Grace Meng Asks Secretary Rubio Point Blank: How Many People Have Died From USAID Shuttering?

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During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) asked Secretary Rubio if the State Department has assessed how many people have died due to the shuttering of USAID.

Transcript

00:00Ms. Meng. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, as a mom, I'm really

00:06troubled by the way that the department has treated public servants, USAID's public servants

00:13who dedicated their lives to this country, including some who are my own constituents

00:18from Queens. One example, in February, a USAID Foreign Service officer who was overseas needed

00:25a medevac for his pregnant wife who was at risk of hemorrhaging due to a life-threatening

00:29condition. She was 31 weeks pregnant after having spent tens of thousands of dollars on

00:34fertility treatments. Her medevac request was denied twice. The response was there's no

00:40USAID funding for medevacs, and it took intervention from a senator to finally get her the care

00:46she needed. Should we be abandoning our dedicated public servants this way, and was there a plan

00:54in place to ensure the health and safety of our own public servants and make sure that

01:00it wasn't compromised? Yeah, that was a media account of that. That was inaccurate. That's

01:04not accurate. The medevac has been provided to anyone who needed one, including in that

01:08particular case. The problem is the medic under the State Department mandates, and the State

01:13Department mandates are we medevac you to the nearest available facility that can treat your

01:17medical emergency, not one you choose. I'd rather go here than there. But that one was not,

01:22had nothing to do, nothing to do with funding. The medevac was available. They wanted to go

01:27to a different site than the one that was, that, that, that the policies allowed them to

01:31go to. Okay, and just a quick follow-up. Earlier today you told HVAC that no one has died because

01:37of the actions to destroy USAID. Do you stand behind that testimony, and has there been any assessment

01:44conducted by the department to this point of how many people have died? I think that's, that question

01:51about people dying around the world is unfair one. First of all, the United States is the largest

01:56humanitarian provider on the planet. I would argue how many people have died because China

02:00hasn't done it? How many people have died because the UK has cut back on spending, and so has other

02:05countries, France, Canada. They've cut back on humanitarian spending. So the United States continues

02:10to provide more than anybody else, by far. We, we feed more people than anyone on this planet

02:15does, and humanitarian assistance, by far. Sorry, I, I'm running out of time, and I want

02:19to make sure my colleagues have time. But these, just so you know, they were programs, and commitments,

02:24and contracts made, uh, statutorily promised to the people around the world, uh, and to withdraw

02:30them in a very sudden, impatient, and irresponsible way, uh, may have led people to die. And I, I would

02:37love to have more transparency in the future. We could work together. Thank you. Mr. Alford.

02:44Uh, thank you, Chair. Uh, Mr. Alford.

02:46Thank you, Chair. Uh, Mr. Alford.

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