A lifelong Republican who once ran the U.S. Agency for International Development delivered a stinging rebuke of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which has its sights set on all but eliminating the agency.
Andrew Natsios joined CNN's "OutFront" on Friday evening to weigh in on a federal judge's temporary reprieve to thousands of workers in the agency, halting the Trump administration's plans for a mass purge of the agency from 10,000 to around 300.
An exasperated Natsios said he has questions over how the courts will respond to the slashing attempt — nor does he know whether President Donald Trump will obey their ruling.
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"I can only tell you the enormous damage this has done to our image in the world. In the developing world, AID is regarded as one of the premier development agencies in the world. Heads of state rely on AID for advice on development," he said.
Natsios hit back at right-wing assertions that his former agency is ripe with fraud.
"I might add, there is an obsession in AID and has been for decades with accountability. The notion that they found a lot of fraud and abuse is garbage. It's a bald-faced lie. And I can tell you that with personal experience," he said in a blistering response.
Natsios lauded his former colleagues.
"I have a background in management. I've run seven institutions in the last 45 years. AID was the best managed. The employees are among the smartest. Given the stress they're under I find it astonishing that people would make comments like that," he said.
Natsios blasted Musk who put a target on USAID after looking at agency records for two weeks with what he called a "bunch of young kids who have no experience in development and probably have never even been to a developing country and seen an AID program."
"Never been to a refugee camp or a famine, or been to an AID program in Africa or Latin America," he railed.
Natsios said he's been informed DOGE staffers "randomly cross out programs for defunding" without considering documentation or looking at whether the program is well run.
He added that the federal government has an index that denotes how well run a department or agency is — "AID is ranked the 3rd best in the federal government."
"Now how does that happen when Musk is making these charges?" he concluded.
Watch the clip below or at this link.
