To the editor:

That was an excellent editorial by Jeff Robbins in the Feb. 12 edition of The Messenger. Donald Trump and Elon Musk shredding USAID will do damage to this country’s reputation with other countries that may never be reestablished. The budget for USAID is less than 1 percent of our country’s budget. Donald Trump said the USAID was giving Gaza $50 million to buy condoms and if that wasn’t farfetched enough, he upped that number to $100 million a couple days later.

When will this country ever learn that Donald Trump is a liar? A company was established during his first presidency to track his lies, over 10,000 in his first four years. The saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

In 2016 he promised to build a wall across the southern border and Mexico was going to pay for it. Even though 500 miles was built, only 50 miles was built where there was no wall before, and Mexico didn’t pay a dime.

He promised to cut the federal budget. Between his tax cuts for the rich and his mishandling of the COVID pandemic, the budget increased by over $8 trillion and over 21 million jobs were lost. Between 130,000 and 210,000 American deaths were attributed to government failures and the number of people without health care rose by over 3 million. The murder rate in the country was the highest since 1997.

In the last election Trump lied about the economy, which was the strongest in the world, and promised to cut grocery prices and end the war in the Ukraine in one day. Well after being elected Trump said that he didn’t know how he could lower grocery prices, once they are up, they are up. He said it would be up to Russia if the war in the Ukraine would end.

In his first three weeks Trump has done what he does best, distracting Americans with meaningless things like renaming the Gulf of Mexico instead of doing the things he promised. He freed all of the Jan. 6 rioters, saying it would take too much time going through them case by case. One of them, by the way, was shot to death when he opened fire on a sheriff.

His motto is make America great again but this country has probably never been as weak as it is now due to his cabinet picks and his gutting of the CIA and FBI. During his first impeachment hearing Marie Yovanovich, the ambassador to the Ukraine and former ambassador to Russia explained how Russia would defeat the United States. It wouldn’t be by going to war, but by finding someone to spread their propaganda. Donald Trump has been doing business with Russians for years and wants to be a dictator so in my opinion they found the perfect person. That would be a lot more believable than the USAID spending $100 million dollars on condoms for Gaza.

Doug Brand

Fort Dodge