“USAID is a criminal organization,” declared billionaire Elon Musk over the weekend. “Time for it to die.”

By Monday morning the doors of the Washington headquarters of the nation’s premier humanitarian aid organization were indeed shuttered, most of its personnel put on leave, and its programs largely halted.

And the world’s richest man, having looked at what he had done to an agency that helps the world’s poorest people, declared himself pleased.

“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk crowed on X at 1:54 a.m. Monday. “Could gone (sic) to some great parties. Did that instead.”

Republicans who’ve supported the agency in the past should speak up, and fast, if they want to save it now. One reason they haven’t: Musk, named by President Trump to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), insisted he had cleared his planned demolition of the US Agency for International Development with the boss ahead of time.

By Monday its website had ceased to exist, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared himself the “acting administrator” of the agency, naming Trump loyalist, Peter W. Marocco, to conduct an agency review with an eye toward potential cuts.

By Tuesday night the website came back long enough to inform thousands of workers they would be put on leave as of Friday and those posted abroad would have 30 days in which to return to the United States.

For decades USAID has represented the best of American diplomacy, feeding the hungry, delivering vaccines, treating malaria, and most recently providing medical assistance to war-ravaged Gaza. It’s also been a way of projecting American influence; if it were to disappear, geopolitical rivals like China would be all too happy to fill the vid.

Still, it has also been the bête noire of the political right — for reasons sometimes more mythical than real. For example Trump has often charged that the agency provided condoms for Hamas terrorists, despite the fact that the nongovernmental medical organization working in Gaza under USAID funding insists it has provided no family planning services.

And is it actually relevant that Samantha Power, USAID administrator during the Biden administration, met once or twice with George Soros’ Open Society Foundations or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?

What isn’t deniable is that the agency operates with a budget of around $43 billion — representing less than 1 percent of the federal budget. Most of its 10,000 employees work overseas — on the front lines of impoverished and war-torn countries from Sudan to Ukraine.

Surely there are targets more worthy if Musk is looking for real savings.

Trump, in keeping with his America First policy, has also ordered a 90-day halt to all foreign aid assistance delivered through the State Department and its contractors. A handful of waivers have restored a few programs, where indeed, US assistance means the difference between life and death, but most remain on hold.

“The previously announced 90-day pause and review of US foreign aid is already paying dividends to our country and our people,” according to a statement issued by the State Department. “We are rooting out waste. We are blocking woke programs. And we are exposing activities that run contrary to our national interests. None of this would be possible if these programs remained on autopilot.”

Meanwhile, Rubio, traveling in Central America, said, “In consultation with Congress, USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus, and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law.”

Ah, yes, about that “consultation with Congress.” USAID was established as an independent agency with its own budget and mandate, to ensure that this nation “can deploy developmental expertise and US foreign assistance quickly, particularly in times of crisis, to meet our national security goals,” a group of 10 Democratic senators on the Foreign Relations Committee reminded Rubio in a letter sent over the weekend.

The group, including New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, sought to remind the secretary that “by law” an effort to fold USAID into State “must be previewed, discussed, and approved by Congress.”

Congressional Democrats, including those who protested in front of the USAID offices Monday, like Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, have been clear.

“We live in the United States of America, and as much as Elon Musk and Donald Trump want, this is not a dictatorship, and we will not allow it to become one ever,” McGovern said at a news conference outside USAID headquarters Monday.

However, little has been heard from the other side of the aisle about this utter disregard for the rule of law or the role of Congress in the future of an agency it created.

Either their animus toward the agency is so strong or their desire to appease Trump so complete — or both — that no Republican has yet to stand up for an agency that is the very face of American mercy around the world.

This is how American power — soft power — and respect for its institutions dies.