On “The Interview” segment for Thursday’s CBS Evening News Plus (and, yes, this is now a thing), anchor John Dickerson brought in International Rescue Committee CEO and former Labour Party U.K. politician David Miliband to keep alive the belief that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk and President Trump will “imperil millions” with people “starving” and lacking “medicines.”
“No aid relief, with billions in U.S. humanitarian funding cut. We’ll look at the impact on global health, famines, and maintaining a stabilized world. That’s for tonight’s interview,” Dickerson said in a tease.
Dickerson dialed up more apocalyptic talk in queuing up Miliband: “Human rights organizations are warning that the Trump administration’s massive cuts in international aid relief could imperil millions living in global crisis zones.”
Asked how “difficult is IRC’s job” without those sweet, sweet tax dollars, Miliband said “there’s no aid flowing” to desperate regions and “no aid money at all.”
He added the Trump administration has created “three issues”:
Number one, they’ve given us waivers to continue programming but they’re not sending any money. Those are life-saving programs for health, nutrition. They’ve given us permission. They say, we want you to deliver your programs that save lives, but there’s no money coming. Second, we’ve got programs that are life-saving in places like South Sudan that have simply been terminated with no good reason, nutrition programs, core programs for keeping people alive. And thirdly, the system is breaking down because we’ve applied for waivers for life-saving programs that haven’t even been determined, including in places like Sudan, which is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. So the U.S. as the anchor of the global aid system, the anchor’s being pulled up and the ship is rocking in very choppy seas.
A concerned Dickerson followed up: “In that third part, you’re applying for — is it just that there’s nobody on the phone to reach?”
Miliband confirmed and said “millions of people are affected” and “not...a marginal part of the global aid system,” but the “core” “of the global aid system.”
Dickerson led Miliband down the predictable route of mal-nutrition, starvation, and death and painting a picture as though there are no other aid groups on this planet except for USAID (click “expand”):
DICKERSON: And we’re talking about food to keep from starving, medicines.
MILIBAND: Yeah, absolutely, cool. I mean, the — Secretary Rubio has said he wants an exclusion, a waiver for all food programs, for life-saving programs, but the money’s not flowing there. But also, we have health, nutrition, malnutrition programs. South Sudan, we’re helping 250,000 people through a program funded by the U.S. government. 6,000 kids at dire risk have had their program terminated. That’s how serious it is.
DICKERSON: You’ve mentioned this, but how much different would this have been if it had been less of a swift process, less of a Pell-Mell process?
MILIBAND: Well, it would have been 180 degrees different because while the government was doing its review, it could have kept the programs going. It could have said, like, we’re going to keep going with these. We’ll change our priorities. That’s understandable. But across the world, the global aid system is in crisis because we don’t know where the next dollar is coming from.
As for alternatives, Dickerson wondered if there’s “food sitting in warehouses.” Miliband said there were with IRC not “do[ing] much food distribution”
“We’re having to confine programs to their bare essentials. We’re very committed. We’re a mission-driven organization. We know that the American public, corporations, philanthropists want to play their part. We’re appealing to them, but we’re also appealing to the government. America’s got a proud tradition in this area. It doesn’t need to halt all the aid while it’s considering the next steps in aid reform,” he added.
To see the relevant CBS transcript form March 6, click here.
