June 5, 2026 - Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs, released a report documenting the catastrophic humanitarian, national security, and economic consequences of President Trump’s decision to eliminate the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) one year ago. The report coincides with the deadly and rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

“By shuttering USAID, Donald Trump is causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, harming our national security, and now we are facing a deadly, rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak he and Elon Musk helped cause. Documenting the harm they caused is the first step to accountability,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

“The Trump Administration’s dismantling of USAID has had devastating consequences around the world. These reckless cuts have contributed to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, weakened our national security, and eliminated jobs across our communities. In New Mexico, we take care of one another. We know that when it comes to our global community’s health, our fates are intertwined. Turning our backs on the world doesn't make us safer or stronger—it weakens our economy, our national security, and our global leadership at home and abroad,” said Ranking Member Melanie Stansbury.

“The dismantling of USAID has not only left 10,000 dedicated federal workers out of work, including many of my constituents, but it has also made our world less safe and less healthy. What we’ve seen with the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is a tangible example of this carelessness. It’s clear from this report that hundreds of thousands of people have needlessly gone hungry, gotten sick, or died because of the elimination of USAID. It will take years, if not decades, to rebuild our international reputation, and we should start that work now,” said Ranking Member Suhas Subramanyam.

In February 2025, as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk Elon Musk addressed a cabinet meeting to say, “We will make mistakes. We won't be perfect. When we make mistakes, we'll fix it very quickly. So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention. We restored the Ebola prevention immediately—and there was no interruption.” The evidence is clear that Musk’s claim was inaccurate, and that his cuts have badly hindered Ebola prevention, detection, and screening at enormous cost.

According to models from Boston University, 600,000 people have died in just over a year as a direct result of eliminating USAID, two thirds of them children. As of June 2026, a deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is spreading rapidly, having already sickened more than 1,000 people and killed over 200, in part because the infrastructure USAID built to detect and contain outbreaks like this no longer exists.

Source: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform-Democrats