Van Hollen pledges hearings on foreign aid cuts if Democrats lead Senate

Van Hollen cites analyses tying over 700,000 deaths worldwide to USAID cuts

Senator Chris Van Hollen said he would open an accounting of the Trump administration’s changes to U.S. foreign aid if Democrats hold the Senate majority, with public hearings on the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development as his opening move.

Van Hollen announced Thursday that he will challenge Chuck Schumer for Democratic majority leader, saying, “We need new leadership.”

“Priority number one is to do an analysis of all the harm the Trump administration has done,” Van Hollen told NPR in an interview on Tuesday, two days before he announced his challenge to Schumer. He said one of the benefits of the majority is “you actually have a gavel and can call a public hearing, and use that as a spotlight to help educate people around the country.”

Van Hollen has garnered support among Democrats for his sharp criticism of the Trump administration, including its upheaval of U.S. programs to promote health and end poverty around the world. He led protests against the dissolution of USAID, and in a hearing last year he told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that “People died because of those actions, mothers, fathers and children.” He has also authored statements condemning a range of actions, including tying health aid to mineral deals. In the interview he said he wants to “shine a light on all the harm and damage the Trump administration’s done to our country and our interests around the world.”

Van Hollen said he is relying on analyses he described as very credible showing that more than 700,000 people around the world died between January 2025 and January 2026 because of cuts to USAID, and he said that if those trends continue, “you’re talking about millions of people dying in the coming years.” He said the hearings would aim to show “the consequences of Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to USAID,” recalling a February 2025 scene at the White House when Donald Trump was at his desk and Musk was standing behind him, in which a reporter asked Musk about cuts to fighting Ebola and Musk answered, essentially, “Whoops, yeah, we missed that.” Van Hollen said the cuts were not adequately restored and that there is good evidence the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could have been better contained had the United States not reduced public health funding.

He said the goal of any investigation would be “understanding the damage that has been done, fully, with an eye toward reforming it,” rather than returning the system to its prior form.

Van Hollen said a Democratic majority would give the party tools it lacked in the minority, particularly through the power of the purse. He pointed to the administration sitting on funds Congress appropriated for public health at home and for international health programs, and he said the administration rescinded more than $500 million in global health funding with Republican support in Congress. “You would never get Democrats to agree,” he said.

He also cited an ongoing dispute over global public health funds, saying that a number of years ago Congress passed about $1.5 billion for global public health and that it appears the administration is using those funds not for public health but to wind down USAID. “This is an area where we could say no, you may not use these funds to wind down USAID,” Van Hollen said.

The senator said Democrats would push to turn Congress’s report language — the guidance attached to appropriations specifying that money be spent on items such as vaccinations or clinics — into binding law. “We Democrats have been trying to do that, but since we’ve been in the minority, we haven’t been able to get that passed,” Van Hollen said. Van Hollen said that report language “used to be respected by Democratic and Republican presidents.” He said the Trump administration has ignored report language because it is not technically legally binding, and that Republicans in Congress have permitted it. “The more they let them get away with it, the more they do it,” Van Hollen said. He said codifying those safeguards would let Democrats go to court and argue that the money must be spent as Congress directed.

Van Hollen characterized the president as “a lawless president” who remains in the White House, but said a Democratic majority would give the party more leverage. He acknowledged a possible fight with the administration over those safeguards, adding that Democrats would be “in a much stronger position now than we have been.”

Asked whether USAID could return if Democrats win the presidency and keep Congress in 2028, Van Hollen said, “I don’t think there’s anything the Trump administration has done that’s worth preserving or building on,” while adding that he is not in favor of simply returning to the pre-administration status quo. He said he believes USAID protected Americans’ health and helped develop good relations with other countries, and that Democrats need to develop their own plan for performing that role as part of foreign and health policy.

As the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee, Van Hollen oversees the State Department and what is left of USAID. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. NPR reached out to the State Department for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.