But when we make a mistake well fix it very quickly.
They thanked America for its generosity, for its commitment to saving these womens lives.
What are Americans getting wrong about foreign aid spending, and how did it become this flashpoint for Republicans?
Supporters of terminated USAID employees hold signs at the USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 27.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Americans are kind of complicated.
In fact, its 1 percent roughly.
But I do think that there is a weariness with the world, kind of an exhaustion.
Why arent these milestones something that Americans are constantly celebrating?
It has gone through cycles.
There was sort of a heroic element to it, and people joined the Peace Corps.
And then, [the Vietnam War] rather sullied that notion of American intervention in the world.
A generation or two later, I think Iraq did something of the same thing.
Maybe the most important aid program we have isPEPFARwhich was President Bushs landmark 2003 program to combat AIDS.
What were the valid criticisms of USAID?
What actual reforms do you think were needed?
Both sides have done things that seem fashionable and ideological.
That works if you are trying to build a Tesla.
It doesnt work if youre saving childrens lives, and medication isnt there, and the kid dies.
Youre not going to resurrect that child.
And that is what is happening.
They dont know what theyre doing.
We will end up paying in lives and treasure for some of these programs on disease surveillance.
So its not just kids abroad who die, but hes placing Americans at risk as well.
What are critics getting wrong or right about the intelligence communitys relationship with foreign aid?
Or how it relates to soft power?
I think that the intelligence community side of that is vastly overstated.
I think that was more true in the 1960s.
I think its much less true today.
I think much less often as USAID people.
They stick out, you know, when they dont know anything about aid.
Sometimes it seems like an outright abandonment of the soft power were talking about.
That was true of Kennedy and Johnson and Clinton.
It was true of Reagan and [H.W.]
George W. Bush began to have more skepticism about multilateralism, more of a willingness to go it alone.
But it really took off under Trump in a totally different way.
NATO is more or less defunct now.
So two other pieces that you wrote recently really stood out to me.
Combine them, and you get a weaker America in a more dangerous world.
Or is the damage done?
Well, permanent is a long time.
We made terrible mistakes in Vietnam, and we managed to recover from them.
But hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died in the process.
We made terrible mistakes in Iraq, and we sort of recovered international respect under Obama.
So I think that hes increased all kinds of risks.
So I think were in a more dangerous world, I think therell be real costs.
The kids that I described in my article, theyre dead, theyre not going to come back.
I think its possible.
I would probably focus on global health and disease.
We have just dismantled those surveillance systems.
There are also novel diseases and pathogens that are going to emerge.
Right now were not even supposed to talk to the World Health Organization.
When has Elon Musk risked his life for something larger than himself?
So, yeah, I found that quite offensive.
