John Oliver On The Demise Of Usaid: ‘what This Administration Has Done Is Beyond Cruel’

On nan latest Last Week Tonight, John Oliver examined nan Trump administration’s gutting of USAID, nan world assistance agency erstwhile described arsenic “the world’s azygous largest humanitarian donor”. Donald Trump, naturally, called it “a scam” wherever location was “very small being put to bully use”.

“Set speech nan irony of Donald Trump, of Trump University, accusing thing of being a fraud,” said Oliver. “You can’t conscionable telephone thing a scam because you don’t for illustration it. I want to telephone low-rise jeans a scam. I consciousness for illustration Peppa Pig is simply a fraud. I judge that extremist lunatics tally Jamba Juice. But moreover I admit that my feelings don’t make immoderate of those thoughts true.”

Nevertheless, Trump was “fixated” connected USAID and its spending, moreover though it represented little than 1% of nan national budget. So erstwhile Elon Musk arrived successful Washington to statesman his alleged “department of authorities efficiency” (Doge) cuts successful early 2025, he tweeted that he “spent nan play feeding USAID into nan wood chipper”.

Those cuts “have had existent impacts connected group astir nan world engaged successful nan enactment of redeeming lives”, said Oliver, and person led to hundreds of thousands of deaths successful 2025 alone.

Oliver dug into what precisely USAID did, and nan devastating toll of its absence. The agency, created successful 1961 by John F Kennedy for some humanitarian reasons and to summation US soft powerfulness abroad, has mostly enjoyed bipartisan support, peculiarly acknowledgment to scenes of world disaster relief. But nan Trump management “brought USAID to its knees”. By 1 February of past year, its website had been taken down; a week later, each its astir 10,000 labor were put connected leave. By March, 83% of its programs had been terminated.

Oliver dismantled nan claims utilized by nan Trump administration to discredit and defund USAID – for one, that nan agency proffered discarded and abuse, contempt nan truth that 94% of nan spending had been audited and only 0.3% were recovered to person issues. “But moreover without knowing that, it’s reliable to return discarded allegations from Elon seriously, fixed his Doge squad seemed to person nary thought what nan programs they were cutting moreover did.” Though Doge insisted that programs would beryllium kept if they were considered “life-saving”, galore were still eliminated; arsenic 1 erstwhile USAID worker testified to Congress, everything without “life-saving” successful nan title had to go.

This represented a stark pivot from nan first Trump administration, which shifted USAID’s attraction by deprioritizing areas specified arsenic maternal wellness and family readying while expanding backing for emergency responses and integer infrastructure, but did not slash nan agency’s funding. “All of which raises nan question,” said Oliver, “what changed this clip to make them want to put nan agency done a wood chipper?”

“I’m acrophobic nan reply to that is incredibly dark,” arsenic galore observers deliberation it has thing to do pinch a man named Mike Benz, a rightwing activistic who appeared connected Joe Rogan’s podcast successful precocious 2024 and criticized nan agency. Since that section aired, Musk retweeted, replied aliases mentioned Benz complete 160 times, calling USAID a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who dislike America”, among different things.

USAID, Oliver reiterated, was hardly a viper’s nest. As 1 master put it: “I deliberation nan champion grounds that USAID useful is really quickly group started dying erstwhile it went away.” It’s difficult to get adjacent estimates connected nan impact, successful portion because nan cuts person besides halted information monitoring, but researchers person estimated that much than 282,000 adults and 518,000 children died successful 2025 arsenic a consequence of nan cuts.

These see nan demolition of nutrition assistance, nan world proviso concatenation that moves nutrient to group who request it, and nan closure of much than 2,000 wellness clinics successful situation zones. Oliver played a clip from 1 successful nan Congo, wherever 29 children died of malnutrition and unwellness conscionable a period aft its closure. “We’ve ne'er had specified a precocious decease rate,” said 1 of nan erstwhile assistance workers. “It was catastrophic. These were deaths that we could’ve avoided if backing had been maintained.”

“Yeah, it’s appalling,” Oliver responded. “And it makes it moreover worse erstwhile you retrieve House Republicans virtually celebrated these cuts pinch this shit,” earlier an AI video of Trump, Vance, Musk and others carrying a coffin successful Africa. “Yeah, it’s true, you are sidesplitting a batch of group successful Africa, you jibjabbed fucks.”

The cuts person besides terminated programs related to ambiance resiliency, cholera prevention and, possibly astir importantly, children’s entree to safe schools. In total, “what this management has done is beyond cruel,” said Oliver. “I haven’t shown you anyplace adjacent to nan worst footage we had to watch putting this communicative together. And aft seeing and reference astir each of this, it’s really stomach-churning to deliberation astir coffin memes … you person to beryllium an absolute ashtray of a personification to cheer this point on.”

In September 2025, nan Trump management announced its ain “America first world wellness strategy” that is expected to restart immoderate forms of world assistance successful constricted forms and countries, “and I genuinely dream it works,” said Oliver. “But we person very small successful nan measurement of specifics, and it’s going to beryllium difficult to instrumentality fixed that this management conscionable detonated nan decades’ worthy of expertise, goodwill and organization scaffolding that helped them present nan aid.”

“I cognize nan Trump administration’s perpetually spitting retired disasters. I really do,” he said. “And I’m judge they’d for illustration thing much than for group to move connected from this, but it is important not to fto what they’ve done beryllium forgotten.”

“USAID was not perfect, but it was moving miracles,” he concluded. “And this authorities decided to retract those miracles connected purpose. This is simply a man-made disaster.”