuesday.

Canada also plans to levy another tariff on cars, trucks, and agriculture in three weeks. Ontario and British Columbia, some of the largest consumers of U.S. alcohol, are blocking its sale in those provinces after spending $700 million per year on them. And on Monday, Ontario dumped a $100 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Mexico, not to be outdone, planned to announce its own set of Republican-targeted retaliatory tariffs on Monday while also starting a “Made in Mexico” campaign. But at the last minute, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the two countries had come to an agreement delaying the start of Trump’s tariffs by at least one month.

Still, the trade war with Canada is expected to significantly hurt the consumer the most. Inflation will rise, as will unemployment. Even Trump himself knows this.

“THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!)” the president wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE — AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!”

We’ll see just how much pain red states are willing to bear for Trump’s trade war very soon.

This piece has been updated.

Donald Trump’s tariff war with the nation’s biggest trading partners will affect just about every sector of life for the average American.

Fox News compiled a list of items that are already affected by Trump’s executive order, which is slated to take effect on Tuesday.

Those products include groceries such as avocados, maple syrup, ground beef, cherry tomatoes, sugar, bananas, nuts, cooking oil, squash, cucumbers, strawberries, and pineapples. The order also had immediate ramifications for countless other business sectors, raising the price on everything from liquor to gas.

Children’s toys, shoes, beer and alcohol, and crude oil were all hit in Trump’s 25 percent tariff hike on Canada and Mexico, alongside an additional 10 percent tariff on China. Car manufacturers BMW, Audi, Nissan, and Mazda were also affected, as was American-owned Ford. And every industry that relies on lumber and steel, from artisan goods to construction, will also see mark-ups as the materials themselves become more costly.

Economic experts have always cautioned that Trump’s tariff plan would hurt the country. In a joint letter released before the election, nearly two dozen Nobel Prize–winning economists formally warned against Trump’s economic plan, arguing that the MAGA leader’s stiff tariff increases and tax cuts would spell disaster for the average American.

Economist Larry Summers reiterated that concern on Saturday after Trump announced the tariffs. “This is a ‘Stop or I’ll shoot myself in the foot’ threat. It defies economic logic,” Summers told CNN. “It means higher prices for consumers. It means more expensive inputs for American producers.”