Firing Line

- As the powerful gather at the UN, who will feed the powerless?

This week on "Firing Line."

(people clamoring) The UN World Food Program estimates more than 300 million people around the world do not have enough to eat, with famine now declared in Sudan and in Gaza.

- In many countries, we're just barely hanging on.

And that's because of funding cuts.

- [Margaret] As executive director of the World Food Programe, Cindy McCain sees the crisis on the ground.

I sat down with her at the Clinton Global Initiative meetings this week in New York City.

- We are the only agency that can do this and we're good at it.

- [Margaret] As the need increases, the help is diminishing.

- Most every morning I have to face this.

I have to take food from the hungry to give to the starving.

Now how do I do that?

- [Margaret] The World Food Program, like hundreds of agencies, had to slash its budget when the Trump Administration shuttered its foreign aid program, USAID.

- Are you standing by your contention that no one has died- - No one has died because the US has cut aid.

No.

- Have people died because of the cuts in USAID?

- I think people have, yeah.

We have famine, - [Margaret] What does Cindy McCain say now?

- [Announcer] Firing line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, the Tepper Foundation, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness.

And by the following.

- Executive Director Cindy McCain, welcome back to "Firing Line."

- Thank you for having me.

- The World Food Program is operating in at least 67 countries right now.

And last year, you helped feed 124 million people, delivering 2.5 million metric tons of food.

- Mm-hmm.

- Now, you have served as the Executive Director since 2023.

What have you learned about the global food crisis?

- Hm, yeah.

Well, it's growing, number one.

Most of them are man-made, which is terrible.

It's such a rate now in such a size now that being able to not just contain it but try to make a difference, and it's becoming very hard.

Right now we're in many countries, we're just barely hanging on, meaning that we don't have the access to get to where we need to go, and the amount of food that we're trying to get in is not enough, and that's because of funding cuts.

- The World Food Program estimates that at least 319 million people - Mm-hmm.

- are facing acute food insecurity.

- Mm-hmm.

- The United States and Europe, against this backdrop, have significantly scaled back funding, slashing your resources at the World Food Program by approximately 34% this year.

What is your message to world leaders who are gathered here at the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York with respect to supporting the food crisis around the world?

- What I try to remind them first and foremost is that we can't forget these people who are in dire circumstances, number one.

But number two, cutting funding right now is not the thing to do.

We have two famines going on right now, that's unprecedented.

- [Hoover] The two famines are in Sudan and Gaza.

- [McCain] Sudan and Gaza, right.

So what I tell world leaders and what I've said here to everyone is that we are the only agency that can do this and do this at scale.

- Yeah.

- I mean, go in, surge, make sure that we can actually stave off malnutrition and famine and really get the job done.

But the problem is access.

We have countries now that access and politics and everything else has become very difficult for us to get in.

But, again, we are the only agency that can do this and we're good at it.

- You posted on social media this week, quote, "History is watching.

This is not the time for indifference.

Too much is at stake."

Why are so many countries that have funded the World Food Program historically pulling back now?

- I think, number one, their own budgets have changed.

Most of these countries tell me that they don't have the budget allocations for what they need to do there.

And their constituents are saying, don't do that, keep the money at home.

There's also countries that are facing serious conflict and are worried about that, and so they're unable to give what they used to give to WAP and other agencies.

The truth is we can't forget these people.

These are people that cannot help themselves.

And, you know, there's a collective few of us that can do this and need to get it done.

- "The New York Times" has reported that European countries have argued that they cannot fill the gap because the Trump administration has demanded that they spend more on defense.

And so they're redirecting- - Right.

- their resources away from humanitarian food relief toward defense.

Is that your experience?

- Yes, it is my experience.

What we've had to do is face the reality of cutting regions, cutting countries off what we do.

And what I do, most every morning I have to face this, is, I have to take food from the hungry to give to the starving.

Now, how do I do that?

How do you prioritize that?

And that's what we do.

- How do you prioritize that?

- It's very hard.

It really is.

But it's, you know, those in need and, of course the funds that we have too play a large part in that.

- Most of the hunger hotspots around the world are in countries where, as you have said, armed conflicts are raging.

- Right.

- Your deputy executive director suggested last week that European countries turning away from confronting global instability are being, quote, "short-sighted" because, quote, "the world is connected."

So walk me through the case.

How is failing to support hunger now compromising security later?

- Well, food security is national security, number one.

And when you have countries and regions that there is no food aid going in, there is no ability to feed people, those people are going to migrate.

You would do anything to feed your family.

And so they will hit the road and migrate.

And Europe's the first stop for many of them.

So that's the case I make to a lot of our European friends, is that the reality is this is national security.

And it's also, you know, you see what happens when migration begins, when people are desperate.

I mean, there's not just the hunger issue, but then you get disease and you get the outcomes of malnutrition and famine.

It's all collective, it's one thing.

- Last year, the World Food Program received $4.5 billion from the United States, which was about half of the WFP's budget.

This year, you've received $1.4 billion.

When the State Department cut off funding for programs for the WFP in April, it downplayed the cuts and maintained that 85% of programs funded by the United States would continue.

Have they?

- No, and I say it for this reason.

I'm trying not to give a false representation of what's going on.

We're short.

- Yeah.

- We're sort of funds.

And the most important part of this is, is that because of DOGE and the reworking of the State Department, taking down USAID, a lot of the times we don't know who to talk to.

And so, you know, the people aren't in place, or they're in place one day, and the next day, they're not there.

So that's been a complication in all of this, too.

But we're seeing the aid money that we were given by Congress, it's in the pipeline, we're getting some of it, it's not nearly enough.

But that's been the problem is just getting it through the pipeline and finding out who can do that.

- Can private philanthropy fill the gap?

- Well, it can't fix this completely, but it certainly can help.

And we've been working on that very directly, both here in New York and around the world.

Not just with private philanthropy, but of course our corporations, our public-private partnerships, you know, different ways of financing.

You know, we've become very creative in ways that we can not only fundraise, but to manage our money as well.

- One of the people at the State Department that you have met with recently is Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

He referenced a recent meeting with you in Rome, where he learned from you how the World Food Program actually operates and distributes food.

- Yeah.

- Do you think he really understands the consequences of U.S.

policies and the budgetary pullback to your efforts?

- I do.

I have no doubt that he understands what's at stake here and what's happened.

Again, you know, the funding cuts have occurred.

We're managing the best way we can.

But I'm quite certain that Secretary Rubio does understand.

And we're grateful for that.

- Secretary Rubio said just this week, that it was, quote, "ridiculous" to suggest that people have died because the U.S.

has cut foreign aid.

He told ABC, quote, "no one has died because the United States has cut aid.

People have died because other countries haven't stepped up."

Is he right?

- Well, let me put it this way.

As I said, food security is national security.

The soft power that the United States had through the food aid and the aid in general that they were distributing and helping out with, is very important.

And the lack of the soft power aspect has become, I think, very critical in all of this.

Look, I want to make sure that the world knows that not only, as I said, we are the biggest and the best at this.

But we just need access, and we need access now.

And the politics, we need more diplomacy, we need more countries really advocating for us instead of just saying, yeah, we support you.

I need action from them.

- Have people died because of the cuts in USAID?

- I think people have.

Yeah.

We have famine.

We have, you know, difficulties around the world.

I mean, again, it comes back to access.

But now I don't have the amount of, the quantity of foods.

Afghanistan's a good example of that.

We used to feed 9 million people in Afghanistan.

We now feed 900,000.

- Regarding Afghanistan, - Mm-hmm.

- your organization, the World Food Program has warned that an unprecedented crisis this winter faces the country, - Yeah, yeah.

- Where one-fifth of the population, not only is food insecure, that the funding has fallen by 90% since 2022.

What will happen this winter in Afghanistan if the country doesn't receive, if you don't receive more resources that can supply the country with food aid?

- I don't even want to think about that.

I mean that quite directly.

I think what we will see is exactly what you think you might see, and that is devastation and death as a result of it.

Because this food aid primarily goes to women and children.

And so, you know, and those are our most vulnerable.

So I pray every night that this doesn't happen.

But I'm hoping that we can find other ways to help feed.

But right now, we have a problem.

- So the State Department says that foreign assistance has been, quote, "systematically diverted and expropriated by the Taliban."

Has that been WFP's experience?

- No, it's not our experience.

But again- - So how do you explain the differing perspectives from the State Department and from your perspective on the ground?

- Well, I just think we have a different view.

We're on the ground.

We see what happens, we know where it goes.

- Yeah.

- [McCain] And it's also the way and the ways that we've managed this through the years.

You know, we manage how we operate with the communities at the local level, so we know where it goes, and the community leaders know where it goes.

- The U.S.

and Europe, as they step back from supplying foreign aid, some countries are filling the void.

Among them China and the Chinese Communist Party.

This year China has provided funding for the WFP projects in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.

Do you expect increased coordination and cooperation with Beijing as the West steps back from funding?

- As I've said all along, we will work with pretty much anybody to make sure people get fed.

I welcome the Chinese in any way that they choose to do.

But I also know that we need to get it and we need get it now, and politics cannot be involved in this.

This is about human lives.

- Senate Democrats have warned that the U.S.

retreat has been a, quote, "gift to Beijing."

- I've heard that, yeah.

I don't know.

I can't answer the politics of this and I can't answer what's going on between the two countries.

- But has Chinese support been material in Myanmar and Bangladesh in some of these countries?

- Not much, no.

No.

What I would like to see are more of our country stepping up and reminding people that, here's another issue that's very important, a respect for humanitarian law and a respect for humanitarian aid workers.

We are not targets.

And we can't forget this because these countries are dangerous, but we've always had the humanitarian law kind of umbrella that was kind of protecting us a bit.

It's game on now.

Humanitarian aid workers are in the sites.

- Last year was the most dangerous year- - Right.

- for workers of the World Food Program, as you know.

I don't need to tell you that.

- Yeah.

- But it was actually the most dangerous year on record for humanitarian workers around the world.

- You're correct.

- This year is not looking much better.

WFP staff have been fired on by Israeli soldiers.

They have been killed in an ambush in Sudan and arbitrarily detained in Yemen.

Is there more, especially as leaders around the world gather this week in New York for the UN General Assembly, that the international community can do to ensure that people who are providing aid are safe?

- Yes, they can not only advocate, but they can yell.

You can't rely on me completely to do all this.

I mean- - Well you're doing a good job.

- I need help.

I need people to remind people that the humanitarian law, the rule of humanitarian law, and of course has got to be adhered to, and the international courts and everybody else who's involved in this needs to collectively say this is not just important, it's what it is, this is the law.

But more importantly, the fact that anyone would target a humanitarian aid worker just trying to get in to feed, is unconscionable, and governments have done that.

They've targeted us, and various factions have targeted us.

Listen, our job has never been safe because the regions we work in.

But I have to remind the world, you can't target us at all.

- Is this one of the top agenda items when you talk to world leaders?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- And is there an opportunity to collaborate and coordinate with other leaders?

- Mm-hmm.

- It just seems, to your point, it seems implausible- - Yeah.

- that people wouldn't subscribe to this notion.

- Yeah.

I understand.

- So how do you go from advocacy for the security of your workers to actually a real sense of shame?

- Well, I think that's up to us to talk about it.

You know, as you know, World Central Kitchen, they rocketed their cars.

They killed them.

I mean, in all the years I've been doing this- - [Hoover] Are you referring to the incident in Gaza?

- In Gaza, yeah.

- Jose Andres was a guest on this program and spoke about that incident.

- Right, yeah.

And that was such a heinous, I mean, it's all heinous, but- - Yeah.

- that was such a heinous way to do that.

I think all of us also as humanitarian leaders in the world need to band together collectively and say no more, you're not doing this.

- Yeah.

- And the various factions, I mean there's governments that have said okay, or they've turned their back or whatever it may be.

There's factions, there's various, Sudan, I mean there's all kinds of factions running around.

- Can I ask you about Sudan?

- Sure.

- So Sudan has been gripped by a brutal civil war since 2023 when you became the World Food Program Executive Director.

- Yeah.

- [Hoover] According to the WFP, more people face catastrophic hunger in Sudan than anywhere else in the world.

You have said that this is a, quote, "forgotten crisis."

- [McCain] It is.

- [Hoover] How has such a crisis of such enormity forgotten?

- I don't know.

I mean, of course, we live it every day, but it is.

There's other squeaky wheels in the world that are getting the attention.

And again, that's something that we as humanitarian aid workers and aid agencies remind the world, that Sudan is the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet, and it's gotten almost no attention.

- The administration froze $126 million in USAID to Sudan earlier this year.

And doctors in Sudan have described this as fatal.

What is the lived reality of these cuts?

- Right now, I agree with what the doctors are saying, because there's now cholera in Sudan.

I mean, I've been in a cholera epidemic before in DRC years ago.

This is no joke.

It will flow through the population of these camps like lightning and pretty much kill anybody that's in its way.

I mean, this is really deadly.

- Sometimes famines are caused by natural disasters.

- [McCain] Yeah.

- Sometimes they're caused by war.

- [McCain] Mm-hmm.

- You've seen civil wars, like in Sudan.

But sometimes, as you said at the beginning of the program, they're man-made.

- Yeah.

- In 1932, Joseph Stalin, of course, engineered a famine in Ukraine that forced peasants to submit to collectivization and ultimately led to the deaths of more than seven million people in two years.

In 1986, William F. Buckley, Jr.

welcomed Robert Conquest, the historian, on this program, and they spoke about man-made famine.

Take a look at what he said.

- I mean, there are famines everywhere, but you look at this, this is the only famine where you don't see relief workers.

No food, soup kitchens, nothing.

Even in Ethiopia, you see relief work.

And this was the one, it was the other way around.

They take the last grain from the peasant.

- Critics of the Israeli government's policies say the blockade in Gaza has created a man-made crisis.

Is that one of the man-made crises to which you referred?

- Yeah.

- Yeah?

- I mean, I'll be honest with you, we can't get in.

I mean, I've asked for 600 trucks a day.

I initially was able to get 100 in.

Now I can only get 80 in, and most of those are looted along the way.

We need access, we need a ceasefire, and we need to be able to get in not just unfettered, but at scale.

And at scale means 600 trucks a day to be able to get in to feed in.

- Which is what you were getting in previously- - Right, previously.

- during the last.

And that is a sufficient number of trucks to feed the population in Gaza?

- Yes, it is.

- What is stopping you?

- Access.

The Israelis won't let us in.

I shouldn't say that.

They let us in, but they make it very complicated and make it very difficult for us to operate efficiently.

- You said just now that many of the trucks that get in don't get to their ultimate destination.

- Right, mm-hmm.

- One of the independent agencies that actually first characterized the crisis in Gaza as a famine also says that 87% of UN trucks are being intercepted.

If that's the case, how do you know that what the critics are saying isn't true, that Hamas isn't getting the food?

- Well, because I can see, I mean, I was on the ground there recently, and I've seen- - [Hoover] You were there at the end of August.

- Right, I was there and so, listen, you would do anything to feed your family and people are coming, people, if they keep us waiting at the gate like they do for hours and hours and hours, they see us and they're coming.

We've seen no evidence of Hamas intercepting anything.

And the one time we did, we reported it fast.

So I think it's, again, we work with the communities and the community leaders.

We work with the folks on the ground.

We have a visual sight of this every day.

- [Hoover] Yeah.

- And so we know what we're doing.

So I disagree with that discussion that Hamas is getting it all.

- In May, the Israeli government introduced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

It is an American and Israeli-backed aid organization in Gaza that is attempting to distribute food on the ground.

What is your view of the GHF?

- Well, the difference there is that we do not use armed escorts.

We work, again, like I said, with the community leaders to keep the calm when you do come in to try to deliver.

Listen, I work with any agency, any group, to try and get food in.

But we need to get the access issue, again, I keep going back to it- - Yeah.

- is why we can't get in.

I've not worked with GHF.

We've not worked with them yet, so I don't.

I know what we've all seen, I don't know what the reality is.

- Yeah, and what we've all seen, maybe what you're alluding to, you know, GHF has come under fire for incredibly chaotic distribution of food, sometimes deadly.

More than 108 organizations have condemned GHF.

They've called for its shut down.

I mean, what is your impression of their efficacy, like how effective they are at actually distributing food, as somebody who runs an organization that knows how to effectively distribute food in Gaza?

- I think all the agencies should be able to include more food in what they are delivering.

I mean, we do it, like I said, when we get in, we get it on a scale.

And so I just think that an organization like ours is better equipped to be able fully deliver and fully help a community get back on its feet.

- Has the Israeli government, in your view, prioritized feeding Palestinians?

- I don't think so.

I mean, I wish I could say... When we're in there, it's prioritized because we get the food to where it needs to go.

So I think, again, it comes back to this one word, access, that I keep saying, because we can't do it unless we can get in at scale.

- So if they were prioritizing it, they would give you access?

- Probably, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Do you think, conversely, Hamas has the best interests of Palestinian civilians in Gaza?

- I can't comment on that.

Like I said, we don't work with Hamas.

We don't work in any way with any of those organizations.

Our job is to feed.

Our job is to make sure that not just nutrition gets in, but that we get in medicine, we get in infant feedings, because that's different than food aid.

Famine is more than just food.

Famine is disease, famine is water, sanitation, all those things and medicine, yeah.

And so that's why we all need to be able to get in.

- Can you help me understand?

How do you distribute food to a contended location as effectively as you do, 600 trucks a day, what is the mechanism for getting it to the people in need?

- Well, as I said before, it's about knowing the community leaders, it's about knowing the communities.

What causes the panic is if they see trucks coming on that day and there's food, they get panicked, they get the food off, because they're scared the trucks won't come again.

So that's why this access is so important and the continuity of the access.

Because once they know the trucks are coming, then the temperature goes down, the rioting goes down, all of that does.

That's why we know what we're doing and why we're good at it, because we know it to do.

- You've sounded the alarm about the impact of funding cuts.

You've acknowledged that foreign aid has also become top heavy.

- Yeah.

- And you've worked to bring efficiencies to the World Food Program as an organization.

- Yes, I have.

- As you face the future with more limited resources, what is WFP doing to use those resources more efficiently?

- Well, it was very clear, as you said, when I came on board, that we were a little top heavy and a little fat.

Because there had been good years.

You know, there had been a lot of funding that had come our way.

So when I realized this and I knew it was time to really slim down because, like all of you, I want to make sure our donors know that their things are going where it's supposed to go, and so we're very solid on that, because it's too important.

I don't want food going to some place that's not supposed to, either.

- The President of the United States addressed the UN General Assembly yesterday and he questioned the purpose of the UN.

- What is the purpose of the United Nations?

The UN has such tremendous potential, but it's not even coming close to living up to that potential.

- You run a UN agency.

How would you make the case to the American people that the UN is necessary?

- Well, the UN's been around for, what, 80 years now?

I happen to think that our organization and others are the best at what we do.

I would challenge anybody from the private sector or any other area to try to do what we do and do it efficiently, effectively, and get the job done.

It's just, we have the experience, we have the ability.

We have the people, which are willing to lay down their own lives so that they can feed.

It's a whole complex issue for us, and I'm just very proud of what we do.

I really am.

- Cindy McCain, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line."

- Thank you.

- [Announcer] "Firing Line" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri, the Tepper Foundation, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness.

And by the following.

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