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Nicholas Kristof-Really, Secretary Rubio? I'm Lying About the Kids Dying Under Trump?
Last edited Sat May 31, 2025, 06:57 PM - Edit history (1)
Gift link. trump and Rubio are killing children
Really, Secretary Rubio? I’m Lying About the Kids Dying Under Trump? 🚫MAGA www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/o...
— Real Man (@realman1949.bsky.social) 2025-05-31T12:24:50.228Z
Link to tweet
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/opinion/rubio-usaid-africa.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LU8.06EV.DPNwYBvkZrS9&smid=url-share
While testifying before Congress, Rubio claimed that the Trump administration’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development had not cost any lives.
“No children are dying on my watch,” he asserted. At another point in the hearing, he broadened his statement to include adults as well: “No one has died because of U.S.A.I.D.”
This is ludicrous: The only debate is whether to measure the dead in the thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. So Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, challenged Rubio, citing reporting overseas by me and by Reuters of individuals who died as a result of the shutdown of American humanitarian aid.
“That’s a lie,” Rubio said. “False.”
So let me help Rubio with the truth. Meet Evan Anzoo, a 5-year-old boy who was born with H.I.V. in South Sudan:
I mentioned Evan in a column in March from South Sudan. This was a child as precious as yours or mine. Evan’s life was in our hands, and for five years America kept him alive with antiretroviral medicines costing less than 12 cents a day, through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. This was a program started by President George W. Bush that has saved more than 26 million lives so far, and it turned the tide of AIDS around the world and built enormous good will toward the United States......
Rubio chooses not to make the argument that I believe is Trump’s true position: We want tax cuts (disproportionately benefiting the rich), so we need to cut funds in the budget from people who are so marginalized that they can’t complain.
So Evan and Achol died.
To deny the reality of dying children not only insults the memory of children starving to death in Sudan and Yemen and Afghanistan; it also insults the intelligence of Americans.
“No children are dying on my watch,” he asserted. At another point in the hearing, he broadened his statement to include adults as well: “No one has died because of U.S.A.I.D.”
This is ludicrous: The only debate is whether to measure the dead in the thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. So Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, challenged Rubio, citing reporting overseas by me and by Reuters of individuals who died as a result of the shutdown of American humanitarian aid.
“That’s a lie,” Rubio said. “False.”
So let me help Rubio with the truth. Meet Evan Anzoo, a 5-year-old boy who was born with H.I.V. in South Sudan:
I mentioned Evan in a column in March from South Sudan. This was a child as precious as yours or mine. Evan’s life was in our hands, and for five years America kept him alive with antiretroviral medicines costing less than 12 cents a day, through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. This was a program started by President George W. Bush that has saved more than 26 million lives so far, and it turned the tide of AIDS around the world and built enormous good will toward the United States......
Rubio chooses not to make the argument that I believe is Trump’s true position: We want tax cuts (disproportionately benefiting the rich), so we need to cut funds in the budget from people who are so marginalized that they can’t complain.
So Evan and Achol died.
To deny the reality of dying children not only insults the memory of children starving to death in Sudan and Yemen and Afghanistan; it also insults the intelligence of Americans.
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