USAID Whistleblower Sounds Off On Dems – ‘Tremendous Waste’ Throughout Govt.
Charlie Kirk Staff
02/09/2025

Rob Cohen, a whistleblower for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told Fox News host Jesse Watters that he believes fraud and waste in the federal government go a lot further than what has been found in USAID.
“Well, I have to say this — I want to be careful that this is a classic case where we want to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater. USAID does save babies. That said, it does. Studies show that up to seven million children have been prevented from being born with HIV by giving drugs to HIV positive mothers while they’re giving childbirth. That’s a wonderful thing,” the whistleblower said.
“That said, there is tremendous waste within the aid industrial complex. This is well known. It’s been well documented,” he said. “It’s probably not unique to USAID. It’s probably true across the federal government, in which most contractors charge overhead that is beyond what any reasonable business would consider appropriate. Therefore, the American taxpayer does not get the return on investment that we expect.”
As protests continue from Democrat lawmakers about Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being involved in eradicating the fraud and waste, Watters asked Cohen, who is a Democrat, if he experienced “punishment” for being a whistleblower.
“That’s exactly right. So I was elevated to be the acting deputy chief of staff of the Global Health Bureau during COVID, and I immediately observed incredible delay and arrogance on the part of career bureaucrats who I fought and frankly cleaned up their mess,” the whistleblower said.
“Instead of being appreciative that we avoided an embarrassment, I was retaliated against. I had to sue them under the Whistleblower Protection Act, which is detailed in my op-ed. Then they proceeded to botch 10 times more money,” Cohen noted further.
“I should add this was under the career bureaucrats. There were political appointees like our recent assistant administrator, Atul Gawande, who did a good job of streamlining bureaucracy. That’s where there are important programs that I’m concerned are going to be thrown out with a bureaucracy that has grown over six decades without enough accountability,” he said. “There have been efforts to reform it, not successful. So I hope that this can be an act of creative destruction, which is a good thing, instead of just total destruction, which would be the concern of overreach.”