Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley described Wednesday on Fox News how “liberals are losing their minds” over the Trump administration’s exposure of taxpayer dollars being wasted, adding he would like to see the president take down the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) next.
Following an X discussion space with Elon Musk on Monday about how the Department of Government Efficiency and President Donald Trump would upend the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Democratic lawmakers began pushing back, saying the move to place USAID under the control of the State Department is illegal. On “The Ingraham Angle,” Hawley called out Democrats’ panic over the exposure of billions being wasted on international programs, some of which had a high risk of landing in the Taliban’s hands and also aiding an organization linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
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“They’re panicking big time, Laura, because their power base is being threatened. That’s what’s really going on here. I mean, look at what they’re doing over USAID. This is because they’ve used that as their personal plaything. That includes billions and billions of taxpayer dollars that have gone, yeah, to fund outrageous stuff overseas like trans-affirming projects in Zimbabwe or whatever,” Hawley said.
“But also let’s not forget to fund their preferred media outlets like Politico and who knows what other left-wing rags have been getting money, federal government money from this agency, and there’s been no accountability,” Hawley added. “So yes, what’s happening is Trump is exposing all of this. He is cutting off the liberal supply chains, as it were, and the liberals are just losing their minds. They’re totally losing their minds.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that he would be the USAID’s new acting director, telling reporters that taxpayers needed to be assured that “every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest” and added that USAID workers have refused to “cooperate.”
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Hawley went on to call out the IRS, saying that the Democrats’ message to voters is how they would “love to waste” taxpayer dollars, through their defense of USAID.
“We need more of it. You mentioned the IRS. I love it. I love Trump’s idea to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. Let’s make it the External Revenue Service. Let’s start making these agencies work for the American people,” Hawley said.
“So here’s their message, I guess, Laura, to the American people, which is that ‘Yes, we would love to waste your money. We’d like to take all of your money. We don’t want to spend it on America. We don’t want you to have better jobs. We don’t want you to have higher wages. We don’t want you to have a secure border. We’d love to go spend it overseas, promoting the left-wing transgender policies. We want to make sure that the trans flag is flying everywhere,’” Hawley said. “‘We want to make sure that we’re pushing every left-wing pro-abortion policy we can. That’s what we want to spend your money on, America.’”
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In an executive order on Jan. 20, Trump halted the freeze on the hiring of federal civilian employees, applying the order throughout the executive branch. Within the order, Trump said that the director of the Office of Management and Budget’s “memorandum shall expire for all executive departments and agencies, with the exception of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).”
A press statement later released by U.S. House Committee on Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith supported the move, saying that Trump’s cease-and-desist order to the IRS “is a crucial first step to helping middle-class Americans and small businesses living in fear of 87,000 new IRS agents targeting them with new audits and monitoring their personal transactions.”
“I hope, Laura, that they run on this in the midterms. I hope they run on this forever. This is exactly what the American people rejected. The Democrats wonder, ‘Why are we so unpopular?’ That’s why you’re so unpopular,” Hawley said.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.