For their Tuesday podcast, CNN/PBS anchor Christiane Amanpour and ex-husband/former Clinton official Jamie Rubin warned that Trump’s budget cuts, both foreign and domestic, will get people killed.

Discussing the Texas floods, Amanpour wondered, “So Jamie, do you feel comfortable linking what just happened with the cuts that President Trump has enacted from day one in all the executive orders?”

Rubin tried to hedge, “Look, it's probably not possible, nor really we should be pointing a finger like that and so directly, because who knows whether a better prediction would have yielded a better preparation on the part of the people at this camp.”

However, he had no problems claiming, “What we can say is that to cut off our nose, that is the ability to predict climate, predict weather, because scientists came up with the conclusion verified by everyone in the scientific community that climate change has a man-made component. That's what motivated the Trump and Musk people, and think about that. Musk claims to be this great environmentalist who has electric cars, and yet he allowed the Trump administration and his people allowed them to cut at the Weather Service precisely because they don't like the conclusions the Weather Service goes to someday, somehow, someway those cuts will hurt or harm or kill people.”

Concluding, Rubin gave another unsatisfying qualification, “Whether it happened in this case, whether it's going to happen down the road, it's hard to know. And I don't think that finger should be particularly blamed at a time like this. But we know that cutting science, cutting knowledge can kill people.”

Amanpour agreed, “And he has rolled back so much in the climate space, you can't even name all the departments, but it's essentially complete. It's almost as somebody said, ‘We are now sleepwalking into climate catastrophe,’ and nobody right now is paying a huge amount of attention because there's so much else coming at us, but it is the world's global existential threat.”

That somebody was U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Later, the conversation shifted to foreign aid, with Amanpour wondering, “Are they just hoping that nobody pays attention and they can just cut this vital soft power and humanitarian life-saving aid without anybody noticing or anybody caring?”

 Rubin began into a lengthy denunciation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “Well, I certainly hope not, and that's why we're doing this podcast, and that's why a lot of reporters have spent their time looking into this. I mean, think about Secretary of State Rubio, who had a pretty good reputation, often talked about the great work that AID.”

Amanpour then interrupted to play a 2019 clip of Rubio “because it is the height of hypocrisy.” In the video, Rubio claimed, “Anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. Foreign aid is less than one percent of our budget. It's just not true.”

That doesn’t prove hypocrisy. If USAID wandered so far off course that its elimination and the complete restructuring of U.S. foreign aid was the only recourse, then cutting it out of principle is justified.

Nevertheless, Amanpour quipped, “But sorry, sorry. He is now a convert to cutting it.”

Rubin then resumed his lengthy anti-Rubio speech, “Well, of course, he's a convert to whatever Donald Trump wants. That's what's so sad about Marco Rubio… I thought he was one of the brightest stars in the Republican Party. How do you justify these things one after another? Musk cut AID, you know, destroyed it while Rubio was on a trip in El Salvador working with one of the most right-wing dictators there. And they were cutting programs that were holding that dictator to account.”

He also suggested that the fate of USAID is one of those great historical moments, like the Holocaust, that requires one to take a stand and that Rubio has failed:

So, Marco Rubio has a lot of questions that he's going to face for the rest of his life about what he did in his time in government. You know, I always remember when I was growing up and you always said to yourself when you learned about great moments in history: World War II, the Holocaust, all that, you know, what would you do if you were in power? How would you behave? Would you just go along? Would you fight? Would you quit? Would you be an honorable person?

Whatever one thinks of foreign aid, the idea that the USAID bureaucracy was so vitally important that those defending it are somehow Churchillian figures standing up at a critical junction of history is more than a little hyperbolic.

Here is a transcript for the July 8 show:

Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files with Jamie Rubin             

7/8/2025

1 Minute, 7 Seconds

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So Jamie, do you feel comfortable linking what just happened with the cuts that President Trump has enacted from day one in all the executive orders?

JAMIE RUBIN: Look, it's probably not possible, nor really we should be pointing a finger like that and so directly, because who knows whether a better prediction would have yielded a better preparation on the part of the people at this camp. But what we can say is that to cut off our nose, that is the ability to predict climate, predict weather, because scientists came up with the conclusion verified by everyone in the scientific community that climate change has a man-made component. That's what motivated the Trump and Musk people, and think about that. Musk claims to be this great environmentalist who has electric cars, and yet he allowed the Trump administration and his people allowed them to cut at the Weather Service precisely because they don't like the conclusions the Weather Service goes to someday, somehow, someway those cuts will hurt or harm or kill people.

Whether it happened in this case, whether it's going to happen down the road, it's hard to know. And I don't think that finger should be particularly blamed at a time like this. But we know that cutting science, cutting knowledge can kill people.

AMANPOUR: And he has rolled back so much in the climate space, you can't even name all the departments, but it's essentially complete. It's almost as somebody said, “we are now sleepwalking into climate catastrophe” and nobody right now is paying a huge amount of attention because there's so much else coming at us, but it is the world's global existential threat.

…

12 Minutes, 34 Seconds

AMANPOUR: Are they just hoping that nobody pays attention and they can just cut this vital soft power and humanitarian life-saving aid without anybody noticing or anybody caring?

RUBIN: Well, I certainly hope not, and that's why we're doing this podcast, and that's why a lot of reporters have spent their time looking into this. I mean, think about Secretary of State Rubio, who had a pretty good reputation, often talked about the great work that AID—

AMANPOUR: Let me stop you because we have that sound bite. Let me stop you.

RUBIN: Can we, let's play it.

AMANPOUR: We're going to play it because it is the height of hypocrisy.

MARCO RUBIO [AUGUST 21, 2019]: Anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. Foreign aid is less than one percent of our budget. It's just not true.

AMANPOUR: But sorry, sorry. He is now a convert to cutting it.

RUBIN: Well, of course, he's a convert to whatever Donald Trump wants. That's what's so sad about Marco Rubio. He had a great reputation as a-- quite a quality thinker in the Senate on foreign affairs, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I thought he was one of the brightest stars in the Republican Party. How do you justify these things one after another? Musk cut AID, you know, destroyed it while Rubio was on a trip in El Salvador working with one of the most right-wing dictators there. And they were cutting programs that were holding that dictator to account.

So, Marco Rubio has a lot of questions that he's going to face for the rest of his life about what he did in his time in government. You know, I always remember when I was growing up and you always said to yourself when you learned about great moments in history: World War II, the Holocaust, all that, you know, what would you do if you were in power? How would you behave? Would you just go along? Would you fight? Would you quit? Would you be an honorable person? And that's what made me fight so hard for Bosnia and Kosovo when I was in government.

As you know, I was prepared to get fired because it seemed that important. So, here are these people who care about power so much and their fame and their glory, but what are they part of? They're part of something that's going to haunt them for the rest of their life. Things they did, things they allowed to happen. And he's in charge. Marco Rubio is in charge. He's got AID, he's in charge of. The National Security Council, he's in charge of, and the Secretary of State. He's Donald Trump's one-man foreign policy apparatus. And he is allowing this to happen. And I don't know, I don't know how he's going to defend himself with this constituency for the rest of his life.

Remember this is a man who came from Cuban refugees who came to this country promoting democracy and saying how important it was to fight communism. And now who's going to gain from all these cuts in foreign aid around the world? The Chinese Communist Party.