The Trump administration is continuing to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development,

posting this message on the agency's main page web.

It says on Friday, quote, all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally,

with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions,

core leadership, and specially designated programs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had this to say.

Our goal for USAID was to align the programs that it fulfills with the foreign policy of the United States.

And yet, over the last two decades, it has not.

And it has gotten worse and

worse. And multiple administrations have complained about it, but none have done anything about it.

We are going to do something about it. This is not about ending foreign aid. It is about structuring

it in a way that furthers the national interest of the United States.

For perspective on all of this, we turn now to Andrew Natsios. He was the administrator for USAID during the George W. Bush administration.

He's now at Texas A&M University.

Andrew Natsios, welcome back to the NewsHour.

I just want to start with your response to what we've seen over these last few days, essentially

a complete takeover of USAID by Elon Musk and now the entire team

placed on leave. It's not a takeover. It's a destruction of the agency. And I just want to say,

I've always had respect for Marco Rubio, and I don't now because of the nonsense he just said.

AID was more aligned with President Bush's foreign policy than the

State Department was, and sometimes even that the Defense Department was. That's not the problem.

The problem is they don't have an administrator to run the agency to move it toward the right.

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