U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing backlash after criticizing charity workers and nonprofit organizations striving to deliver essential, lifesaving supplies—humanitarian aid such as food and medicine—to those in desperate need. According to The Washington Post, Secretary Rubio went so far as to suggest that these organizations are intentionally obstructing their own efforts to score a “political point.”

“Secretary Rubio blamed aid groups for failing to navigate Trump’s freeze on foreign aid, saying they are either too incompetent to apply for exemptions or deliberately sabotaging their work to make a ‘political point,'” Washington Post diplomacy and national security reporter John Hudson wrote.

“I issued a blanket waiver that said, if this is life saving programs … if it’s providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives … you’re not included in the freeze,” Rubio told reporters (video below), according to Hudson. “I don’t know how much more clear we can be than that.”

The U.S. Secretary of State “added that if an aid group [is] receiving funds from the United States and “does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization -or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point.”

READ MORE: ‘You Will Have Blood on Your Hands’: GOP Senator, a Physician, Condemned for RFK Jr. Vote

Experts sharply criticized Secretary Rubio, suggesting he failed to grasp that while aid groups can apply for waivers, those applications cannot be reviewed or approved if no one is working at USAID.

Rubio was made acting head of USAID by President Donald Trump. USAID is expected to be folded into the U.S. State Department, although experts question the legality of such a move.

Derek Martin is the founder of Pathfinder Research. He previously conducted “supply chain counterintelligence at the National Security Agency (NSA), where he further developed his investigative skills and protected critical government IT infrastructure from foreign threats.”

Pointing to a Politico article that reports the Trump administration is putting “thousands” of USAID employees on “forced leave,” Martin responded to Rubio’s remarks by saying: “Might be hard to apply for waivers with all agency staff on forced leave.”

Politico also cited a senior USAID official who “said the agency’s human resources department said in a meeting Tuesday morning that it had already revoked system access for more than 1,400 staffers — an indication that many more are being put on leave than those previously announced.”

“That’s in addition to hundreds of USAID contractors who have been laid off or furloughed in recent weeks. The contractors lost their jobs in part due to an ongoing freeze on foreign aid imposed by President Donald Trump and his aides, who are making moves to fold USAID into the State Department.”

READ MORE: ‘Why on Earth Should We Believe That?’: Top Dem Doubts Claim Musk Has Only Limited Access

Dylan Williams, Vice President for Government Affairs at the Center for International Policy, noted that “Trump put out overbroad orders that Rubio failed to coherently operationalize, resulting in mass confusion at nearly every point in the aid supply chain — and now Rubio is calling those trying to make sense of it incompetent or malicious.”

Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk served in both the Obama and Biden administrations in senior USAID positions, including “as USAID’s lead official for COVID-19,” according to his bio:

“He oversaw USAID’s multi-billion-dollar COVID-19 assistance portfolio, led the design and implementation of the administration’s Global VAX initiative, and coordinated the U.S. government’s global donations of hundreds of millions of vaccine doses. He later served as the administration’s lead official for the global MPox response. He also served on the Biden-Harris transition teams for the Departments of State and Health and Human Services.”

“A very cheap shot by Rubio to accuse the NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] of politicizing this, when the breakdowns are in fact coming from the (willful?) dysfunction within the administration,” Konyndyk charged.

He also called Rubio’s remarks a “very damning admission,” and said it “makes clear he’s blind to what’s happening on his watch.”

“Why aren’t waivers going through? Because @USAID staff (not by the NGOs) have to request them case-by-case from State, and DOGE has now purged all those personnel.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

NEWS: Amid reports that exemptions to President Trump’s aid freeze are failing—causing HIV clinics in Africa to shut down, suspending demining efforts in Cambodia, and disrupting malaria prevention programs—Secretary of State Rubio, as @John_Hudson notes, blamed aid groups, and… https://t.co/hvNWdxWRsM pic.twitter.com/hlgVfA5O6i

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 4, 2025

READ MORE: Dems Blocked From Entering USAID Offices: ‘Illegal and Corrupt’

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U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician with a record of working to help the uninsured and underinsured, on Tuesday voted in committee to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, an attorney and not a physician, has never managed an enterprise anywhere near the scale of the $1.6 trillion department that encompasses over a dozen vital agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The final floor vote on Kennedy’s HHS nomination is expected to come next week.

Directly or indirectly, HHS’s decisions touch every human being in the United States.

Senator Cassidy had hinted, some believed, as The New York Times had reported, that he would vote against confirming Kennedy, after he posted a biblical passage on courage to social media this weekend:

pic.twitter.com/kGXVtZTPkj

— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) February 2, 2025

Cassidy’s vote has been seen as pivotal for Kennedy’s confirmation.

Kennedy has been labeled a conspiracy theorist who “continues to push the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism,” the BBC reported. He has said: “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” He also has spent years advocating against vaccines, and has a financial interest in having vaccines perceived as dangerous, and has a financial stake in anti-vaccine lawsuits.

READ MORE: ‘Why on Earth Should We Believe That?’: Top Dem Doubts Claim Musk Has Only Limited Access

“Kennedy has not only gained a public following for his outlandish claims, he has also made a lot of money broadcasting them. And he could stand to make more from his anti-vaccine crusade as America’s top health official — the kind of brazen self-dealing that’s become all but normalized in Trump’s America,” Vox‘s Dylan Scott reported.

Despite Kennedy’s history, however, Senator Cassidy on Tuesday told Americans that if confirmed, RFK Jr. and he “will meet regularly,” and the HHS Secretary would meet quarterly with the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. And he said Kennedy committed to giving the HELP Committee 30-day notice if he wants to change vaccine monitoring programs.

“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy announced (video below).

On social media media Cassidy added: “I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning. I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”

Backlash against Cassidy has been swift.

READ MORE: Dems Blocked From Entering USAID Offices: ‘Illegal and Corrupt’

“Having very intense conversations with a liar is not a good way to discover the truth,” wrote The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds.”

“You are a coward,” charged Fred Wellman, an Army veteran of 22 years who served four combat tours, and is now a political consultant and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” “What did they threaten you with? This Administration never keeps promises. Why are you such a spineless fraud? Just disgraceful. You’ve gotten your footnote in the history books as a weak man who surrendered when challenged. Nobody remembers the cowards.”

“Our Republican Party has fully turned into the soulless United Russia party and act identical to the communist politburo,” observed Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and an expert on Russian intelligence.

“Rarely does somebody get to flush two essential oaths, Hippocratic and Constitutional, down the toilet at once. May history remember you for this accomplishment,” noted former Obama and Biden administrations official Jesse Lee.

“You’re a doctor who just voted for an anti-vax conspiracy theorist. You’ve made children less safe. You’ve made Americans less safe. This is your legacy,” declared political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.

“Disgusting. I feel for anyone who had him as a Doctor—or a Senator. Kennedy is the most unqualified, disqualified, radical and ridiculous nominee for this role in history. Anyone who votes for him has no integrity,” wrote veterans’ activist Paul Reickhoff.

“You are a moral coward. When children die because they are unvaccinated for measles and polio, you will bear responsibility. When people die from a pandemic because the CDC has been hollowed out, you will have blood on your hands. Shame,” said The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Watch the video below or at this link.

Watching Bill Cassidy reveal the commitments that RFK Jr gave him — for instance, a pledge to provide Senate a 30-day heads-up on any planned changes to vaccine safety monitoring programs

Strikes me that these commitments wouldn’t be needed if the health secretary wasn’t RFK Jr pic.twitter.com/JME59dyjjt

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) February 4, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Do We Have a King?’ Trump and Musk’s Moves Signal ‘Constitutional Crisis,’ Experts Warn

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Elon Musk, now serving as a “special government employee,” and his associates at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), reportedly have gained access to government computers at multiple federal agencies. Following widespread public outcry, a handful of Senate Republicans spoke with the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

Politico reports that Secretary Scott Bessent “privately reassured Republican lawmakers Monday that Elon Musk and his team do not have control over a sensitive government system that manages the flow of trillions of dollars in payments, according to five lawmakers in the room for a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill.”

Top Senate Democrats have expressed skepticism, and reports from multiple news outlets provide information that supports their concerns.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that the Treasury Secretary “gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to five people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.”

RELATED: Dems Blocked From Entering USAID Offices: ‘Illegal and Corrupt’

Politico did not explain what Bessent meant by the word “control,” but added that it had “reported Saturday that Bessent signed off on a plan to give ‘read-only’ access to the payment system to a team led by Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, who is now working for the Treasury Department and serves as a liaison to Musk’s DOGE group that operates out of the United States Digital Service.”

But conflicting reports are adding to concerns.

The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein writes: “So now we have multiple conflicting reports about what kind of access DOGE staff has to Treasury’s payment systems.

He says that The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times “have said DOGE’s Treasury access is ‘read-only.’ (WSJ cited person familiar & NYT cited WH spokeswoman),” but “Wired — & @NathanTankus today, citing convo w/ staff — say that’s not true, & that they, crucially, have code EDITING privileges as well.”

Investigative reporter and tech entrepreneur Dave Troy for years has been writing about Russia, Putin, geopolitics, and information warfare. He scathingly warns: “Even if they only have ‘read only’ access, that alone is unacceptable, and is the kind of justifying logic rapists use.”

Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall on Tuesday morning dropped this bombshell: He alleges a Musk associate has made changes to the Treasury’s payment systems at the code level.

“Overnight Wired reported that contrary to published reports that DOGE operatives at the Treasury Department are limited to ‘read only’ access to department payment systems, this is not true,” Marshall wrote. “A 25 year old DOGE operative named Marko Elez in fact has admin privileges on these critical systems which directly control and pay out roughly 95% of payments made by the US government including Social Security checks, tax refunds and virtually all contract payments.”

“I can independently confirm these details based on conversations going back to the weekend. I can further report that Elez not only has full access to these systems, he has already made extensive changes to the code base for these critical payment system,” Marshall also stated.

“I’m told that Elez and possibly other DOGE operatives received full admin-level access on Friday, January 31st. The claim of ‘read only’ access was either false from the start or later fell through. The DOGE team, which appears to be mainly or only Elez for the purposes of this project, has already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system.”

RELATED: ‘Do We Have a King?’ Trump and Musk’s Moves Signal ‘Constitutional Crisis,’ Experts Warn

Troy responded to Marshall, saying: “This is insane.”

This is insane. These systems are highly complex and utilize layers and layers of programs, many with legacy code that literally cannot fail. Lord help us all. https://t.co/K1sUlQP7Zz

— Dave Troy (@davetroy) February 4, 2025

Musk himself appears to have served up some fodder for reports that allege DOGE has the ability to control payments.

On Sunday at 3:14 AM Musk claimed his team “is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”

He pointed to a post by Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s first National Security Advisor, who became a convicted felon.

The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments https://t.co/GabhBL7gxf

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2025

Politico reported that those “payments to Lutheran charities provide refugee services.”

“Musk also suggested — without offering any evidence — that career Treasury officials were breaking the law in approving some payments and had approved payments to known fraudulent organizations and terrorist groups.”

Many Democrats are furious over Musk and his associates gaining unprecedented access, and they not appear to believe what the newly-installed Treasury Secretary reportedly told their Republican colleagues.

“Elon just grabbed the controls of our whole payment system, demanding the power to turn it on for his friends or turn it off for anyone he doesn’t like,” said U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Monday (video below). “One guy deciding who gets paid and who doesn’t.”

“We don’t know what safeguards were pulled down,” Warren warned. “Are the gates wide open for hackers from China From North Korea? From Iran? From Russia?”

She alleged it is possible that “black hat hackers from all around the world” might be “finding out” information “about each one of us.”

Elon Musk seized control of our payment system—that’s how your grandpa gets his Social Security check or how your mom’s doctor gets paid by Medicare.

The unelected billionaire wants the power to turn that on or off, for anyone.

No more business as usual. We need to fight… pic.twitter.com/cF2WauPzdk

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 3, 2025

U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, “rejected the idea that Musk allies’ access to the payments system was as limited as Republicans and the administration are claiming,” as Politico reported.

“Some Republicans are trying to suggest that Musk only has ‘viewing access’ to Treasury’s highly sensitive payment system as if that’s acceptable either. But why on earth should we believe that—particularly when he is saying the exact opposite loudly and repeatedly for everyone to see?” Murray declared.

Watch the video above or at this link.

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