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Officials and federal officers turned away scores of U.S. Agency for International staffers who showed up for work Monday at its Washington headquarters, after a court temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that would have pulled all but a fraction of workers off the job worldwide. A front desk officer told a steady stream of agency staffers dressed in business clothes or USAID sweatshirts or T-shirts that he had a list of no more than 10 names of people allowed to enter the building. Tarps hung over USAID’s interior signs. A man who earlier identified himself as a USAID official took a harsher tone, telling staffers just go” and “why are you here? USAID staff were also denied entry to their offices to retrieve belongings and were told by officials that the agency’s lease had now been turned over to the General Services Administration, which manages federal government buildings. Neither the White House, State Department, USAID nor GSA immediately responded to requests for comment. The move marks the latest step in what has been the fast-paced dismantling of the six-decade-old U.S. aid and development agency and its programs worldwide three weeks ago. Even as President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who runs a cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have taken aim at other government agencies, USAID has been hit hardest so far. The president signed an executive order freezing foreign assistance so the administration could review spending that it says is wasteful or not aligned with Trump’s agenda. That has forced U.S.-funded aid and development programs worldwide to shut down and lay off staff even as Secretary of State Marco Rubio had sought to mitigate the damage by issuing a waiver to exempt emergency food aid and life-saving programs. Despite the waiver, neither funding nor staffing has resumed to get even the most essential programs rolling again, USAID officials and aid groups say. The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the largest humanitarian groups, called the U.S. cutoff the most devastating in its 79-year history and said Monday that it will have to suspend programs serving hundreds of thousands of people in 20 countries. The impact of this will be felt severely by the most vulnerable, from deeply neglected Burkina Faso, where we are the only organization supplying clean water to the 300,000 trapped in the blockaded city of Djibo, to war-torn Sudan, where we support nearly 500 bakeries in Darfur providing daily subsidized bread to hundreds of thousands of hunger-stricken people, the group said in a statement. In an interview aired Sunday with Fox News host Bret Baier ahead of the Super Bowl, Trump suggested that he might allow a handful of aid and development programs to resume under Rubios oversight. Let him take care of the few good ones, Trump said. Aid organizations say the damage that has been done to programs would make it impossible to restart many operations without additional substantial investment. A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that would have put thousands of USAID staffers on administrative leave that same day and given those abroad 30 days to get back to the United States at government expense. The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit by two groups representing federal workers, and another hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. While the judge ordered the administration to restore agency email access for staffers, the order said nothing about reopening USAID headquarters. Some staffers and contractors reported having their agency email restored by Monday, while others said they did not. Some staffers told The Associated Press that they came to the USAID offices because they were confused by conflicting agency emails and notices over the weekend about whether they should go in. Others expected they would be turned away but went anyway. A USAID email sent Sunday night, saying it was From the office of the administrator, told employees that what it called the former USAID headquarters and other USAID offices in the Washington area were closed until further notice. It told workers to telework unless they are instructed otherwise. Department of Homeland Security officers and civilians also blocked USAID staffers and Democratic lawmakers from entering the headquarters last week. Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Palestinians would not have the right of return to the Gaza Strip under his proposal to redevelop the enclave, according to excerpts from a Fox News interview. In a transcript released on Monday, Trump added that he thought he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt to take the displaced Palestinians, saying the U.S. gives the two countries “billions and billions of dollars a year.” Asked if Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, Trump told Fox: “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing,” according an excerpt Fox News broadcast on Monday. “I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again. In a shock announcement last week, Trump proposed resettling Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians. His remarks to Fox were the first time he said they would have no right of return. Residents of Gaza have broadly rejected any suggestion of moving from the strip, as has the Palestinian Authority and the militant group Hamas that administers Gaza. Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump’s statement that Palestinians would not be able to return to Gaza was “irresponsible.” “We affirm that such plans are capable of igniting the region,” he told Reuters on Monday. When Trump introduced his proposals last week, including one for the U.S. to take over Gaza, he drew rebukes from allies throughout the world. Palestinians and regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rejected the proposal outright. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met Trump last week, praised the proposal to resettle Palestinians. He said: “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will depart later this week for his first visit to the Middle East in the job, said Palestinians would have to “live somewhere else in the interim” while strip was rebuilt. Rubio met Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in Washington on Monday for talks on regional stability, Egypt’s foreign ministry said on X, as Cairo fears Palestinians could be forced across Egypt’s border with Gaza. In portions of the interview broadcast on Sunday, Trump reiterated his plan to buy and own Gaza. In the latest excerpt released on Monday, Trump said between two and six communities could be built for the Palestinians “a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is.” “I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent,” he told Fox. Susan Heavey, Simon Lewis, and Nidal Al-Mughrabi, Reuters
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The U.S. military will no longer allow transgender individuals to join the military and will stop performing or facilitating procedures associated with gender transition for service members, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth filed in court on Monday. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month that took aim at transgender troops in a personal wayat one point saying that a man identifying as a woman was “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.” “Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused,” Hegseth said in a memo dated Feb. 7 and filed on Monday with the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. “All unscheduled, scheduled, or planned medical procedures associated with affirming or facilitating a gender transition for Service members are paused,” he said. Hegseth said individuals with gender dysphoria already in the military would be “treated with dignity and respect,” and the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness would provide additional details on what this would mean. The military has about 1.3 million active-duty personnel, according to Department of Defense data. While transgender rights advocates say there are as many as 15,000 transgender service members, officials say the number is in the low thousands. A poll from Gallup published on Monday said 58% of Americans favored allowing openly transgender individuals serving in the military, but the support had declined from 71% in 2019. Last week, a U.S. judge asked lawyers for Trump’s administration to ensure that six military members who sued to stop the executive order targeting transgender troops are not removed from service before further court proceedings are held. Civil rights organizations had filed for a temporary restraining order after a service member alleged that she was told she must either be classified as a man or be separated from the military. Miriam Perelson, a 28-year-old female transgender service member based at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, had said she was required to leave the sleeping area for female troops, given a cot in an empty classroom and not allowed to use the female restrooms. Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart, Reuters
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