Magic DT

An island of such great complexity. QueensU. Columbia.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@gietzschean @aa0921629853 uchicago

[Samantha Power @SamanthaJPower]

Starting in early 2025, Elon Musk and the Trump administration began terminating USAID's programs and firing its staff — with Musk himself boasting about "feeding it into the woodchipper." One year ago today, USAID was officially dissolved, its remaining programs haphazardly folded into the State Department. Amid all the lies and misinformation that have followed, some facts about what has actually been lost:

• USAID saved more than 3 million lives a year at a cost of less than $10/month per American. That is what was destroyed. On purpose.
• According to Boston University's Global Impact Counter — which tracked deaths attributable to the cuts until it stopped operations in February 2026 — an estimated 781,000 people died preventable deaths in the first year, including 518,000 children.
• Global child mortality (the number of children who die before their fifth birthday) rose in 2025 for the first time in 35+ years — by 200,000 additional deaths.
• USAID's 50-country disease surveillance network — the system that cut outbreak response times from 2 weeks to 48 hours — is gone. We are now watching an unprecedented Ebola outbreak unfold in real time — with the highest first-month caseload and death rate in modern history.
• Programs reaching 93 million women and children were cut 92%. TB programs cut 56%. Water and sanitation cut 86%. Over 2,000 health facilities permanently closed.
• 25 million fewer people received humanitarian assistance in 2025. The overall humanitarian budget was slashed 74% — from $14.1 billion to $3.7 billion.
• 363 million people face acute hunger in 2026. The famine early-warning system that would have seen it coming went dark for five months.
• $1.7 billion in democracy and governance funding (election monitoring, anti-corruption work, support for independent media and civil society) was terminated.
• 360+ independent media outlets lost funding. Hundreds of legal clinics closed.
• Far from saving money, the Trump administration itself has already said the dismantlement will cost taxpayers at least $19.2 billion in cancellation fees, severance, and penalties. That's more than half of USAID's annual budget — spent on destruction and closeout, not support for vulnerable people.
• American farmers, universities, and businesses are among the casualties too. USAID partnered with more than 3,500 U.S. companies and maintained 17 university-based research labs. Its work with U.S.-based contractors and the private sector generated hundreds of thousands of American jobs and multiplied the return on every dollar spent. Those markets and partnerships are gone.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@jonesjjlb @ianbremmer He literally took 500 m from some emerati thug. Try to keep up.

[Ruth Ben-Ghiat @ruthbenghiat]

Tracks with how authoritarians behave. A partial list of men who ran for office to make investigations or corruption or other charges go away: Putin, Netanyahu, Berlusconi (3x) and Trump (3x).

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@j16425646 i'm a believer but what's your take on why the stock has slid so much in the past couple weeks? is it just the macro picture?

[TheFrenchie @ML3democrats]

Happy Saturday everyone ☀️

This is so true 👇

[Joe G @EastEndJoe]

You all thought I was kidding.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@marie_ide80526 @PhillipsPOBrien If you have the vaccine, you dont get sick.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@shadowcrewtroll @PhillipsPOBrien Nope.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@marie_ide80526 @PhillipsPOBrien The point isnt that they won’t recover, dumbass, it’s that a force meant to be permanently on call all get sick at once from an eminently preventable illness. Do better.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@MamaSchollaert @colder_sarcasm thanks for what? driving up gas prices? jacking up inflation?

[Simon Kuper @KuperSimon]

All the humiliations that I'm aware of so far have been inflicted on Latino, Black or Muslim-origin teams/referees/fans

[ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki]

1/ Iran has reportedly assessed that Donald Trump is "mentally incompetent" and has incorporated psychologists into its negotiating team to adapt the wording of the proposed agreement "as if the recipient were a [mental] patient ... whose capacity is limited." ⬇️

[Liam Nissan™ @theliamnissan]

Yup

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@gerardtbaker Then don’t host the event. The rest of the world could care less what americans think but we do care about a clean, representative and fair world cup.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@PirateWires Viewership was up 9% last year. Do better. Even pirates had to look at maps.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@Kerrydale67 @AaronBastani But he was a quasi diplomat.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

@Charloch0506 @AaronBastani He was coming under the auspices of a global event. He should have admitted. It makes us look smaller and pettier.

[Magic DT @DornTownsend]

what bs

[Sky Sports News @SkySportsNews]

Africa's top referee will not be allowed to officiate at the World Cup after he was refused entry to the USA, FIFA has confirmed 🚨