Yes, they are.
'What are they, idiots?' Conservative slams 'outrageous' Trump claim about federal workers
Tech billionaire Elon Musk was raked over the coals on Friday morning by a conservative who served in the administration of President George W. Bush for his part is dismantling USAID.
According to Andrew Natsios, who ran USAID from 2001 to 2006, what Musk is doing will create irreparable damage to the reputation of the U.S. and may be impossible to reverse.
After worrying, "All of that is being shut down. The camps are being collapsed in many areas, and people who've had their houses burned down, their children raped, who are traumatized, were getting food aid from us, the whole operation is going to be shut down," he told the hosts. "Now, Marco Rubio, who I've always had great respect for, is being blamed for this. But this is being orchestrated by Musk, not Marco Rubio and by the director of OMB. They don't care what happens to the people of the world because they don't vote in the United States."
"They don't care that hundreds of millions of people are going to be at the edge of starvation if these programs aren't restored immediately," he added. "Now, let me let me say the notion that you're going to spend $38 billion with 292 people is ridiculous. I am, one, a conservative Republican. I served in the Massachusetts House for 12 years as a Republican. I am a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, I am retired, I served in the first Gulf War. I am not a liberal. I am not on the left. Many, many church-based organizations get large amounts of money from USAID to do humanitarian work. There will be no one to process the grants, there will be no one to ship the food aid, because all those people have been fired or laid off."
"I trained students, many of them Roman Catholic and Evangelical, in Texas, to work at AID all of them have been laid off –– all of them," he exclaimed. "They were not lunatics they were not communists, and it's outrageous for the president to make those claims because it's complete nonsense."
He later added, "I have great respect for the State Department, they're the best diplomats in the world. I was a diplomat for a while as President Bush's envoy to Sudan, but they are not operational. They cannot deploy disaster assistance response teams which AID sends all over the world. They hire generalists in the foreign service, AID hires specialists."
"You have to have an advanced degree to work in AID, or you can't get hired, which means Phds and medical doctors, agricultural economists, agricultural scientists," he elaborated. "We have the logisticians. How do you think food aid gets moved? It doesn't just appear it magically. You have to have people, experts in logistics –– 294 people to spend to spend $38 billion. What are they, idiots?"
'What are they, idiots?' Conservative slams 'outrageous' Trump claim about federal workers
Tech billionaire Elon Musk was raked over the coals on Friday morning by a conservative who served in the administration of President George W. Bush for his part is dismantling USAID.
According to Andrew Natsios, who ran USAID from 2001 to 2006, what Musk is doing will create irreparable damage to the reputation of the U.S. and may be impossible to reverse.
After worrying, "All of that is being shut down. The camps are being collapsed in many areas, and people who've had their houses burned down, their children raped, who are traumatized, were getting food aid from us, the whole operation is going to be shut down," he told the hosts. "Now, Marco Rubio, who I've always had great respect for, is being blamed for this. But this is being orchestrated by Musk, not Marco Rubio and by the director of OMB. They don't care what happens to the people of the world because they don't vote in the United States."
"They don't care that hundreds of millions of people are going to be at the edge of starvation if these programs aren't restored immediately," he added. "Now, let me let me say the notion that you're going to spend $38 billion with 292 people is ridiculous. I am, one, a conservative Republican. I served in the Massachusetts House for 12 years as a Republican. I am a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, I am retired, I served in the first Gulf War. I am not a liberal. I am not on the left. Many, many church-based organizations get large amounts of money from USAID to do humanitarian work. There will be no one to process the grants, there will be no one to ship the food aid, because all those people have been fired or laid off."
"I trained students, many of them Roman Catholic and Evangelical, in Texas, to work at AID all of them have been laid off –– all of them," he exclaimed. "They were not lunatics they were not communists, and it's outrageous for the president to make those claims because it's complete nonsense."
He later added, "I have great respect for the State Department, they're the best diplomats in the world. I was a diplomat for a while as President Bush's envoy to Sudan, but they are not operational. They cannot deploy disaster assistance response teams which AID sends all over the world. They hire generalists in the foreign service, AID hires specialists."
"You have to have an advanced degree to work in AID, or you can't get hired, which means Phds and medical doctors, agricultural economists, agricultural scientists," he elaborated. "We have the logisticians. How do you think food aid gets moved? It doesn't just appear it magically. You have to have people, experts in logistics –– 294 people to spend to spend $38 billion. What are they, idiots?"
