International
Trump shuts down USAID HQ as Elon Musk calls it a “criminal organization”
Quick Hit:
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shut down its Washington headquarters on Monday, locking staffers out of its internal systems. Elon Musk indicated that President Trump supports eliminating USAID, calling it a “criminal organization.”
Key Details:
- USAID staffers were locked out of the agency’s headquarters and computer systems overnight, with an internal email confirming the closure.
- Elon Musk, leading the government efficiency push, said Trump agrees USAID should be dismantled, calling it beyond repair.
- Former USAID officials warn the move will have global consequences, including disrupting disease outbreak responses and cutting key humanitarian efforts.
Diving Deeper:
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) effectively shut down its Washington headquarters on Monday, locking employees out of the agency’s systems overnight. An internal email confirmed the closure, citing a directive from leadership, sources told Fox News Digital.
Elon Musk suggested the shutdown is part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency, an idea he claims President Donald Trump supports. During an X Spaces discussion, Musk doubled down on his criticism of USAID, calling it “a bowl of worms” that is “beyond repair.”
“There is no apple,” Musk said. “It’s beyond saving.”
Musk has been vocal in his attacks on USAID, going as far as calling it a “criminal organization” on X. He claimed the agency was run by radical-left operatives who were undermining American interests. The agency’s website was also taken offline Saturday.
The move has sparked outrage among former USAID officials and global health experts. Atul Gawande, who led the agency’s global health division under President Biden, warned that the shutdown is catastrophic for international disease control efforts.
“This is a gift to our enemies and competitors,” Gawande told Fox News Digital. “We were actively managing 21 serious outbreaks worldwide just two weeks ago. Now, three of those have escalated into crises—Ebola in Uganda, a bird flu outbreak spanning 49 countries, and another major threat.”
Gawande added that the agency’s abrupt closure is a blow to morale, claiming employees have been treated with “enormous disrespect and fear.” Reports indicate that the USAID Memorial Wall, which honored staff killed while serving overseas, has been removed. Additionally, entire departments, including malaria prevention and child immunization teams, have been gutted.
“The top three layers of experienced employees are gone,” Gawande continued. “All contract workers are being terminated. Two-thirds of our malaria staff and child immunization experts are gone. This is not reform. This is destruction.”
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The Trump administration will soon push the United Nations (UN) to rewrite the international asylum rules, calling the current framework a “haphazard and chaotic system” routinely abused by bad actors, the Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed.
U.S. officials are planning an event later this month during the UN’s annual General Assembly to spotlight reforms aimed at curbing asylum abuses that have “disrupted entire regions, enriched criminal cartels and violated the sovereignty of nations,” a State Department spokesperson told the DCNF. Proposed changes include requiring migrants to seek protection in the first country they enter rather than “asylum shopping” for a destination of choice.
“The United States plans to begin a conversation on reforming an outdated, decades-old system that has long been abused by bad actors and economic migrants to fuel the global migration crisis,” the spokesperson told the DCNF.
Dear Readers:
As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers.
Please consider making a small donation of any amount here.
Thank you!
Most countries, including the U.S., are signatories to UN treaties that set a framework for those fleeing persecution to seek asylum at another country’s borders. The Trump administration, however, plans to push for “commonsense and necessary reforms” emphasizing that every nation has a right to control its borders, there is no right to receive asylum in a country of choice, asylum is meant to be temporary, sovereign states determine when return is possible, and that every country is obligated to accept return of its citizens, the spokesperson said.
European countries that have taken in millions of refugees, many from Muslim-majority nations, have been grappling with social turmoil and violence linked to migrants. Germany alone — with a population of 83 million — had 3 million refugees as of mid-2024, according to the UN.
The push aligns with President Donald Trump’s broader push to tighten asylum standards and “realign” U.S. policy.
“Cities and small towns alike, from Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Ohio, to Whitewater, Wisconsin, have seen significant influxes of migrants,” Trump wrote in his Jan. 20 executive order temporarily suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which is currently being challenged in court.
“The United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans, that protects their safety and security, and that ensures the appropriate assimilation of refugees,” the order continued.
The administration is also expected to set its refugee admission ceiling for fiscal year 2026 this month. More than 100,000 refugees were admitted into the country under former President Joe Biden in fiscal year 2024 — the highest figure since 1994 — according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Meanwhile, Trump has highlighted the violence and discrimination faced by Afrikaners, the minority group of predominantly Dutch descent in South Africa, whose harrowing testimonies the Daily Caller has documented. In May, the president signed an executive order promoting the resettlement of Afrikaners, and several groups have already arrived in the U.S.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned International Energy Agency (IEA) head Fatih Birol in July that he was considering cancelling America’s membership in and funding of its activities due to its increasingly political nature.
Specifically, Wright pointed to the agency’s modeling methods used to compile its various reports and projections, which the Secretary and many others believe have trended more into the realm of advocacy than fact-based analysis in recent years.
That trend has long been clear and is a direct result of an intentional shift in the IEA’s mission that evolved in the months during and following the COVID pandemic. In 2022, the agency’s board of governors reinforced this changed mission away from the analysis of real energy-related data and policies to one of producing reports to support and “guide countries as they build net-zero emission energy systems to comply with internationally agreed climate goals” consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement of 2016.
Dear Readers:
As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers.
Please consider making a small donation of any amount here.
Thank you!
One step Birol and his team took to incorporate its new role as cheerleader for an energy transition that isn’t actually happening was to eliminate the “current policies” modeling scenario which had long formed the base case for its periodic projections. That sterile analysis of the facts on the ground was replaced it with a more aspirational set of assumptions based on the announced policy intentions of governments around the world. Using this new method based more on hope and dreams than facts on the ground unsurprisingly led the IEA to begin famously predicting a peak in global oil demand by 2029, something no one else sees coming.
Those projections have helped promote the belief among policymakers and investors that a high percentage of current oil company reserves would wind up becoming stranded assets, thus artificially – and many would contend falsely – deflating the value of their company stocks. This unfounded belief has also helped discourage banks from allocating capital to funding exploration for additional oil reserves that the world will almost certainly require in the decades to come.
Secretary Wright, in his role as leading energy policymaker for an administration more focused on dealing with the realities of America’s energy security needs than the fever dreams of the far-left climate alarm lobby, determined that investing millions of taxpayer dollars in IEA’s advocacy efforts each year was a poor use of his department’s budget. So, in an interview with Bloomberg in July, Wright said, “We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates, or we will withdraw,” adding that his “strong preference is to reform it.”
Lo and behold, less than two months later, Javier Blas says in a September 10 Bloomberg op/ed headlined “The Myth of Peak Fossil Fuel Demand is Crumbling,” that the IEA will reincorporate its “current policies” scenario in its upcoming annual report. Blas notes that, “the annual report being prepared by the International Energy Agency… shows the alternative — decades more of robust fossil-fuel use, with oil and gas demand growing over the next 25 years — isn’t just possible but probable.”
On his X account, Blas posted a chart showing that, instead of projecting a “peak” of crude oil demand prior to 2030, IEA’s “current policies” scenario will be more in line with recent projections by both OPEC and ExxonMobil showing crude demand continuing to rise through the year 2050 and beyond.
Whether that is a concession to Secretary Wright’s concerns or to simple reality on the ground is not clear. Regardless, it is without question a clear about-face which hopefully signals a return by the IEA to its original mission to serve as a reliable analyst and producer of fact-based information about the global energy situation.
The global community has no shortage of well-funded advocates for the aspirational goals of the climate alarmist community. If this pending return to reality by the IEA in its upcoming annual report signals an end to its efforts to be included among that crowded field, that will be a win for everyone, regardless of the motivations behind it.
Freedom of speech under threat on university campuses in Canada
Is Alberta getting ripped off by Ottawa? The numbers say yes
Carney engaging in Orwellian doublethink with federal budget rhetoric
Ottawa’s destructive federal energy policies and Premier Danielle Smith’s three part solution
-
Business1 day agoMark Carney’s Climate Competitiveness Pitch Falls Flat
-
Banks2 days agoDebanking Is Real, And It’s Coming For You
-
Business23 hours agoCanada Post is broken beyond repair
-
Canadian Energy Centre2 days agoEmissions cap will end Canada’s energy superpower dream
-
Alberta1 day agoMaritime provinces can enact policies to reduce reliance on Alberta… ehem.. Ottawa
-
Business22 hours agoHealth-care costs for typical Canadian family will reach over $19,000 this year
-
Alberta23 hours agoYes Alberta has a spending problem. But it has solutions too
-
Business1 day agoCanada can’t allow so many people to say ‘no’ to energy projects