Really, Secretary Rubio? I’m Lying About the Kids Dying Under Trump?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/opinion/rubio-usaid-africa.html

25 comments

  2. Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, nervous and strssed and many of them don’t even have healthcare. “Foreign aid to Africa” is not something most Americans care about right now. If the American economic situation were good/booming, like in the 90s, then yeah, let’s send some aid money to Africa.

    This isn’t a winning issue politically.

  3. Kids are dying and they have the audacity to paywall the news about it.

  4. No one doubts there is fraud in these systems. But at best, and i mean at their best, they were trying to fix the engine while driving at full speed. At worst, just sick people in power cutting aid to the poor.

  5. I swear he sounds more and more like Fidel every day!

  6. This was predictable with Rubio. I don’t mean this exact situation down to the minute details, but the general idea of “Rubio is a spineless worm who, like any other Trump nominee, will do exactly what the administration asks of him’ was entirely predictable. He’s been a worm crushed by Trump for almost a decade now. He tried to stand up to Trump once, Trump called him Little Marco, and that was it. Like all other nominees, he was nominated because of this. The fact that every damn politician who could vote on him (what the fuck, Bernie?!) apparently got fooled by a Trump nominee wearing a standard politician suit and being able to talk in polite sentences instead of 4chan drivel, is truly depressing.

    And miss me with that “but he’s better than the alternative!” shit. At this point, seeing all he’s said and done, how he’s went with Trump on every stupid fucking thing, you’re really gonna say he’s *better* than the alternative? The alternatives will just have a different coat of paint, but they’re the exact same as him. Secretary of State Kid Rock would be doing the same exact bullshit. Rubio isn’t better, he’s just as bad. Shame on everyone who unanimously voted this shitstain sycophant in.

  7. Of all the ass-kissers in the Trump administration, no one has humiliated himself more than Marco Rubio. You can tell just by looking at his face just how much he has cravenly debased himself by choosing to lie and cover up for Trump.

  8. I’m very glad to see this, because Rubio deserves to be called out. But he’s not a “good man doing bad things.” He’s just bad. Sure, he used to be a better person than he is now (though considering how he is now, that’s not a huge achievement). But he decided to become a loyal servant to the dictator in the White House, and now he shares responsibility for the deaths of children in poverty-stricken countries. And on top of that, he’s lying about it.

    Rubio should be made to look at these photos. I hope the photos of these children haunt his nightmares at night. Oh wait, that would require him to have a conscience. Never mind.

  9. “Marco Rubio is a bad man doing evil things”. Fixed it for you. He was never good. Stupid ass opening line…

  10. People are just figuring out that Rubio lies? Those of us in Florida have known this for years. If his mouth is moving he’s lying!

  11. He did get at least one thing wrong. Rubio is not now and has never been a good man. He’s an opportunistic weasel of a man who pretends to a morality he never exhibits.

  12. Display the faults of the inner circle, let the ringleader be

  13. Rubio has always been a disgusting piece of shit. He, like the rest of Trump’s regime, have been about relentless denial & deflection, while partaking in the most brazen corruption in American history and enacting the worst policies domestically and abroad. They’ll NEVER take responsibility for the harms to decent people they cause, nor are they capable of hiding their pleasure in the suffering of others.

  14. Sometimes I think I can see it in his face that he’s ashamed or knows what he’s saying is bullshit
    But, maybe I just want to see it
    I guess this is who he is, and he’s okay with it

  15. The idea that you could write this article detailing Rubio’s actions and still label him a “good man” shows a real lack of moral judgement on the part of the author.

  16. Way too generous. The cuts weren’t made for tax cuts (they’re happy to deficit spend to get those) they were done because USAID was helping keep little black children alive in Africa and Musk et al want them to drop dead. Like, we all saw Trump grilling the leader of South Africa about ‘white genocide’ a couple of weeks ago, yeah? We’re all aware of Musk’s whole deal about being worried about populations not growing fast enough?

    This is what you get when you look at the world as a zero sum game, and when you believe that poverty is indicative of inferior intelligence, so impoverished people are simply not worth keeping around. And make no mistake, they do not intend to confine this war to race and they do not intend to confine it to foreign aid; next up is that big ugly budget bill and its cuts.

  17. Can they deport the Cuban Rubio? Just because he was born in the USA doesn’t make him American, I mean flouting the constitution, disobeying the Supreme Court, surely these are grounds for deportation for such UnAmerican activities. Plus his family are from Cuba so someone could look after him.

  18. >Rubio is smarter than this and better than this

    Rubio is absolutely not better than this. He’s shown us that.

  20. Data strongly indicates as least 300,000 people, mostly children, have perished because of the lack of aid withheld by the dismantling of USAid. Musk, TACO don, and Rubio have blood on their hands

  21. He doesn’t lie Ruby I will be fired. Rubio has no conscience. That’s why he has no problem with children, suffering and dying under his watch with Donald Trump.

    Hopefully karma is a thing and hopefully these bastards are at the front of the line.

  22. So all those migrant children that just disappeared under Biden’s watch doesn’t bother you? All the migrants that have been sex-trafficked due to Biden’s open border policy, doesn’t bother you? You liberals are some sick bastards!

  23. > I see Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a good man doing bad things

    He is a bad man doing bad things.

  24. Full article:

    I see Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a good man doing bad things, but perhaps he thinks even worse of me: He recently suggested that I was a liar.

    While testifying before Congress, Rubio claimed that the Trump administration’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development had not cost any lives.

    “No children are dying on my watch,” he asserted. At another point in the hearing, he broadened his statement to include adults as well: “No one has died because of U.S.A.I.D.”

    This is ludicrous: The only debate is whether to measure the dead in the thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. So Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, challenged Rubio, citing reporting overseas by me and by Reuters of individuals who died as a result of the shutdown of American humanitarian aid.
    “That’s a lie,” Rubio said. “False.”

    So let me help Rubio with the truth. Meet Evan Anzoo, a 5-year-old boy who was born with H.I.V. in South Sudan:

    I mentioned Evan in a column in March from South Sudan. This was a child as precious as yours or mine. Evan’s life was in our hands, and for five years America kept him alive with antiretroviral medicines costing less than 12 cents a day, through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. This was a program started by President George W. Bush that has saved more than 26 million lives so far, and it turned the tide of AIDS around the world and built enormous good will toward the United States.

    Then along came President Trump and his freeze on most humanitarian aid in January. How could a 5-year-old orphan possibly obtain medicine on his own? Evan weakened and soon died of an opportunistic infection.

    If Rubio needs further reminder of the human toll, this little girl is Achol Deng, 8, who likewise died when she lost access to antiretrovirals because of the U.S.A.I.D. freeze.

    I share these photos of Evan and Achol because it strikes me as doubly offensive not only to cause unnecessary deaths of such children but also to deny these deaths and call them lies. The denials erase these children and dodge all responsibility.
    It was Elon Musk who first insisted that “no one has died.” Now Rubio has doubled down.

    Rubio is smarter than this and better than this; over the years he has shown himself knowledgeable about foreign affairs and has demonstrated compassion. I was relieved when he became secretary of state, for I want smart, experienced people around Trump.

    When I reached out to Rubio to ask about the “lies” comment and the suggestion that no one had died, he declined to be interviewed. But he seemed to back off and presented a more sensible response — albeit a complete evasion.

    “America is the most generous nation in the world, and we urge other nations to dramatically increase their humanitarian efforts,” a senior State Department official said in a statement.

    It is true that the United States has donated more in total humanitarian aid than any other country, although some European nations donate several times as much per capita. However, the United States by slashing aid set an example that Britain and France promptly followed, compounding the suffering.
    Trump is right that U.S.A.I.D. needed reform. But American aid overall still saved about one life every 10 seconds, based on estimates by the Center for Global Development.

    The transfer of U.S.A.I.D. into the State Department wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea if it were done carefully. But simply shuttering the agency with no transition has been catastrophic. An “impact counter” developed by an economist estimates that about 300,000 people have died so far from the reductions in American assistance, two-thirds of them children. The death toll is said to be rising at a rate of 103 per hour.

    I’m not sure it’s actually that high, partly because I’ve seen some laid-off health workers continue to work without pay and some health ministries step up to pick up the slack. And it takes time for children to weaken and die. Yet while nobody knows the true number — partly because the cancellation of programs means that no one is counting the dead — the flat denial of any deaths at all is preposterous.

    Rubio chooses not to make the argument that I believe is Trump’s true position: We want tax cuts (disproportionately benefiting the rich), so we need to cut funds in the budget from people who are so marginalized that they can’t complain.

    So Evan and Achol died.

    To deny the reality of dying children not only insults the memory of children starving to death in Sudan and Yemen and Afghanistan; it also insults the intelligence of Americans.

  25. Trump and Rubio are monsters, but what the fuck is up with France and the UK cutting aid after we did?  Isn’t that the time they should be stepping up and showing what compassion is?  Is there aid amount dependent on keeping up with the US only?

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