Two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development have been placed on administrative leave, the latest in a series of suspensions and layoffs at the American government’s primary humanitarian aid agency.
President Trump is considering dramatic changes to USAID, as advisers examine where there’s overlap with other agencies or where its spending runs counter to the president’s stances.
USAID Director for Security John Vorhees and Deputy Director for Security Brian McGill were put on leave Saturday night, two sources confirmed to CBS News.
Two sources told the Associated Press that move came after the two officials refused to allow personnel from the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to access classified material in restricted areas. DOGE spokesperson Katie Miller did not respond to requests for comment, but did repost the AP article on X with the comment, “No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.”
Vice President JD Vance is in charge of figuring out next steps for USAID reform, per one person familiar with Trump’s decision. A spokesperson for Vance declined to comment.
Mr. Trump told reporters Sunday night upon returning to Washington, D.C., from Palm Beach, Florida, that USAID has been run by “a bunch of radical lunatics.”
“We’re getting them out,” he said, “and then we’ll make a decision.”
No executive order was imminent — officials are still in the planning phase, sources said last week. But the president is interested in reforming the agency, they said.
One option is to possibly fold it into the State Department, but other possibilities are on the table, two sources told CBS News.
Republican Rep. Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which provides oversight of the State Department, said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that USAID is “likely going to be rolled more closely under Secretary Rubio.” USAID already reports to the Secretary of State but the Trump administration is looking at ways to combine it or fold it into the State Department.
Mast did not detail what specific changes will be made but indicated that he intends to initiate changes via Congress as well. USAID was established in 1961 by an act of Congress.
“I would be absolutely for, if that’s the path we go down, removing USAID as a separate department, and having it fall under whether the other parts of the United States, Department of State, because of its failure,” Mast claimed on “Face the Nation.”
CBS previously reported that the person heading up the efforts to reshape USAID is Pete Marocco, a former deputy assistant secretary of African Affairs at the Pentagon. Marocco is now serving in a senior directing role in the State Department’s Foreign Assistance Office, which oversees foreign assistance programs administered by the State Department and USAID.
Freezing foreign aid was a Trump campaign promise to only support efforts that serve America’s national security interest and to cut costs. However, foreign aid makes up just 1% of the federal budget.
U.S. foreign aid agencies almost never directly implement aid programs, choosing to partner with non-governmental organizations, public international organizations, and sometimes foreign governments to carry them out. The Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on almost all foreign aid means that these contractors are not being paid for work already in progress.
With no indication that the aid freeze will be lifted soon, contractors are furloughing and/or terminating employees en masse.
An aid worker with contracts around the world told CBS that organizations are expecting to face lawsuits in foreign countries from governments who consider them in breach.
USAID viewed by some Trump officials as too influenced by “woke” politics
Some top officials in the Trump administration view USAID, created by President John F. Kennedy to counter Cold War geopolitics, as an agency that has become overly influenced by left-wing and “woke” politics. They had privately voiced concerns that it hasn’t had enough oversight, including from Congress.
Some in the administration, including Musk, have argued that Trump should shut USAID down altogether. On Sunday, Musk posted on his social media platform X: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”
But not all of Trump’s top advisors agree with Musk, multiple sources said.
USAID website goes dark, multiple aid agencies say they are hobbled by funding freeze
The USAID website went offline on Saturday, and remained inaccessible on Sunday. Dozens of employees in the legislative and public affairs offices at the agency suddenly lost system and email access on Saturday night, three sources told CBS News.
Trump officials want to look into ways to streamline programs with a footprint in more than one government agency. USAID also contracts with multiple non-profits to implement programs.
As the Trump administration weighs restructuring USAID, the humanitarian aid program that does everything from funding polio and malaria eradication efforts overseas to emergency response to natural disasters, and removing old U.S. bombs from battlefields, aid organizations told CBS News that they are already preparing to lay off thousands of U.S. based aid workers this week.
Multiple aid organizations told CBS News that they are hobbled by Trump’s funding freeze as contractors front money for projects and then apply for reimbursement from the U.S. government. As a result, the stop work order issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio triggered financial crises at these international organizations who are also unable to receive backpay for work already performed, multiple aid organizations told CBS news.
Tom Hart, President and CEO of InterAction told CBS News that even after Rubio issued waivers to some organizations, the changes have not resulted in a flow of funds.
“The current reality is life-saving medications expiring on shelves while children fall ill. Food aid rotting in warehouses while families go hungry. This isn’t just a humanitarian catastrophe—it’s an unconscionable waste of taxpayer resources that undermines America’s investments in global stability and human dignity.”
“This disruption is upending relationships built with communities over the last 60 years—relationships the Administration may find hard to restore after its review,” Hart said.
The Trump administration has disrupted operations at organizations that also seem to be consistent with the America First agenda and efforts to stem illegal migration to the U.S. CBS News obtained a list of 13 organizations in El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala whose efforts are aimed at countering factors that drive migration. In El Salvador, the Skills for Employment project helps some 12,000 Salvadorans get jobs so they don’t migrate to the U.S. In Honduras, Effective Justice combats organizedf crime networks. In Colombia, the Venezuelan response ensures migrants do not migrate illegally to the U.S.
Concerns over PEPFAR
Another program, PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, received a waiver to resume specific types of operations within their broad portfolio of AIDS relief and HIV services, three sources confirmed this weekend to CBS News. Health officials indicated that they are still waiting to see how narrowly the services will be defined including the question of whether it will include preventative treatments. Former aid officials shared concerns that global health programs are not yet turned back on, including those aimed at preventing malaria and tuberculosis.
“This is not a pause, it is a demolition,” Atul Gawande, former USAID Global Health Director, told CBS News. “You cannot pause a flight in midair, that’s what they’re trying to do.”
The Trump administration has stipulated the review is to last 90 days but the stop work order from Rubio immediately ceased operations for many organizations. Since the freeze is taking place while the review is being conducted, it has caused an immediate disruption with real world impact such as disruption of anti-viral medication to HIV positive individuals, including children.
“There was a release of that hold that was put, that was authorized, but it shouldn’t be the case that the American people fund HIV and AIDS drugs for 20 million people across Africa, where many of these countries are working very directly with our adversaries, like China,” Mast told “Face the Nation,” confirming portions of PEPFAR had resumed. But he referred to it as a “grift” and raised questions about its fate.
“That is an example of them taking us for granted,” Mast said. “We need to be asking the question, should they be weaning off of this, should we be paying for these very expensive HIV and AIDS drugs?”
But these efforts have been deemed in U.S. national security interests by multiple presidents, and a type of “soft power” that wins goodwill for the U.S. in the competition for influence against adversaries. It is now China, but during the Cold War when the established the prime competition was the Soviet Union, USAID efforts were effective in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
CBS News reported last week that roughly 450 contractors were terminated from the Bureau for Global Health, which is responsible for overseeing the implementation of PEPFAR. More federal employees in the Global Health bureau have since been placed on administrative leave, raising concerns about how these programs will be implemented, despite the foreign assistance waiver for HIV/AIDS programs.
