This week President Donald J. Trump hit three home runs.
First, he signed an executive order abolishing the left’s efforts to let men play in women’s sports.
The signing ceremony was the Trump team’s best yet. He was surrounded by women and girls who support women’s athletics. It was a total success. Most Americans perfectly understood and agreed with what he was doing. Even the Washington Post has reported that more than two-thirds of Americans favor keeping men out of women and girls’ sports.
President Trump then held a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There, he outlined a stunning, bold, innovative approach to solving problems in Gaza. President Trump suggested that America take over Gaza and essentially redevelop the area. It surprised everyone. The Israeli Prime Minister said it was worth exploring and could represent a dramatically better future for the people of the region.
Finally, President Trump took decisive action to take control of the U.S. Agency for International Development. It turns out the agency has been a leftwing piggy bank for imposing radical values on the world.
As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed out, among other things, USAID has funded “$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces, $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, [and] $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.”
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said, according to the New York Post, that “USAID is one of the worst offenders of waste in Washington.” Ernst pointed to millions spent by USAID on pottery classes in Morocco, research at the infamous Wuhan lab (the likely the origin of the COVID-19 virus), and an effort to create a “Sesame Street” in Iraq.
According to the newspaper, an inspector general report indicated one USAID contractor called Chemonics leeched roughly $270 million out of the program’s 2019 budget and funneled some of that to terrorists. Dozens of people associated with the program were eventually arrested and indicted for selling USAID-funded products to the black market.
Sen. Ted Cruz also linked USAID funding to several George Soros-linked groups. He said the agency sent a great deal of money to Gaza—with the knowledge it would eventually be co-opted by Hamas and other terrorist groups.
In fact, there are a host of documented examples in which millions in USAID food assistance meant for refugees in Syria and Ethiopia were sold on the black market to al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups and war parties in Africa. Despite multiple warnings by various inspectors general at the agency that the aid could not be monitored in violent areas, the food and supplies kept flowing to terrorists.
Of course, the left was outraged by President Trump’s effort to dismantle its unaccountable slush fund. Democrats made enormous logical leaps to rally in favor of foreign aid—no matter how stupid, corrupt, or self-defeating.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker said, “It’s time to fight. And let’s be clear—let us be clear, about how we can fight. The Republicans won the White House, they won the House of Representatives, they won the United States Senate. They have majorities across congress, but we are not powerless. We have agency, and we all must join together and fight in these ways.”
The Democrats’ problem is that the facts—and the American people—overwhelmingly favor a complete overhaul of the USAID bureaucracy. Its spending has been completely outrageous. Even for its legitimate spending, the American people favor cutting foreign aid by 56 percent to 40 percent according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll this month.
The Democrats are going to have a hard time defending these abuses of the American taxpayer.
President Trump had an incredibly strong week.
