The Trump administration and members of Congress are calling for Cindy McCain, the widow of former senator John McCain, to be removed as executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, the New York Post reported.
The U.N. organization has struggled to deliver aid in Gaza for months, with most of the aid being looted before reaching its intended destination, per World Food Programme and U.N. officials.
McCain has appeared unwilling to work with the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has created centralized hubs for aid delivery, emerging as a rival to the U.N. system. The United Nations and other aid groups have denounced the foundation and said it should cease operations.
The World Food Programme executive has also been loath to provide security for aid convoys, fearing that would be seen as militarizing the aid, per multiple reports.
If the U.N. organization “was doing its job, Hamas wouldn’t be enriched and able to continue to prolong the war,” a senior administration official told the Post.
The official told the paper that McCain displays “wild incompetence” as either “a useful idiot” or “an active accomplice in what is ultimately an enormous, fraudulent use of taxpayer dollars.”
A former World Food Programme official described McCain as “a disaster,” who takes “a highly operational job” and treats it as “some kind of a board chairmanship that you don’t really have to show up for.”
Then-U.S. President Joe Biden appointed McCain in 2023 to a five-year term.
Almost 33 tons of food intended for delivery by the United Nations have been looted since May. Less than 17% of U.N. aid trucks reached their destination without being looted between July 27 and Sept. 2, according to U.N. figures.
The United States funded nearly half of the $10 billion that the World Food Programme spent on aid last year.
McCain met in late August with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in what her office said was her first trip to the region during the war. She and Netanyahu issued a joint statement that seemed to indicate that she recognized that the pace of aid delivery was improving.
She later issued a more critical personal statement, which drew criticism from Netanyahu.
“She said that during her recent visit to Gaza, she saw a dramatic improvement: food was available, prices had dropped and markets showed goods in sufficient supply and at affordable prices,” Netanyahu’s office stated. “It is regrettable that Mrs. McCain has since issued statements contradicting what she told us in Jerusalem.”
