We return now to our periodic look at the consequences of the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID, which was gutted earlier this year and officially closed yesterday.

As we reported, a new study in the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, suggests that cuts to USAID could result in the deaths of 14 million people over the next five years. William Brangham joins us now.

So William yesterday, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he laid out a more full critique of USAID,

explaining why the administration is eliminating the agency and absorbing some of its work into the State Department.

What was his core argument?

He reiterated what he's said before, which is that USAID was spending taxpayer money

in an ineffective and wasteful way. He said it created an NGO industrial complex, that it was creating

dependency in these nations that were getting aid and not resilience. I mean, perhaps most strikingly,

Rubio said that over the years, USAID had done no real good, despite even that Lancet study that you

just cited, it estimated that USAID has saved 90 million lives. It's also worth remembering that

when Rubio was Senator Rubio, he was a big champion of

USAID. He argued that it was a way of expressing American values, that it shored up American security,

but in this administration, he has a different position. Yesterday, he wrote this. USAID has little

to show since the end of the Cold War.

Development objectives have rarely been met. Instability has often worsened, and anti-American

sentiment has only grown. And so he said, as of yesterday, that USAID is shuttered.

And in looking at the impact of these cuts, your first report examined the effect on HIV care

in one particular part of Kenya.

Your report tonight is focused on Ghana. Why there?

Ghana for years has been held up as a beacon of democracy and good government in West Africa.

But it also struggles with poverty and some very

serious health issues, especially in the north. Ghana also sits in an area that is deeply troubled.

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