The U.S. Agency for International Development made national headlines after President Donald Trump’s administration illegally gutted it. And now, right-wing nuts, including Trump, are peddling the bogus claim that the agency gave considerable funds to Politico, LLC, which oversees the news outlet Politico and other publications.
“LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN [stolen] AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS,” the president wrote to Truth Social on Thursday morning. “THE LEFT WING ‘RAG,’ KNOWN AS ‘POLITICO,’ SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did??? THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!”
Of course, none of what Trump said is true. The payments he and other Republicans are referring to largely represent the money the entire federal government spent on Politico Pro subscriptions, totaling $8.2 million between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025, according to USAspending.gov, a government-run source for federal expenditure data.
Furthermore, only a tiny fraction of that spending on subscriptions came from USAID: $44,000 during the fiscal years 2023 and 2024. That’s negligible compared with what other agencies spent. The biggest spenders were the Department of Health and Human Services ($1.37 million), the Department of the Interior ($1.35 million), and the Department of Energy ($1.29 million).
But it’s not just federal agencies that pay for Politico—Republican lawmakers also do.
The Washington Post discovered that 38 House Republicans spent more than $300,000 on Politico subscriptions in the first three quarters of 2024, while GOP-led committees dedicated about $500,000 to Politico subscriptions during the same timeframe.
Even the office of Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who recently criticized Politico on social media, subscribes, according to a reporter for Reason magazine, who cited a disbursements report from the House.
Still, that hasn’t stopped right-wing conspiracy theorists from falsely claiming that Politico is funded solely by USAID and is “state-sponsored media.” Just on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced during a press conference that the federal government would cancel their subscriptions to Politico Pro.
“I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayer's dime will no longer be happening,” Leavitt said. “The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now.”
Unsurprisingly, the leader of DOGE, billionaire Elon Musk, also offered his two cents on social media, saying that the money spent on Politico subscriptions was “not an efficient use of taxpayer funds.”
“This wasteful expenditure will be deleted,” he said.
The right’s Politico conspiracy is laughable and despicable, especially given that the government spends trillions annually. The fact that Trump’s administration is hellbent on slashing federal agencies’ relatively small media budgets speaks volumes about how seriously Republicans will target the press over the next four years.
Politico isn’t the only media organization the federal government has spent money on, either. Records show the government has also made payments to the Associated Press, Reuters, Axios, and The New York Times, among others. But because Politico offers certain paywalled products that are more expensive than its peers’ products, it’s catching fire.
The attacks against Politico began on Tuesday after it was announced that the outlet had missed payroll. Though the issue was quickly resolved, this led some conservative news outlets to speculate that the missed payments were related to the Trump administration’s pledge to destroy USAID.
From there, it didn’t take long before far-right media personalities, including Charlie Kirk and Dana Loesch, began to amplify the false allegation that Politico was secretly being bankrolled by USAID. Loesch went as far as to call for “protests outside of Politico’s offices” and investigations into “[e]very news agency.”
In a memo to staff, Politico’s leaders, Goli Sheikholeslami and John Harris, denied that the outlet was ever “a beneficiary of government programs or subsidies” in the 18 years of its existence.
“[N]ot one cent, ever,” they said.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
