'Disgusting': Humanitarian doctor shuts down Marco Rubio's attacks

A Brown University professor and former Doctors Without Borders board member tore into Secretary of State Marco Rubio over disparaging claims that employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development have a "rank insubordination" problem.

USAID, which is responsible for the United States' foreign aid programs and is tasked with everything from stabilizing democracies abroad to fighting pandemics, has been systematically dismantled by President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk over the last two weeks, with its staff locked out of their jobs and control of the agency transferred to Rubio, potentially in violation of the law.

"I’ve spoken to MANY folks in USAID over the last week. And many just today," wrote Dr. Craig Spencer on X, who has spent his career on humanitarian health causes overseas and survived Ebola while fighting to contain the outbreak of that disease in Africa. "There is no rank insubordination. There is rank chaos, crying, and confusion."

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"People who’ve spent DECADES of their life responding to health and humanitarian crises all over the world so we could be safe here don’t know whether they’ll be fired for good tomorrow … or asked to remain with a skeleton crew to try and respond to the numerous crises spinning out of control," Spencer continued. "People with kids who’ve been in schools for years abroad on behalf of the U.S. government are now being yanked out and pulled home. This is profoundly disruptive to so many people’s lives, and to pretend it isn’t only means he doesn’t care and isn’t listening."

Already, he warned, the paralysis of USAID is having devastating consequences.

"The clinics don’t run. The medications don’t get distributed. Today, children were likely born with HIV who otherwise wouldn’t have been, all because of how this administration unnecessarily yanked support so rapidly. We are demonizing some of the most amazing and selfless Americans who’ve committed themselves to a profession that often pays them less and works them more. They do it because they care. And by doing it they make us all safer."

"So these statements by Rubio are not only embarrassing and pure garbage, they defile the commitment of so many incredibly committed people who’ve done more for this country than so many of us," Spencer wrote. "Countries have been calling the White House to inform them of disease outbreaks and ask for support…and no one is there to answer the phone. Maybe focus on that first? Disgusting."