When RINO senator Susan Collins tried taking President Trump to task after he cut funding to USAID, she got destroyed online by conservatives, who called her out for taking “cushy USAID kickbacks” and prioritizing money and power over the American people and said that it was “time to retire.”
For context, on May 29, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a hearing on the reorganization of the federal budget, making the case that cutting funding to USAID supports America’s interests. In response, Sen. Collins (R-MN) fiercely criticized the Trump Administration for defunding USAID, and her statements drew a firestorm of criticism from conservatives online.
During Secretary Rubio’s testimony, Sen. Collins spoke out against the Trump Administration’s sweeping changes to U.S. foreign aid policies, saying, “U.S. International assistance plays a key role in helping us to respond to humanitarian crises, fight the spread of deadly diseases like Ebola, and project soft power.” She added, “That’s why I’m concerned that the President’s budget request proposes a cut of 62% below the enacted level of 2025 for global health programs.”
Continuing, Sen. Collins asked Secretary Rubio if he was concerned that cutting funding would result in China stepping in to “pick up the terminated USAID health programs, particularly in South Asia.” In response, Secretary Rubio shot down Sen. Collins’ speculations, saying that the country’s aid is driven by “traditional loans to trap nations.” He added that China will “give you the money so that you hire their companies to do the work. But on the space of humanitarian [aid], they are not major players.”
Building on his point, Secretary Rubio argued that the United States “dwarfs” China and “the next nine or 10 countries on the list in terms of what we provide” in terms of foreign aid. He added that one of the primary reasons for sweeping changes to the U.S. budget for foreign aid was “because we, you know, the reductions that happened at USAID transferred some of these programs over under state, and so now we have to accommodate that within our overall budget.”
Next, Secretary Rubio drove his point home by saying that in the current state of the world, “It’s essential that we recognize that this is not a time of largesse,” adding that the path forward for America would be to “limit how much we spend in general as a government, given the fact that just a few days ago, we sought to downgrade our debt.” He added, “These are problematic things, and other nations need to step up and do more.”
Concluding his statement, Secretary Rubio made it clear that the United States will continue to invest in foreign aid, but clarified, “It is frustrating to me to see how much money we invest in certain countries, albeit on what we term humanitarian or global health.”
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When a clip of the exchange between Sen. Collins and Secretary Rubio was shared online by the X account Dutch, they savagely roasted the RINO senator, writing, “Susan Collins is more concerned about her cushy USAID kickbacks than the American people.” They added, Time to retire, you outdated RINO hack. We aren’t taking care of the rest of the world when our own citizens are struggling. It’s high time we prioritize America First, always.”
Watch the clip:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video