Below are Congressman Raskin’s full remarks, as delivered, at the press conference. 

“Elon Musk, you didn’t create USAID—the United States Congress did, for the American people.

“And just like Elon Musk did not create USAID, he doesn’t have the power to destroy it. And who’s going to stop him? We are. We’re going to stop him. 

“Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury, but you don’t control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does that—under Article I of the Constitution. 

“And just like the president, who was elected to something, cannot impound the money of the people, we don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that’s going to become real clear.  

“This illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power is threatening lives all over the world. I’m hearing from my constituents who work for USAID, and USAID contractors, in Maryland, in Washington, all over the world.

“And they’re telling us that this is a killer: in terms of their cutoff of HIV and AIDS preemption.

“It’s a killer: in terms of anti-malarial education.

“It’s a killer: in terms of all of the efforts to shut down global viruses.

“Now, I don’t know what Elon Musk’s intentions are. I don’t know what Elon Musk’s motivations are. I don’t know what his purposes are—but they’ve got nothing to do with what has been lawfully adopted by the people of the United States of America, through the Congress of the United States. We’re going to defend USAID all the way.

“And I want to say, finally, this: I’ve heard some murmurings in support of this outrageous, scandalous, illegal maneuver that they just need some time to do some studies for evaluations. Well, I’ve heard from multiple constituents working at USAID that they have removed all evaluations from the USAID website and they have shut down—immediately, as of right now—all of the evaluations taking place, of USAID efforts all over the world.

“This has nothing to do with evaluation. This is about termination and obliteration of the major foreign aid programs of the United States of America, all of which together total less than $40 billion. We have a Pentagon budget of $900 billion. The Pentagon budget is where the defense contractor Elon Musk, who became the richest man in the world off of our money, collects his payments from. And now he’s trying to shut down USAID. 

“We’re not going to allow this to happen. It will not stand.”