Secretary of State and Acting National Security Adviser Marco Rubio announced Friday that Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought will oversee the final closeout of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), marking the culmination of months of cuts and restructuring under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Rubio revealed the move in a post on X, writing:
I joked with @POTUS that I had four jobs. He told me to give one to my friend @RussVought47. So I did. Since January, we’ve saved the taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. And with a small set of core programs moved over to the State Department, USAID is officially in close out mode. Russ is now at the helm to oversee the closeout of an agency that long ago went off the rails. Congrats, Russ.
Vought responded in a quote tweet: “Happy to help! Let’s go!”
The appointment follows a series of major legislative and executive steps targeting USAID. In July, Congress approved a $9 billion rescissions package backed by Trump that eliminated taxpayer funding for PBS, NPR, and USAID. The House passed the measure in a narrow 216–213 vote, followed by Senate approval in a 51–48 tally, delivering a long-sought victory for spending hawks.
That package, shepherded in the Senate by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) with support from Rubio and Vought, represented the first successful rescission of appropriated spending in decades. The cuts not only ended public broadcasting subsidies but also stripped USAID of funding for foreign aid grants, effectively disabling the agency.
WATCH: Marjorie Taylor Greene Reveals What USAID Money Did:
: 400;”>The administration had already begun dismantling USAID earlier this year. In March, Rubio’s State Department moved to absorb USAID’s remaining job functions, a process that included terminating thousands of employees. By May, Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that only “12 cents of every dollar” spent by USAID reached intended recipients, calling the agency emblematic of a broader “foreign aid industrial complex.”
Documents and reports had also highlighted controversy over USAID’s programs, including revelations that the agency funded a decade-long effort that sent thousands of virus samples to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Rubio and other officials pointed to such examples in arguing that USAID had “long ago gone off the rails.”
The department is undergoing its largest reorganization since the Cold War, cutting domestic offices and consolidating functions to streamline decision-making and align foreign assistance with President Trump’s agenda. Rubio has emphasized that aid will continue, but it will now be delivered directly through the State Department’s regional bureaus and embassies rather than through an independent agency.
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