Democrat places blanket hold on Trump’s State Department picks over targeting of USAID

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced Monday he will place a blanket hold on all of President Trump’s nominees to the State Department until the president backs off his effort to shut down USAID, the nation’s chief foreign assistance agency.

“Until and unless this brazenly authoritarian action is reversed and USAID is functional again, I will be placing a blanket hold on all of the Trump administration’s State Department nominees. This is self-inflicted chaos of epic proportions that will have dangerous consequences all around the world,” Schatz said in a statement.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he would join Schatz’s holds, while protesting at the USAID headquarters against Trump’s reorganization of the agency. 

“We’re all in this together,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. 

That hold would impact Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Her nomination was reported out of the Foreign Relations Committee last month.

Trump adviser Elon Musk has made a strong push to close USAID, which he called on X a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Monday that he’s taken over as USAID’s acting director, criticizing it as a “completely unresponsive agency.”

“It’s supposed to respond to policy directives of the State Department, and it refuses to do so,” he said.

The effort to shutter the foreign aid agency is getting strong pushback from Democrats, including Schatz, who held a rally and press conference outside its headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.

“Dismantling USAID is illegal and makes us less safe. USAID was created by federal law and is funded by Congress. Donald Trump and Elon Musk can’t just wish it away with a stroke of a pen – they need to pass a law,” Schatz said.

Laura Kelly contributed.

Updated at 4:51 p.m.