GOP chairman responds after protesters are tossed from USAID spending hearing

A group of protesters attempted to derail a USAID hearing at the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday, demanding that President Donald Trump’s administration restore aid funding.

Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., poked fun at the protesters for being behind the times after they interrupted opening statements from witnesses before the committee.

“PEPFAR saves lives. Restore AIDS funding now,” the protesters chanted as they were forced out of the chamber.

“I guess these guys don’t watch the news. They didn’t realize that PREPFAR was one of the many programs that did prove to be life-saving so the funding was restored,” Mast said. “Somebody better give them a link to, I don’t know, maybe Fox News or something like that.”

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PEPFAR is a global AIDS relief program that has been credited with saving over 20 million lives since it was created under President George W. Bush.

The program received a waiver from Trump’s administration to continue its work despite the wider funding freeze impacting USAID and state department aid programs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also created a wider exemption for “life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance,” Congressional Republicans noted in a memo.

Republicans have blasted the wider wasteful spending at USAID and the state department, however.

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The memo also highlighted funding programs including “$39,652 to host seminars at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on gender identity and racial equality through the State Department” and “$425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly through USAID.”

Other priorities listed included “$14 million in cash vouchers for migrants at the southern border through the State Department,” “$446,700 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal through the State Department” and “$32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru.”