They met on screens, not a stage—two former presidents and a rock star facing stunned civil servants through webcams. USAID, a product of Kennedy-era idealism, was being absorbed into a State Department newly framed around “national interest” above all else. Bush recited figures—25 million lives saved—as if numbers could stop a shutdown. Obama spoke like he was addressing veterans of a war few back home ever noticed.
Beyond that virtual room, the story was blunt: DOGE, Elon Musk, and Trump’s tally of “waste,” where scholarships in Burma and LGBTQ programs in Lesotho became rally jokes. Inside, Bono’s words lingered: “They called you crooks. When you were the best of us.” The agency ended with a memo. The loss did not.
