First, can we agree that USAID did provide at least some food and health care to some very needy people? Perhaps even concede that it worked against the spread of diseases such as Ebola (I believe even Musk admitted as much)?
If there really is all of this corruption and fraud in what is a very very small portion of the federal budget, then it seems to me that the folks working to get rid of the corruption, waste, and fraud should be able to provide an accurate report (with names) of what they have found to justify what they are doing.
Is USAID involved in intelligence gathering? Probably. I would actually hope that we are collecting information from all possible sources so that we know what is going on in the world. Or is that somehow wrong too?
I am not sure how you define propaganda, but sure, a large part of why we had USAID was so that the world would think better of us. Is that propaganda? Maybe yes, maybe no.
Let's see how many contracts are taken down and given to Musk (I think this is the definition of self dealing). If the answer is none, I think that is a datapoint that should be considered. If the answer is not none, that should be considered as well.
If the executive branch of government has decided that we need to cut the government down because philosophically they think that is the right thing to do, so be it; they won the election. When people lie about what they are doing or why they are doing it (that is my take on all of this), then I wonder why we should believe a single word they say. Ignoring any political position I personally have, when it comes to the government I try to be on the side of provable fact rather than "trust me".
