WASHINGTON — Calls are mounting in both Congress and the Trump administration for the widow of late Arizona Sen. John McCain to resign from or be forced out of her United Nations post overseeing food distribution in the Gaza Strip, following months of botched aid drop-offs and rampant looting by Hamas.
UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Cindy McCain has been criticized by ex-colleagues, lawmakers and officials for failing to work with Israel’s military and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to provide food, water and other assistance to Palestinians.
“If WFP was doing its job,” one senior US official told The Post, “Hamas wouldn’t be enriched and able to continue to prolong the war.”
“It’s wild incompetence,” this person added of McCain. “She’s either a useful idiot or she’s an active accomplice in what is ultimately an enormous, fraudulent use of taxpayer dollars.”
Another former WFP official called McCain “a disaster,” adding that she was known to be doing the job from her home state of Arizona — while the global agency she ostensibly runs is “taking orders” from other officials in New York.
“She’s treating this like it’s some kind of a board chairmanship that you don’t really have to show up for, and it’s not that,” the official fumed. “It’s a highly operational job.”
In August alone, all but two of 2,309 trucks were intercepted and cleared out in Gaza, either by starving Palestinians or “forcefully armed actors,” according to a UN data tracking dashboard.
Nearly 33 tons have been ransacked off the vehicles since May of this year.
“If we learned anything from the reveal of USAID, it’s that billions of American tax dollars were misspent in every corner of the globe — and the public was kept in the dark,” said Jonathan Wilcox, deputy chief of staff to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
“The US invests billions every year in the World Food Programme, and we have a right to expect the kind of transparency, efficiency and cooperation that reports indicate isn’t happening. It’s ‘trust, but verify’ time.”
President Trump delivered a “last warning” to Hamas Monday to accept a cease-fire deal backed by the US and Israel, which some of the president’s allies believe could be reached more quickly by leveraging the “soft diplomacy” of humanitarian work.
“It’s the easiest tool to help end wars and increase US national security around the world,” the former WFP official noted. “Trump needs to understand how big of a tool this is.”
McCain was appointed by former President Joe Biden and approved by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to lead the WFP for a five-year term starting in April 2023.
While WFP spent almost $10 billion on aid in total last year, US taxpayers contributed nearly $4.5 billion of that amount.
Meanwhile, deliveries in Gaza are being pilfered by young Palestinian males before being sold on the black market, likely to the benefit of Hamas.
“McCain is in a position right now to turn the tide in Gaza against Hamas by fully integrating with GHF and coordinating security for her own food trucks but she refuses to do that,” said a second former Trump national security official.
“She claims any attempt to secure aid convoys to prevent Hamas’ diversion or looting would be ‘militarizing’ international aid — but that defies logic and past precedent of doing whatever it is necessary to prevent armed actors from stealing the aid America is paying for,” the ex-official added.
“This is our taxpayer money McCain is controlling and if we think the best way to dislodge the terrorists and help the people is for WFP to work with and through GHF. That’s what McCain should be doing. Otherwise she should resign and let someone else take the job.”
In an August meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, McCain had indicated approval at the pace of aid delivery from the Jewish state into Gaza — but backtracked when asked publicly.
“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,” reps for Netanyahu’s office posted on X Aug. 29.
“It is regrettable that Mrs. McCain has since issued statements contradicting what she told us in Jerusalem,” the Israeli PM’s reps added. “That is a misrepresentation. Israel is enabling a steady flow of aid in sufficient quantities.”
“I stand by what I’ve said,” McCain fired back two days later during an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “There’s not enough food getting in.”
“We have in recent weeks been able to get a little more food in. But it’s not enough,” the WFP director also said, calling for a full cease-fire to let more aid flow into the war-torn region.
“Any cease-fire that they would initiate would just allow for the expansion of Hamas and have greater control and we’re going through this whole drill again,” predicted a US-based source with direct knowledge of the situation.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) agreed in an Aug. 28 statement after visiting the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
“I want to make it clear I have never bought into the narrative that Israel is intentionally starving the people of Gaza as a tool of war,” the South Carolina Republican said.
“I blame Hamas for all the problems associated with the attack of October 7 [2023] and its aftermath. I do expect Israel to work with international organizations and I believe that they are.”
As the widow of the longtime GOP senator and 2008 party presidential nominee, Cindy McCain, 71, has been backed to finish her term by some Republican lawmakers and State Department officials — despite being accused of mismanaging humanitarian crises in Sudan and Ukraine as well.
“She hasn’t been ‘Loomered’ yet — she should be ‘Loomered,’” joked the US official, referencing right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer’s crusades against members of the Trump administration seen as disloyal to the 47th president, which preceded some National Security Council firings in April.
Some administration officials and lawmakers have already been in discussion over who would lead the WFP next should McCain choose to step down.
Kip Tom, who served from May 2019 to January 2021 as US Ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture, is one of several candidates being floated, at least three sources familiar with the discussions said.
Reps for WFP did not respond to a request for comment.
