By Michael Crowley, Karoun Demirjian and Edward Wong NYTimes News Service
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that he had taken over as acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, assuming control of an agency that had functioned largely independently for more than 60 years and stoking fears about U.S. assistance around the world.

Rubio’s announcement came after a week of drastic changes at USAID, the government’s lead agency for humanitarian aid and development assistance. Senior officials have been suspended, and hundreds of civil servants and contractors have been iced out of USAID systems without warning.

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Many of the cuts were rolled out in secret and without warning, as representatives of Elon Musk, who was deputized by President Donald Trump to lead a task force to reduce government spending, took over its operations despite objections from aid workers and Democrats in Congress.

Speaking to reporters in El Salvador, Rubio said that many of USAID’s programs were worthwhile and would continue under the umbrella of the State Department, promising to delegate the day-to-day operations to Pete Marocco, the department’s director of foreign assistance.

In a letter to the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate committees on foreign affairs and related appropriations, Rubio said that Marocco would “begin the review and potential reorganization of USAID’s activities to maximize efficiency and align operations with the national interest.”

Rubio added that the review might include “the suspension or elimination” of programs, projects, missions, bureaus, centers and offices, and that the USAID “may be abolished consistent with applicable law.”

He added that the organizational change was prompted by what he described as efforts by USAID officials to obscure details about their work and failure to cooperate with reasonable questions from the Trump administration.

Rubio accused USAID employees of “deciding that they’re somehow a global charity separate from the national interest or taxpayer dollars.” He added, “That sort of level of insubordination makes it impossible to conduct a sort of mature and serious review.”

Rubio’s criticism of USAID was still markedly softer than that of Musk, who has accused the agency of being a “criminal organization.” Early Monday morning he said that he and Trump had decided it was time to dissolve it.

“We’re shutting it down,” Musk said during a live chat on X, his social media platform, later adding in a post that “we spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”

On Sunday, Trump said USAID was “run by radical lunatics” and promised to remove them.

USAID employees were told overnight not to report to work Monday because its Washington, D.C., headquarters would be closed, fueling fears that the already-hobbled agency would soon be shuttered for good.

The unusual staffwide directive was emailed out around 12:45 a.m. Eastern time, shortly after Musk’s announcement. But not all employees were able to read the note, as many had already been locked out of their accounts. Some reported being informed by text message not to come to the office.

Hundreds of contractors, who make up the bulk of the staff in field offices, lost access to their official emails and systems over the weekend, according to five people with knowledge of the changes. On Monday morning, many direct civil service hires also found they were unable to log into their accounts, the people said.

The draconian moves caught many USAID employees off guard, some said in interviews. Though Trump had made known his disdain for foreign aid, they did not expect that their agency would be fully dismantled.

On Monday, more than 100 USAID employees gathered in front of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington to protest the shutdown. Many held U.S. flags and homemade signs that said things like “Democracy died in complacency.” They were joined by a group of Democratic lawmakers, who railed against the closures, blaming Musk in particular as they egged on the protesters.

“We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told those gathered. Speaking directly to Musk, he added: “You don’t control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does.”

Democrats have denounced the USAID shutdown as an illegal maneuver because Congress created and continues to fund the agency as a distinct entity. The federal government is currently funded through March 14.

“Unilaterally closing USAID is illegal,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the minority leader, said on the floor Monday. “Donald Trump does not have the authority to erase an independent agency created by Congress. Nor can the Department of State absorb USAID, especially because now there is basically nothing left to absorb.”

He also warned that if USAID could be decimated at the direction of Musk’s representatives, “then you can be sure they will move on to another target tomorrow.”

Early Monday morning, employees of the agency’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance who still had active accounts were told they would be able to gain access to their offices in an annex building, according to an email from Dianna Darsney de Salcedo, the division’s deputy assistant administrator, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times. But by the time they arrived, the front turnstiles were not working, according to three people who were either at or directly in touch with those trying to enter the office.

Two men were standing at the entrance, two of the people said, in what appeared to be an effort to block people from entering. The men eventually stepped aside, and some employees were able to go inside.

Once in the office, the few dozen employees on site scrambled to gather their belongings and those of colleagues who had not been able to enter the building, stuffing trash bags and boxes full of personal items, including photos of their children and plaques of past awards, according to three people inside the building or directly in touch with those who were.

Overseas, USAID contractors were in effect left stranded, as contractors in foreign missions who had lost access to official systems — including those in conflict zones — wondered whether they would still enjoy the protection of the U.S. government, or if their travel back to the United States would be approved or reimbursed. With no official guidance, employees from Ukraine to Somalia were left to figure out how to finance their own way out.

Employees were particularly concerned about the implications of the rollbacks for the work of USAID’s Gaza mission, based in Jerusalem, which is the main agency in charge of ensuring that U.S. humanitarian assistance keeps flowing to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The United States is a guarantor of the tenuous ceasefire struck between Israel and Hamas last month, as well as the largest single provider of assistance, the continuation of which is critical to ensure the ceasefire does not fall apart.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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