On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) talked about spending and said that “maybe we should not be continuing” to spend $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam through USAID.
Host Bret Baier said, [relevant remarks begin around 2:45] “USAID, you say that that pullback has hurt us overall. July 1, USAID officially rolled over, essentially, to the State Department, and Marco Rubio talked about that. In part, this comes from the DOGE concerns and some of the abuse allegations that we saw and heard from during that time, 1.5 million for DEI programs in Serbia, 47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. 2 million –.”
Shaheen cut in to respond, “That, actually, is incorrect. … That did not happen, the opera.”
Baier then asked, “Well, that was the 47 grand. You’ve got 2 million for LBGT activism in Guatemala, 2.5 million electric vehicles in Vietnam, 6 million to fund tourism in Egypt. There’s other — a long list here. But there were problems here where people said, why are we doing this?”
Shaheen responded, “And, listen, I’m not advocating that we should continue programs that aren’t working. I was a governor. I believe in making government effective and assessing and evaluating what we’re doing and how to do it better. But taking a chainsaw to all of our foreign assistance programs over a weekend and eliminating 84% of them is not a strategic and thoughtful approach to how we need to evaluate what’s working and what’s not working.”
Baier then asked, “But now it’s under Secretary Rubio, isn’t it? And they’re going to analyze what programs go forward and what don’t. And so, the 1.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam didn’t seem like it was going to work for them.”
Shaheen answered, “And maybe we should not be continuing that. That’s not what I’m arguing. What I’m arguing is we have not had a real thoughtful effort to do that.”
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