Owning the media - USAID -
No wonder they all say the same stupid things
Astonishing!
Russian news finds readers despite sanctions and USAID-funded competition – FT
RIA Novosti and Russia Today have been spreading their message despite competition from media outlets funded by USAID and Western sanctions pressure, the Financial Times has said.
According to FT, the agency spent around $100 million on funding programs in Russia in 2023. Programs in Moldova received $309 million while around $1.7 billion was spent on Ukraine.
The US president froze most US foreign aid for a 90-day review shortly after his inauguration. USAID has subsequently seen a number of its projects suspended, and Trump has said he wants the agency shut down.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that Trump’s crackdown on the agency vindicated Moscow’s 2012 ban on its activity in the country.
“We said that this is not an agency for aid, assistance and development,” the spokeswoman stressed in a press briefing on Thursday. “This is a machine for interference in internal affairs, a mechanism for changing regimes, political systems, and state structures,” she said, adding that the agency had acted outside the realm of Russian and international law.
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White House orders termination of ‘all media contracts’ – Axios
US President Donald Trump’s White House has ordered the General Services Administration (GSA), a key agency that assists other government departments, to cancel “every single media contract” according to an email obtained by Axios.
The instructions were reportedly delivered after Elon Musk, who oversees the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and his team uncovered millions of federal dollars being spent on Politico Pro subscriptions. Politico Pro is a premium legislative and regulatory tracking service used by multiple government agencies, with subscription costs reportedly being up to $10,000 per year.
According to Axios, a White House official wrote to the GSA on Thursday, requesting: “GSA team, please do two things[.] Pull all contracts for Politico, BBC, E&E (Politico sub) and Bloomberg. Pull all media contracts for just GSA – cancel every single media contract today for GSA only.”
The GSA is an independent agency responsible for managing federal property across various agencies and enhancing the efficiency of government operations, according to its website.
Trump claimed on Thursday that billions of dollars had been stolen by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and used to pay for positive news coverage of Democrats.
The president took to Truth Social regarding the federal government’s media contracts. He warned that “the biggest scandal in history” was brewing, after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that American taxpayer money had been used to subsidize government subscriptions to Politico and other media outlets.
“Looks like billions of dollars have been stollen [sic] 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 left wing ‘rag,’ known as ‘Politico,’ seems to have received $8,000,000,” Trump wrote.
The reported GSA order dovetails with Trump’s effort to realign USAID, which had a budget of some $60 billion in 2023. The Trump administration has initiated significant changes to the agency, ordering a near-total freeze in billions of dollars’ worth of foreign aid.
The president questioned whether the New York Times and other media outlets were also receiving financial “payoffs.”
In response, Politico asserted that it had “never been the beneficiary of government programs or subsidies” and that the “overwhelming majority” of its subscriptions come from the private sector.
Some conservative commentators have alleged that Politico, the New York Times, and the Associated Press received “government funding” or “grants” from USAID and other federal agencies. Kyle Becker, a former Fox News producer, examined public records and found that the government paid Politico $8.2 million over the past year.
Elon Musk called the payments “a huge waste of taxpayer money.”
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