Sen. Peter Welch Slams Trump Administration Over USAID Firings and Funding Cuts

News
Alex Bollinger
March 1, 2025
9 minutes read

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Reports that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees were given just 15 minutes to clear out their offices in a new round of federal firings have sparked fierce condemnation from Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), who launched a blistering attack on the Trump administration.

“I’m really shocked by it,” Welch said Thursday in an interview on CNN’s The Situation Room. He added, “But nothing shocks me anymore with the Trump administration.” The latest blow to the humanitarian aid agency—which has already been severely weakened by sweeping funding cuts, mass layoffs, and a freeze on foreign aid grants—came Thursday when employees were seen leaving the now-shuttered headquarters after being given minimal time to pack up their belongings, according to media reports.

“It’s savage and cruel,” Welch said, before passionately defending USAID. “And you use the wrong word, you said slash. The agenda here—and they’re well underway to accomplishing it—is to destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development.” Welch praised the agency as a “very, very effective” tool of American “soft power” that has been vital since the Kennedy administration.

“Number two, the way the president is doing this is totally unconstitutional,” he continued. “He’s interfering with specific congressional appropriations, incidentally, appropriations that Secretary of State Marco Rubio advocated for and voted for.”

Donald Trump — (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The Vermont lawmaker then emphasized the humanitarian consequences of gutting the agency, calling the situation a cruel display of indifference toward those in desperate need. “We’ve got 170 countries who are involved, there is food in warehouses that’s available for starving children, but it won’t be delivered,” he said.

“There’s a medicine that provides vaccines to prevent outbreaks of calamitous diseases, won’t be injected,” Welch concluded by condemning the treatment of fired employees and the broader global impact of the aid freeze.

“This is an extraordinary action done in a way of maximum cruelty to our workers, but also to the starving kids, the sick folks around the world.” As the fallout from the USAID firings continues, critics are pressing the administration for answers while humanitarian advocates warn of dire consequences for global health and stability.