'Would You Consider Any Of Those Programs Woke?': Sara Jacobs Asks Witness About Cancelled USAID Grants

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week, Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) spoke about the Trump administration's shuttering of USAID.

Transcript

00:00Another time. Thank you, Chairwoman.

00:04I recognize the representative, Sarah Jacobs, from the state of California.

00:08Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman, and thank you all for testifying.

00:13Look, I'm glad that we all seem to agree that human rights and democracy are an important part of our national security and foreign policy.

00:19I know there are some on this committee who maybe think they aren't, like our chairman masked,

00:24but I believe that it's actually in our national interest to prioritize and center human rights and good governance in our foreign policy

00:32because it's in our long-term interest to do so, right?

00:35Like, let's take the African continent, the youngest population in the world.

00:3970% of the population is under 30.

00:41These young people are the future.

00:43Do we want them to remember the U.S. supporting their autocratic regimes

00:46or supporting populations who need protection and support to fight for a better future?

00:51Obviously, we can have that policy discussion, but what we're talking about now is the grave mistake

00:59I think this administration is taking to sideline human rights, democracy, and governance at the State Department.

01:05And, Madam Chairwoman, I, first of all, don't believe any of the programs that you cited are actually DRL programs,

01:11but also, look, you can cherry-pick a random grant or a program here or there and frame them as something that's silly.

01:19That's fine, actually.

01:21I am actually fine if you disagree with some of the programs that the Biden administration put in place.

01:26They were aligned with Biden's foreign policy priorities, which included supporting human rights, including LGBTQ plus rights.

01:33It is totally normal for a new administration to come in and decide that they have different priorities

01:37and to terminate those programs that they don't think align with their policy priorities.

01:42But that's not what this administration has done.

01:43It has actually canceled nearly all human rights programs, including human rights programs that were working on fighting for freedom in China,

01:51in Venezuela, and Nigeria.

01:54And it is gutting the expertise in the department around human rights.

01:59So, first, Dr. Quirk, I want to dig into a little bit more the impact of this administration's gutting of democracy programs.

02:06Approximately how many of your programs were terminated by this administration?

02:10At the start of the administration, we had roughly, from state and AID, 95 active awards,

02:19and all but a handful have been terminated.

02:22And the administration has assured us that this review was being done in a systematic way,

02:29that they were focused on waste, fraud, and abuse, that they're just doing due diligence.

02:33Did any of those terminations include a rationale for why the program was canceled?

02:37No.

02:40Would you consider any of those programs woke?

02:45I would not.

02:46Look, anyone implementing democracy and rights programs over the last 10 years could be accused of doing woke programming,

02:53insofar as work plan or proposal had to include those words based on that administration's foreign policy.

03:00So, did IRI documents include those terms?

03:05Yes.

03:06Did we do any woke programming?

03:08Decidedly, no.

03:09Were there any allegations of waste, fraud, or abuse in any of your programs?

03:14Not that I'm aware of.

03:16I think it's clear that this review was not thoughtful or thorough, and that it was never actually about waste, fraud, abuse, or efficiency.

03:23I also want to get to another thing my colleagues like to say.

03:26They like to say we shouldn't be doing programs that other governments don't want us to do,

03:30because that hurts our diplomacy.

03:32Dr. Quirk, a concrete example.

03:36The U.S. previously provided significant support to the Syrian civil society under the Assad regime.

03:42Would you agree there was bipartisan support for these programs?

03:45I support providing democracy assistance in closed societies, because long-standing autocratic regimes,

03:54whether it's Cuba or Iran, are stable until or not.

03:58And providing support in these countries is about maintaining a small amount of civic space

04:02and ensuring that there are leaders in place that have the skills to lead when that regime falls.

04:07I think that's exactly right.

04:09So, clearly, the Assad regime did not like what the U.S. was funding,

04:12but it was in our interest to fund it anyways, and that's true in many, many of these countries.

04:19So, with my last minute, Congressman Malinowski,

04:24could you talk about why supporting civil society and promoting good governance in other countries

04:29is so critical to our strategic U.S. foreign policy and national security?

04:33Well, thank you.

04:34In addition to being obviously the right thing to do,

04:36I think the most important argument for it is that this is our comparative advantage over adversaries like China.

04:48It's what makes America special.

04:50We're not just a bunch of people defending a piece of soil.

04:53We stand for something larger in the world that is attractive,

04:57that people are inspired by all over the world.

05:00Why would we give that up?

05:03Mr. Destro compared what's happening maybe inadvertently to a hanging?

05:07Yes, that's true.

05:08We tied our own noose.

05:10We put our neck in it, and we're about to hang ourselves,

05:13even as China and all of our adversaries are increasing funding for their influence operations around the world.

05:19That would be catastrophic for U.S. national interest.

05:23I yield back.

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