Questions to Rubio:USAIDS is Causing Deaths and When Did Whites in S.A. Become Poor Refugees?

USAID cuts are causing deaths, Hawaii senator Schatz says 

a day ago

12:07 EDT

Vanessa Balintec

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Brian Schatz, the Democrat from Hawaii, is drilling down on the cuts to foreign aid under Trump. 

"Mothers who have fled Boko Haram in Nigeria are watching their babies starve. Children in South Sudan are dying of cholera. Families are dying because they have been cut off from their HIV medications," Schatz said. 

"There are about 103 deaths an hour. And so we can talk about the reorganization of the State Department. But this becomes quickly not an abstraction, not a normal public policy tug and pull, because the way that this has been done - set aside our disagreement about whether it's been done lawfully - it's been done in a just catastrophic fashion," Schatz said. 

The U.S. has cut foreign aid dramatically under Trump, resulting in food rotting in warehouses and thousands of workers on leave. 

Rubio responded: "First of all, that is the intent here, right, is to rebuild the foreign aid enterprise under the State Department ... So that's our hope on the reorg. 

"And that's what we're trying to endeavor towards. I also don't think it's fair, by the way, you highlighted a couple points. Like in South Sudan, there's distribution problems there. It's not just the program. PEPFAR is 85% operative right now."

PEPFAR is the U.S. president's emergency plan for AIDS relief.

Rubio's exchange with Kaine on South Africans gets testy 

a day ago

11:36 EDT

Simon Lewis

FILE PHOTO: Children from the first group of white South Africans granted refugee status at Dulles International Airport, May 12, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Rubio was grilled by Tim Kaine, the Democrat from Virginia, about the Trump administration's decision to allow white South Africans to immigrate to the United States. 

Rubio, the son of immigrants from Cuba, defended Trump's decision to admit white South Africans to the U.S., after cutting off access to the U.S. for refugees from the rest of the world. 

"I think that the United States has a right to allow into this country and prioritize allowance of who they want to allow come in." Rubio said. 

"They thought that their farms are being burned down ... I think that's a pretty good justification for wanting to come. They're afraid for their lives."

The assertion that white South Africans are discriminated against, or even the victims of a "white genocide", has spread in far-right circles for years and has been echoed by Trump's white South African-born ally Elon Musk. 

South Africa maintains there is no evidence of persecution.