Mike Lawler held his first town hall of the year yesterday. Well, actually a “Tele-Town Hall.” It lasted one hour. Constituents who signed up in advance received a call-in number. We were then connected in listen-only mode and offered the opportunity to press *3 for questions.

By my count, 11 lucky residents got to ask their Congressman a question during the course of the hour. No dialogue. Just ask and listen. A format tailor-made for the Rule of Lawler.

According to Lawler, almost 4000 people dialed in. Which tells you something.

It just so happens that the last question of the night was about USAID, which I wrote about yesterday. I promise to get back to the riveting story of his performance before the Foreign Relations Committee. But first, the answer from last night. Wait, what was the question again? Did he answer it, or did he just hang up?

Caller: I have been appalled recently by the comments that have been made by some  members of the administration, but also from some of the surrogates, about the Catholic Church’s response with migrants and refugees. My wife and I, we live in Ossining and we’re really concerned with the drastic cuts that are facing the USAID supported programs, especially around Catholic-related services, which is aiding about 20 million desperately poor people around the world. Do you have comments on the chaotic way in which these programs have been cut, contracts that have been promised and not being paid out? Will you support the reinstatement of these funds? What’s your comment on this? 

Mike Lawler: I appreciate it, Kevin. We’ve now held two hearings on USAID in the Foreign Affairs Committee. When President Biden was in office, Samantha Power came before our committee, uh, I think twice, and I have, you know, a number of questions pertaining to USAID. I think a lot of work that they do is vital. I immediately reached out to Secretary Rubio and the Administration with respect to PEPFAR, because PEPFAR is one of the most, uh, frankly important foreign policy initiatives that has been done in over decades . . . and successful. It has saved over 25 million lives in Africa and around the world, uh, you know, especially, on the issue of HIV and working to eradicate that and get people the low cost drugs that they need, uh, if they do in fact have the virus, to live with it. And so, um, there is a lot of good work that USAID does. There’s also a lot of problems. Uh, and I can tell you when the President put in place a 90-day pause, and Secretary Rubio enacted the 90 day pause, uh, USAID and and some of the folks in position of power over there, uh, decided not to abide by that order. And that put them right in the crosshairs, uh, in doing so. And so a lot of the, um, let’s say, work that was done very quickly to dig into the funding, uh, and how those funds were being appropriated exposed a lot of problems. Uh, and one of the things that I think Secretary Rubio is trying to do uh, is bring USAID under the control of the State Department, which is frankly where it should have been. And oddly enough, the Clinton administration and Madeline Albright pushed to bring USAID under the auspices of the State Department in the 90s and it was the Republican Congress at the time that blocked that from happening. And I think that certainly in hindsight was a mistake, that it should be under the auspices of the Secretary of State because it is intended to be a initiative of foreign aid. It is intended to provide to foreign governments, to individuals, uh, to other organizations around the globe, uh, and there again, there’s a lot of good work that they do. There is also a lot of outrageous expenditures that were being funneled through USAID that we in Congress and the Department of Government Efficiency have exposed. And so I think, you know, my my objective as we work through it is to obviously have, uh, some reform and make sure that uh, they uh ultimately are doing the work that is intended through foreign aid. As it pertains to uh Catholic Charities, they do a lot of great work. I know a lot of people at Catholic Charities. I just with Cardinal Dolan the other day. Obviously immigration is a major issue that they focus on, and uh certainly the growth within the the within Catholicism is is certainly within the Latino community, uh, you know, across the globe. And so, you know, they have done a lot of work helping our immigrant communities, but they do a lot of great work here in the Hudson Valley. Um, obviously, as we work through some of the changes in in funding, you know, we will continue to to work with them and address, uh issues that uh that come up, but uh appreciate the question. 

Just to refresh some key facts: A Federal judge yesterday ruled that the cuts at USAID were likely unconstitutional. Rubio & DOGE officially cancelled 83% of USAID’s programs after their thorough 6-week review. A $40B+ agency, with 10K+ employees, is effectively dead. The damage is global.

Welcome to the era of hard power. Enabled by crusaders like Mike Lawler.

To be continued.