AMNA NAWAZ: The Trump administration is continuing to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, posting this message on the agency's main page web.

It says on Friday -- quote -- "All USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership, and specially designated programs."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had this to say: MARCO RUBIO, U.S. Secretary of State: Our goal for USAID was to align the programs that it fulfills with the foreign policy of the United States.

And yet, over the last two decades, it has not.

And it has gotten worse and worse.

And multiple administrations have complained about it, but none have done anything about it.

We are going to do something about it.

This is not about ending foreign aid.

It is about structuring it in a way that furthers the national interests of the United States.

AMNA NAWAZ: For perspective on all of this, we turn now to Andrew Natsios.

He was the administrator for USAID during the George W. Bush administration.

He's now at Texas A&M university.

Andrew Natsios, welcome back to the "News Hour."

I just want to start with your response to what we have seen over these last few days, essentially a complete takeover of USAID by Elon Musk and now the entire team placed on leave.

ANDREW NATSIOS, Former Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development: It's not a takeover.

It's a destruction of the agency.

And I just want to say, I have always had respect for Marco Rubio, and I don't now because of the nonsense he just said.

AID was more aligned with President Bush's foreign policy than the State Department was, and sometimes even the Defense Department was.

That's not the problem.

The problem is, they don't have an administrator to run the agency to move it toward the right.

Whenever a president takes office, they appoint people who agree with their point of view.

When there's a Republican president, AID moves to the right.

When there's a Democratic president, AID moves to the left, as it should.

The programs that they're attacking right now are Biden administration programs.

They're not programs that the career people put in place on their own.

They're instructed to do it by the White House.

Why are you blaming the career people at AID for something that Joe Biden did?

I don't understand it.

It's ridiculous.

AID is one of the great powers, humanitarian powers in the world for the United States to protect the American people and our national interests and to protect the people in the developing world from disease, from hunger, and to advocate and to change policies to encourage economic growth and investment.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, tell us a bit, because it feels as if its future is uncertain.

We know Elon Musk says he wants to shut it down.

You hear Secretary Rubio saying there's going to be a restructuring.

But even in this moment of uncertainty, whatever this is, what are you hearing from people on the ground in the countries USAID serves and from leaders of the countries who've partnered with the U.S. in this?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Well, the people I talk to are appalled by what's happening.

And I'm talking about people in the developing world and people certainly within the agency.

The agency is shut down.

We can't field DART teams, Disaster Assistance Response Teams, which we created 35 years ago, and I was the director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, which go to disasters all over the world in civil wars, in famines, in refugee emergencies, and earthquakes.

We can't field those DART teams anymore.

Our anti-polio eradication program is not functioning right now because the missions are shut down.

They're going to close all 80 missions?

That's the stupidest idea I have ever heard.

The most powerful thing we have going for us in the developing world are the USAID missions, two-thirds of whom are local people.

They're people with advanced degrees who work for AID for many years who help run our programs.

Two-thirds of the AID work force aren't even Americans.

And they don't work for very high wages, I have to tell you.

And they do important work, and shutting this whole system down makes no sense at all.

The notion that people have been -- who's been complaining about AID?

The Defense Department, career military does not complain about AID.

They complain about the State Department, if you talk to them.

And I have great respect for our diplomats.

I was a diplomat for a while, but the reality is, AID is far more like the Pentagon, because it is an operational agency that gets stuff done.

State Department is a policymaking body.

If you put AID into State, there will be no development program and no emergency programs, because we will no longer be operational.

It will be a disaster for the United States and a disaster for people in the Global South.

AMNA NAWAZ: Andrew, if I may, let me ask you about the way Secretary Rubio is talking about this, though.

He says this is a restructuring so the agency is more in line with this president's foreign policy.

People will say, isn't that within the president's purview to be able to do that?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Of course it is.

The president should appoint his own designee for the AID administrator, the head of the agency, which is what I was under President Bush, and the assistant administrators, all of whom, by the way, have to be confirmed by the United States Senate, and the next level down.

They run the agency.

And you put in place people who agree with you.

I promoted more conservative people who are economists, who are pro-business in the agency.

When the left takes control, they promote people on the left.

That's how any administration works.

That's true in the Pentagon.

It's true in the State Department.

What do you think the State Department was doing under Biden?

They were running the LGBT flag with the American flag in all the embassies.

That's not AID that did it.

That is the State Department that did it.

I -- these issues are subterfuge.

They -- I think what they wanted to do is to show that they were in control and they wanted to make cuts, and they have made up these illusory charges against AID that make no sense and are not accurate.

With all due respect, none of these people know anything about AID.

What does Musk know about international development?

Absolutely nothing.

He has a bunch of young kids in their 20s.

They don't know.

They're techies.

They don't know anything about international development.

They don't know anything about the Global South.

They don't know anything about these - - the programs and policies of the agency.

AID is the most pro-business and pro-market of all aid agencies in the world.

I can tell you that categorically.

I am a conservative Republican.

I'm not a liberal.

And I have served in repeated Republican administrations.

And the notion that the agency is Marxist -- they said -- they made the accusation it was a Marxist organization.

That's utterly ridiculous.

I know that we have private sector officers in it.

We have a program that we started when I was administrator called the Global Development Alliance that brings in American businesses who contribute $6 billion a year to AID's programs.

We don't -- they don't give us the money.

We don't give them -- we jointly invest in the same projects, and we manage the projects for the businesses.

The business community in the United States is very pro-AID.

They never bothered to ask the business community what they thought of this whole attack on AID and an attempt to abolish it.

ANDREW NATSIOS: I can't quite tell what they're trying to do.

Musk wants to abolish AID, and Rubio says he wants to merge it into State.

Which is it?

AMNA NAWAZ: Andrew Natsios, we will have to leave it there.

We do thank you for your time and insights.

Thank you for joining us, former Administrator of USAID Andrew Natsios.