{"id":125143,"date":"2025-02-03T18:03:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T18:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/usaid-headquarters-in-washington-are-blocked-after-musk-says-trump-agrees-to-close-the-aid-agency-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-02-03T18:03:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T18:03:32","slug":"usaid-headquarters-in-washington-are-blocked-after-musk-says-trump-agrees-to-close-the-aid-agency-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/usaid-headquarters-in-washington-are-blocked-after-musk-says-trump-agrees-to-close-the-aid-agency-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"USAID headquarters in Washington are blocked after Musk says Trump agrees to close the aid agency – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development have been instructed to stay out of its Washington headquarters after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
USAID humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela is displayed for the media at a warehouse next to the Tienditas International Bridge on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, Feb. 19, 2019. (AP Photo\/Fernando Vergara, File)
Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development have been instructed to stay out of its Washington headquarters after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster)
USAID humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela is displayed for the media at a warehouse next to the Tienditas International Bridge on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, Feb. 19, 2019. (AP Photo\/Fernando Vergara, File)
USAID humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela is displayed for the media at a warehouse next to the Tienditas International Bridge on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, Feb. 19, 2019. (AP Photo\/Fernando Vergara, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency\u2019s Washington headquarters, and yellow police tape and officers blocked the agency\u2019s lobby on Monday, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency<\/a><\/span>.
USAID staffers also said more than 600 additional employees had reported being locked out of the agency\u2019s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails saying that \u201cat the direction of Agency leadership\u201d the headquarters building \u201cwill be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.\u201d The agency\u2019s website vanished Saturday without explanation.
The fast-moving developments come after thousands of USAID employees already have been laid off and programs shut down in the two weeks since President Donald Trump took office and show the extraordinary power of Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency<\/a><\/span>, or DOGE, in the Trump administration. Musk announced closing of the agency early Monday, as Trump\u2019s secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a><\/span>, was out of the country on a trip to Central America.
Trump, a Republican, also has ordered a freeze on foreign assistance<\/a><\/span> with widespread effects around the world. The moves by the U.S., the world\u2019s largest provider of humanitarian aid, have upended decades of policy that put humanitarian, development and security assistance in the center of efforts to build alliances and counter adversaries including China and Russia. They\u2019ve forced U.S. and international companies to shut down tens of thousands of programs globally, leading to furloughs, layoffs and financial crises that have left many fearing the aid community already has been too damaged by the freeze to resume work even if funding resumes.
Democratic lawmakers have protested the moves, saying Trump lacks constitutional authority to shut down USAID without congressional approval and decrying Musk\u2019s accessing sensitive government-held information through his Trump-sanctioned inspections of federal government agencies and programs.<\/p>\n

On Monday, two State Department employees who tried to gain access to the USAID offices in the building said they were turned away by security guards, who told them the offices were open but people could not go in. Later in the morning, uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers and security officers blocked the lobby of the USAID\u2019s headquarters using yellow tape with the words \u201cdo not cross.\u201d
The white USAID flag still flew on the empty plaza in front of the agency headquarters Monday morning. A State Department staffer stood in front, and he said he just wanted to pay his respects. Staffers said employees earlier Monday had been able to reach other parts of the agency to clear personal belongings from their offices.
The developments come after Musk, who\u2019s leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with Trump\u2019s agreement, said early Monday that he had spoken with Trump about the six-decade U.S. aid and development agency and \u201che agreed we should shut it down.\u201d
\u201cIt became apparent that it\u2019s not an apple with a worm it in,\u201d Musk said in a live session on X Spaces early Monday. \u201cWhat we have is just a ball of worms. You\u2019ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It\u2019s beyond repair.\u201d
\u201cWe\u2019re shutting it down,\u201d he said.
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports Elon Musk says President Donald Trump has \u2018agreed\u2019 USAID should be shut down.
Musk, Trump and some Republican lawmakers have targeted the U.S. aid and development agency, which oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in some 120 countries, in increasingly strident terms, accusing it of promoting liberal causes.
Since Trump took office, appointees brought in from his first term such as Peter Marocco placed more than 50 senior officials on leave for investigation without public explanation, gutting the agency\u2019s leadership. When the agency\u2019s personnel chief announced that the allegations against them were groundless and tried to reinstate them, he was placed on leave as well.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave<\/a><\/span> after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk\u2019s government-inspection teams, a current and a former U.S. official said.
Musk\u2019s DOGE<\/a><\/span> earlier carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Department<\/a><\/span>, gaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. The Washington Post reported that a senior Treasury official had resigned over Musk\u2019s team accessing sensitive information.
USAID, meanwhile, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted<\/a><\/span> by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government<\/a><\/span> and many of its programs.
\u201cIt\u2019s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we\u2019re getting them out,\u201d Trump said to reporters about USAID on Sunday night.
The Trump administration and Rubio have imposed an freeze on foreign assistance<\/a><\/span> that has shut down much of USAID\u2019s aid programs worldwide and ordered furloughs and leaves that have gutted the agency\u2019s leadership and staff<\/a><\/span> in Washington.
The funding freeze has shut down an HIV-AIDS program started by Republican President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 20 million lives in Africa and elsewhere. Aid contractors spoke of millions of dollars in medication and other goods now stuck in port that they were forbidden to deliver.
Other programs that would shut down provided education to schoolgirls in Afghanistan under Taliban rule and monitored an Ebola outbreak spreading in Uganda. A USAID-supported crisis monitoring program, which was credited for helping prevent repeats of the 1980s famine in Uganda that killed up to 1.2 million people, has gone offline.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a post on Sunday that Trump was allowing Musk to access people\u2019s personal information and shut down government funding.
\u201cWe must do everything in our power to push back and protect people from harm,\u201d the Massachusetts senator said, without giving details.
Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development have been instructed to stay out of its Washington headquarters after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":125144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}