Posted on 07/05/2025 8:24:46 AM PDT by Signalman
Former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama are once again joining forces to denounce President Donald Trump, this time for slashing international services they claim are critical to U.S. interests.
Bush appears in a new video alongside Obama and U2 frontman Bono, a notorious Trump critic, praising the departing staffers of USAID, the international diplomacy arm that Trump gutted earlier this year. Bush was an advocate for funding the program to combat AIDS and HIV in parts of Africa.
“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy,” Obama said in a video shown to departing USAID employees on Monday. “Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world.”
Calling the decision by Trump “a colossal mistake,” he added that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realize how much you are needed.”
Their warm words come as little comfort to employees of the United States Agency for International Development who now find themselves without government jobs for the first time in years. Trump, in partnership with Elon Musk and his U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, effectively dismantled the sprawling global agency but for a small skeleton staff while operations wound down.
The video message was not broadcast to the public, according to the AP, which obtained snippets of the trio’s comments.
Musk once referred to USAID as “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.” It was an early target of the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize a federal government the president said was ripe with waste, fraud, and abuse of tax dollars.
USAID was officially absorbed by the State Department on Tuesday, per the NY Post.
Bush, who has largely refrained from criticizing Trump since he first took office in 2016, spent his video remarks lamenting the loss of staffers he credited with contributing to global stability by reducing the spread of AIDS and HIV through a program that is credited with saving 25 million lives over the last 20 years.
“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work — and that is your good heart,’’ Bush told USAID staffers, according to the Associated Press. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”
Bono regaled the sullen group with a poem written about his worry that millions will die as a result of USAID’s shuttering.
“They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,” Bono said.
Other Trump foes marked the official end of USAID with public messages, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“In all my years of service, I found that foreign service officers and development professionals were among the most dedicated public servants I encountered,” Clinton posted to X Tuesday. “Their work saves lives and makes the world safer. Today, and every day, I stand with them.”
Bush and Obama haven’t said much publicly about President Trump, and both appeared chummy with 47 at his inauguration in January. Bono, meanwhile, has ripped the Republican going back to his first election in 2016, calling Trump “potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio contrasted the trio’s message of doom and gloom with optimism for an efficient government free of far-left political ideology.
“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio wrote in his statement. “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”
“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” he continued. “Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance.
“Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency.”
Trump spent the first months of his administration working hand in glove with Musk and praising the work of DOGE to uncover more than $22 billion in “waste,” including at USAID.
“Forty-five million dollars for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma,” Trump said while citing various examples of purported waste. “Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is.”
When you’re a marginally intelligent, vindictive crony capitalist, you have no choice but to ally yourself with the Ds.
bttt
yup
i am so happy for george
in his retirement
he can finally stop pretending to be a republican
it must be so freeing
RINO Bush - what else is new?
Fake ballots cost between 40 bucks and a hundred bucks.
That’s why Boner the Irish tax cheat is shrieking.
There was a very good reason, or reasons why Nancy Reagan never invited the Bushes to the White House for dinner during the eight years our President held office.
Dubya is not going to give a **** about all of that unless he's benefiting financially from USAID.
I don't think that he has taken a dollar from them, he was already wealthy before getting involved with politics. But it's likely that one of his relatives are dealing with reduced funding because their NGO/charity is getting cut off.
They probably ****ed to Dubya. And who's to blame?
Trump.
Check the updated birth certificates for the bro info !
this transcends politics, it’s a feud.
The Uniparty... It’s like two mob families They pulled together when they’re criminal enterprises are threatened
No surprise there.
He’s just showing his true colors.
contributing to global stability by reducing the spread of AIDS and HIV through a program that is credited with saving 25 million lives over the last 20 years.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, right. That sounds like one of those magic numbers that gets thrown around with no real basis.
What did you say was the reason again? LOL
Probably has lots of friends and relatives working the NGO grift
GW’s brother Neil was a director of Silverado S&L, a flop entity that cost taxpayers an estimated $ 1 billion. Neil was noted for the remarkably inaccurate response when asked about his business associates, “They were partners of mine, I wasn’t a partner of theirs”. Abject stupidity runs in the family.
Leftists hated bush.
Back in December 2000 the chant was..."The grown-ups are back in the White House!"
.......and "Get out of Cheney's house!" aimed at Gore .
pride parade funding is down
and the dnc coffers seem to be empty
GWB is one of them. He is a globalist. Just like his Daddy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.