"We need new leadership," says Senator Chris Van Hollen, who on Thursday announced he will challenge Chuck Schumer for Democratic majority leader. Van Hollen has garnered support among Democrats for his sharp criticism of the Trump administration, including their upheaval of U.S. programs to promote health and end poverty around the world.
In an interview with NPR on Tuesday, two days before his announcement, Van Hollen spoke to NPR about his plans to "shine a light on all the harm and damage the Trump administration's done to our country and our interests around the world" — and what the Democrats hope to accomplish with foreign aid.
As the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee, which oversees the State Department and what's left of the United States Agency for International Development, he could have considerable sway over how Congress investigates and legislates on foreign aid.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. NPR reached out to the State Department for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
You've taken a strong stand against the Trump administration's shakeup of foreign aid. You led protests against the dissolution of USAID and in a hearing last year told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that "People died because of those actions, mothers, fathers and children." You've also authored statements condemning a range of actions, including tying health aid to mineral deals. In the majority, what's the first step you'd take on the aid front?
Priority number one is to do an analysis of all the harm the Trump administration has done.
There have been very credible analyses showing that over 700,000 people around the world died between January 2025 and January 2026 because of cuts to USAID. If these trends continue, you're talking about millions of people dying in the coming years.
One of the great benefits of being in the majority, is you actually have a gavel and can call a public hearing, and use that as a spotlight to help educate people around the country.
We can do that to show the consequences of Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to USAID. I remember to this day a scene at the White House [in February 2025] when Donald Trump was at his desk and Elon Musk was standing behind him, and a reporter asked Elon Musk about the cuts to fighting Ebola, and Elon Musk's response was essentially, "Whoops, yeah, we missed that." And then he claimed that they'd restored it. Well, we know that they've not restored it adequately — there's good evidence that the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could have been better contained if the United States had not made big cuts to public health.
We can investigate what they did, not for the purpose of putting it back exactly as it was but understanding the damage that has been done, fully, with an eye toward reforming it.
You've already been speaking out against a lot of this in the minority. What kinds of actions can Democrats take as a majority that they couldn't before?
Being in the majority makes a big difference. Now we have many more tools available, specifically through the power of the purse.
One of the things the Trump administration has done is essentially sit on funds appropriated by the Congress for public health here at home but also for international health programs. So there's an example where we can much better safeguard the will of the Congress now that we're in the majority.
Can you give an example?
One of the things the Administration did was to rescind over $500 million in funds for global health. In other words, they cut it, and you had a rubber stamp majority in the Congress. Republicans, go along with that. You would never get Democrats to agree.
There's another ongoing example right now, which is a number of years ago, we passed about $1.5 billion in funds for [global] public health, and it appears that they're using those funds not for public health but to wind down USAID. So this is an area where we could say no, you may not use these funds to wind down USAID.
The administration has been ignoring a lot of these "no's" so far. What gives those "no's" more weight in the majority?
When we in Congress provide a sum of money, for say public health, we say this money should be spent on these specific items, like vaccinations or clinics. That's guidance, that's direction. It's technically called report language, and this report language used to be respected by Democratic and Republican presidents.
The Trump administration has ignored report language because it's not technically legally binding, and Republicans in the Congress have let them get away with it. And the more they let them get away with it, the more they do it.
So we're going to have to convert what used to be report language into real law to prevent this administration from taking those actions. We Democrats have been trying to do that, but since we've been in the minority, we haven't been able to get that passed.
What if the administration still tries to hold up funds or ignore or veto Congress' actions?
This has been a lawless president, and he's still in the White House. But being in the majority will give us more leverage. If we're able to codify the safeguards that would prevent the Trump administration from diverting funds from their intended purpose to something else, that would be legally binding. Then you can go to the courts and say, you know this isn't simply report language. This is not just guidance. This is legally required, and so that does provide the safeguards that we would need.
Now we may have a back and forth and fight with the administration over providing those safeguards, but we're in a much stronger position now than we have been.
If the Democrats win the presidency and keep control of Congress in 2028, would the fate of USAID be revisited? Might the agency return? Or are there parts of the Trump administration's global health policy that you think are worth preserving or building on?
I don't think there's anything the Trump administration has done that's worth preserving or building on. That does not mean that I'm in favor of simply returning to the status quo prior to this administration.
I am a big believer that the role that USAID performed was both helpful to protecting the health of Americans but also helpful to developing good relations with other countries and the people of other countries. I think we need to develop our plan for how we perform this very important role as part of our foreign policy and as part of our health policy. But I'm not saying we would just go back exactly to the way USAID was.
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