Overview

• The Trump administration ordered a halt to most foreign aid funding in January and attempted to dismantle USAID, but courts have temporarily blocked the funding freeze.
• During his May 30 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Bono cited a Boston University model projecting 300,000 deaths—including 200,000 children—attributed to the abrupt USAID cuts and described 50,000 tons of aid food rotting in warehouses.
• Elon Musk, who stepped down this week as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, took to X to call Bono a “liar/idiot” and asserted that “zero people have died.”
• Joe Rogan acknowledged waste and fraud within USAID but argued that the Trump administration’s cuts were too hasty and urged a targeted approach to preserve life-saving programs while preventing abuse.
• Researchers emphasize that Brooke Nichols’s 300,000 figure is a projection based on modeling assumptions rather than confirmed fatalities and note uncertainties over mitigation efforts and actual funding flows.