US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on February 03, 2025 in Washington, DC.

WASHINGTON ― US President Donald Trump’s extraordinary and unprecedented move to unilaterally shutter a federal agency without congressional approval drew little pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill who’ve spent years complaining about executive overreach and infringements on their power of the purse.

“My attitude is, if you’re upset by that, call someone who cares,” Senator John Kennedy (Republican, Louisiana) told reporters on Monday. “Because that’s why we’re elected ― to review all the spending.”

Over the weekend, agents of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is led by billionaire Elon Musk, effectively shut down the US Agency for International Development, locking its employees out of their computers, barring them from their offices and halting its work delivering humanitarian assistance abroad. The Tesla CEO then accused the agency of being a “criminal organisation” that should “die.”

Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Republican proponent of USAID’s mission during his time serving the Senate, also announced on Monday he is taking over as acting director of USAID to overhaul its funding and operations. The agency, he said, would be consolidated under the State Department with the consultation of Congress.

Democratic lawmakers and legal experts warned the Trump administration has no authority to dissolve or consolidate the USAID, an independent government agency. They said that such efforts are........

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