Democrats can effectively defend the embattled agency by focusing on popular foreign aid policies – and the growing public concerns about Elon Musk’s influence.
Congressional Democrats led demonstrations last week to protest the Trump administration’s unprecedented assault on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, staffing, and operations. But three well-known Democratic strategists – David Axelrod, James Carville, and Rahm Emanuel – all think that’s a flawed strategy. Instead, they told Politico that Democrats should save their outrage for cuts to government policies that are far more popular than foreign aid, such as federal funding for education and Medicaid.
Progressive politicians, however, can forcefully defend USAID without running afoul of public opinion. You’ll see in the figure below that most Americans support many different forms of foreign aid. They also dislike abrupt policy changes to the status quo and have growing concerns about Elon Musk’s influence in Washington, D.C. So, framing the fight around those more favorable factors would likely bolster public support for USAID.
Foreign aid is not inherently unpopular
Now to be fair, Axelrod was indeed accurate in his assertion that, “When you talk about cuts, the first thing people say is: Cut foreign aid.” Foreign aid almost always comes in last place on the General Social Survey’s (GSS) 20+ questions about the specific policies the country should spend more money on. That was certainly the case in the 2022 GSS, when 57% of respondents said the U.S. spends too much on foreign aid to other countries, compared to only 11% who thought we don’t spend enough.
At the same time, though, the graph below – from a YouGov survey in early February 2025 – shows solid public support for several different forms of foreign aid.
This recent poll asked whether the U.S. government should or should not provide aid to foreign countries for several different purposes. You can see that majorities or pluralities favored all 13 of the policies, with support ranging from a high of 73% who say the U.S. should provide foreign aid to disaster relief to a low of 38% who favor providing military assistance.
Americans are particularly supportive of foreign aid for humanitarian causes. Along with disaster relief, the graph shows that there are solid majorities who think the U.S. should provide foreign aid for food security (64%) and alleviating poverty (57%). In keeping with that strong public support, congressional Republicans are now trying to save USAID’s food program.
Another recent YouGov poll, meanwhile, similarly showed that 71% of Americans (including 63% of Republicans) support the U.S. providing humanitarian aid to other countries. A plurality of Republicans in a March 2024 Pew poll even supported humanitarian aid to Palestinians despite the GOP’s staunch support for Israel.
Democrats could help bolster support for USAID, then, by focusing attention on several of these popular foreign aid programs provided by the agency.
Shifts in support for policies under threat
Those efforts should be aided by a familiar phenomenon in which the public pushes back against policy changes to the status quo. In fact, political science research shows that public opinion often operates as a “thermostat,” whereby the public shifts against the current president’s positions to prevent policymaking from becoming too liberal or too conservative.
For example, Americans’ support for universal government health insurance dropped during Obama’s presidency and then increased as the Trump administration tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. Public support for immigration similarly surged from 2016 to 2020 amidst the Trump presidency’s hawkish rhetoric and policies and then plummeted under Joe Biden’s presidency, when his more lenient policies led to record number of border crossings.
We even saw some thermostatic shifts in support of foreign aid during the first Trump administration. The share saying the U.S. spends too much on foreign aid fell from 60% in both the 2012 and 2014 GSS down to 41% in 2018 – by far the lowest percentage since the question was first asked in the early 1970s.
Public opinion shifts in support of foreign aid should be even stronger during the second Trump administration now that aid funding faces far graver threats.
Opposition to Elon Musk
Democrats could further bolster support for USAID by pitting the agency’s foreign aid efforts against Musk. Political science research suggests that cues from enemies are often more important in moving public opinion than messaging from allies, as they typically induce members of the other party to take contrary positions. Trump’s constant push for a U.S.-Mexico border wall during the 2016 presidential campaign, for instance, made the policy much less popular among Democrats.
USAID has a particularly potent foil in Musk. Polling shows that the world’s richest man is increasingly unpopular – and that Americans have growing concerns about his influence as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The share of YouGov/Economist poll respondents who think Musk should have a lot of influence within the Trump administration fell from 27% in November down to just 13% in February. Other polling similarly shows that most Americans now have concerns about conflicts of interest arising from Musk’s role in DOGE, and disapprove of his prominent role in the administration.
Democrats can help spread the message
Progressives seem to understand the messaging potential here. News stories last week reported on how outrage at the Musk/DOGE attacks on the federal bureaucracy has helped a demoralized Democratic Party finally fight back against Trump. Framing DOGE’s defunding of foreign aid as the world’s richest man taking from the world’s poorest children is a powerful message that will likely increase public support for USAID.As the Politico article points out, “The political considerations in vocally defending foreign aid are of course entirely separate from the humanitarian and national security concerns at play.” But contrary to the magazine’s contention, those considerations are not necessarily at odds with each other. Democrats can forcefully defend USAID without risking political backlash by focusing on popular humanitarian policies and the public’s growing concerns about Elon Musk’s influence.
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