During a town hall on Tuesday, Rep Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) spoke about the Trump Administration's gutting of USAID.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Kendall, go ahead and go to the next one.
00:02Thank you, Congresswoman.
00:04Our next question comes from Tilo.
00:07They ask, what can be done to reverse the dismantling of USAID?
00:12All right.
00:14So this is a great question.
00:16But let me give a quick overview for everyone that may not really
00:21understand the importance of USAID,
00:23as well as really getting some clarity on the amount of money that USAID takes up.
00:33So what they've decided to do is they've decided to pit Americans against USAID
00:39because it's just like, oh, there's so much money and it's leaving the country
00:43and we need the money in our communities.
00:45And I'm not saying that that's not a very real thing,
00:48that we need the money in our communities.
00:50But unfortunately with this Republican CR, there was a lot of money that was
00:54supposed to come to our district that now most likely will go into Elon's pockets.
01:02But USAID, overall, if we look at our entire budget, even though I know they
01:10throw out big numbers, numbers that are bigger than what we have in our own
01:13individual bank accounts, USAID accounts for less than 1% of our entire budget.
01:19So right now they're trying to get people mad and irate about less than 1%
01:24so that they don't have to talk about the other 99.5%, right?
01:28So that's number one.
01:30Number two, we go on congressional delegation trips.
01:34I usually do not post them because I don't think that most people really understand
01:39that part of our job is to be international diplomats.
01:43And so one of the reasons that I was very concerned about this administration
01:47coming in is because the conversations that I've been able to have with emirs,
01:50prime ministers, presidents of other countries as I have traveled the world
01:56and had conversations about what it was like to deal with the previous
02:01administration with them.
02:03So that's that part.
02:05The other part of it is that when we go, we're usually checking in on the programs
02:09that the United States is funding, whether these are programs to eradicate things
02:13such as HIV and AIDS.
02:16So as we know, or if we think back, if you're old enough, in the 90s,
02:20you know, it was like, it was, number one, absolutely a death sentence
02:24if you were diagnosed.
02:29And people were just so sick, right?
02:32And so we had to work on the medicine and really get it up to snuff.
02:37And they're still working on medicine, hopefully, even though,
02:40as I already talked about, the NIH funds, that would have been another bucket
02:44that we would have had specifically designated for HIV and AIDS research.
02:50But when we start to talk about things like global pandemics, right,
02:54when we talk about COVID-19, or when we even talk about HIV-AIDS,
02:58it was a global, like, problem and disaster.
03:01And so they found that with, like, sex education, that was helping to kind of
03:07help out with people not getting as sick just by putting sex ed in,
03:12even though I know that's something right now that many Republicans are trying
03:15to remove from schools, but it helped not only with teen pregnancy,
03:18but it also helped with dismantling some of the transfer of various diseases.
03:26But also, when you're looking at things like this that can spread so rapidly
03:30throughout the world, what we've done is we've been able to help out
03:34in underdeveloped countries to make sure that they have access to things
03:38such as condoms, to make sure that they have access to the sex education,
03:42make sure that they have access to the medications that,
03:45even if they are diagnosed with HIV, that it does not end up becoming
03:51full-blown AIDS, making sure that they're keeping their counts down
03:54and things like that.
03:56So I had an opportunity last year to go into a couple of different countries
04:02in Africa and see how they are creating programs for young girls so that they
04:10are more than kind of just out there with nothing to do, so to speak.
04:14And so we were able to see, like, the different skills that they're
04:18teaching them.
04:20I was able to buy products from them, like, things that they made,
04:24like different crafts.
04:26Like I bought a purse and all kinds of random things, and so they're helping
04:29them to become their own entrepreneurs, and they're really making sure that
04:33they can imagine and see themselves as something other than a possession
04:37of a man, because some of this stuff is kind of cultural.
04:40So there was, like, cultural things that we've been fighting against
04:43consistently in various countries as well.
04:46And really what we do is we try to show people that freedom and democracy
04:51is the way and that there are opportunities for everyone.
04:56And so by doing that, we keep down the hostilities, not only abroad,
05:01but hostilities towards us.
05:03And we also end up building, like, a real rapport with so many countries
05:08around the world.
05:10And right now the fear has been, and what we consistently had conversations
05:14about, was China, and that China is like, if you just think of some gangsters,
05:20it's like, you know what, you're desperate for money, you're desperate for
05:24whatever it is, and you go to the gangster or the loan shark, right,
05:27and you go and get it from them, and then you're basically going to owe
05:31everything to them, right?
05:33And so we've been competing with China because what China ends up doing
05:38is kind of influencing other portions of the world to hate us.
05:43So for less than 1% of our budget, it helps to keep us safe,
05:49while also doing some good.
05:52That is what it is about.
05:54So now that I've gone on that long explanation of it,
05:57but I thought it was really important because I know a lot of people
06:00don't fully understand it.
06:02Today a federal judge ordered the reinstatement of USAID functions
06:05and placed a preliminary injunction on DOJ to stop further attempts
06:09to dismantle the agency.
06:11The court also demanded the DOJ reinstate access to email payments,
06:15security notifications, and other electronic systems,
06:18including restoring deleted emails for current USAID employees.
06:23As I have said since January, and now the federal courts agree,
06:27Trump and Eli must violate the Constitution when it effectively
06:30shutters the agency.
06:32I'll continue working with my colleagues in Congress to fight back
06:35against this administration's attempt to illegally dismantle
06:38independent federal agencies.
06:40There are still ongoing court cases, and more will come as we fight
06:44to reverse the dismantling of USAID.
06:47And the reason that I say that it's illegal is because the existence
06:52of USAID, it only exists because it was created through Congress.
07:00And so it can only be shut down and dismantled through Congress.
07:05And so I can't say that they won't have the votes to do that.
07:09They may because they control every lever,
07:12but they're going to have to go through the process of fully
07:15dismantling USAID if that is what they're going to do.
07:18So thank you so much for the question.
07:20I really do appreciate it.