Speeches and Floor Statements

Rep. Don Beyer today led a bicameral delegation today that spoke about the importance of the U.S. Agency For International Development (USAID), featuring remarks from Senators Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz, and Chris Murphy, and Reps. Gerry Connolly, Jamie Raskin, Ilhan Omar, Jim McGovern, Johnny Olszewski, Suhas Subramanyam, Sarah Elfreth, Eugene Vindman, and Yassamin Ansari. After their remarks in support of federal workers at USAID and shining a light on illegal activity by Elon Musk, the members attempted to enter the agency, but were turned away on orders from senior administration.

Rep. Beyer’s remarks as delivered follow below, and video is available here.

Thank you all for being with us today, we very much appreciate you responding so quickly.

We are here today to shine a light on a crime that is unfolding before our eyes, and [to] support our tremendous civil servants at U.S. AID.

President Trump directed his corrupt billionaire friend Elon Musk to ransack a critical agency of the U.S. government.

Musk and his band of unelected acolytes at DOGE have locked out USAID employees from their offices, improperly accessed highly classified information, purged the agency of its nonpartisan leadership, and throw the agency into chaos through a concerted campaign of harassment and intimidation of its employees.

This is on top of Trump’s freeze of crucial foreign assistance programs.

These actions severely harm our national security, they put thousands of children around the world at immediate risk of starvation, disease, and death, and sideline some of our finest civil servants who work tirelessly every day to make the world a better place.

This is a case of the very worst among us attacking the very best of us.

The work USAID does is vital to all Americans.

Agency employees stationed here in the Capital region and in posts around the world work hand in hand with our military to counter terrorism and stabilize dangerous regions.

They monitor and fight the spread of diseases like Ebola and bird flu to prevent them from coming to the United States.

And they work with U.S. companies to provide life-saving medical care and food assistance for children.

Through these activities and others, USAID has been an invaluable pillar of U.S. foreign policy and projecting American power overseas.

Its elimination only helps our adversaries, Russia and China, who want to see our global influence reduced at any cost.

It is no coincidence then that Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man with billions of dollars in investment in China, is doing China’s bidding.

Lastly, what Trump and Musk have done is not only wrong, it’s illegal.

USAID was established by an act of Congress, and it can only be disbanded by an act of Congress.

Stopping this will require action by the Courts and for Republicans to show up and show courage and stand up for the country.

Further, I am urging my fellow Democrats to use every legislative tool we have at our disposal to slow down and stop this crime from succeeding.

We are here to shine a light on this, you see the wonderful people here with us.

Let me give you my good friend Senator Chris Van Hollen.