BREAKING: Richard Gere says USAID was “the good part of America” – and Trump destroyed it! Actor and humanitarian Richard Gere is speaking out about one of the most sweeping and least discussed actions of the Trump presidency: the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development – USAID. “USAID was probably the most pure thing that America did up to that moment,” Gere said in an interview. “ It was [help for] needy people, whether it was health, education, or women's issues. It was big things, small things – all kinds of things.” The agency, founded by John F. Kennedy in 1961, was an expression of the country's best values rather than its military or economic power. "That was the good part of us," Gere said. For decades, USAID funded programs that saved lives through better health care and nutrition, raised literacy, and responded to famine and disasters all over the world. Its PEPFAR program alone saved 25 million from dying of HIV. Through Elon Musk and DOGE, Trump moved quickly to dismantle the agency on his literal first day in office, and by July it ceased to exist and its few remaining programs folded into the State Department. The consequences have been severe. In the world’s poorest countries, health clinics have closed, vaccinations disrupted, food and nutrition programs cut back. Humanitarian groups say hundreds of thousands of people have already died, and millions more are at risk. Gere said Trump’s reflected a profound misunderstanding of what the agency actually did. "He wouldn't even know what USAID stands for," Gere said. "And he has idiots around him who have the same ignorance about it." Musk, who grew up ignoring poor people in apartheid South Africa, absurdly called USAID a “criminal organization,” and gleefully threw it into his metaphoric wood-chipper. Gere said USAID’s destruction proves Trump doesn’t understand what wealth really means. "He keeps saying we're the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world. What do you do if you're the wealthiest, most powerful? You help people. People who don't have any health care." For Gere, USAID represented a simple idea: that the strongest country in the world should use some of that strength to save lives. And he believes America lost something important when that mission was dismantled. We do too.