The White House is defending its decision to gut the U.S. Agency for International Development, citing projects press secretary Karoline Leavitt has repeatedly described as “crap.”
President Donald Trump, through Tesla, SpaceX, and X CEO Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency, has recalled USAID workers from around the world before they are placed on administrative leave on Friday.
Democrats have criticized the reforms for creating an opportunity for China to develop diplomatic soft power through foreign aid, but Leavitt disagreed.
“I would just say a strong message to Democrats who are out there pretending to be outraged about the long list of crap that this administration is cutting,” Leavitt told reporters during Wednesday’s briefing, naming examples from her list of programs Trump has deemed wasteful. “Democrats are outraged that the American people … want their taxpayers going to good uses, not stuff like this.”
Here is the list Leavitt brought to the briefing.
- $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala.
- $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt.
- Spent $20 million on “Ahlan Simsim” — a new Sesame Street show in Iraq.
- Over $4.5 million to “combat disinformation” in Kazakhstan.
- Up to $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals went to al Qaeda-linked terrorist group the Nusra Front.
- $500,000 to group that “empowers women” in an attempt to solve sectarian violence in Israel just 10 days before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks.
- Awarded nearly $25 million to Deloitte to promote green transportation in Georgia (the country).
- $4.67 million to EcoHealth Alliance, one of the key nongovernmental organizations funding bat virus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology, in late 2021. Later refused to answer key questions about the funding.
- $20 million for the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability through Investigative Reporting program which used the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project as its implementing partner. The OCCRP was cited four times in the whistleblower letter that led to the Russiagate impeachment.
- USAID’s 2022-2030 climate strategy outlined a $150 billion “whole-of-Agency approach” to building an “equitable world with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”
- $7.9 million to a project that would teach Sri Lankan journalists to avoid “binary-gendered language.”
- $1.1 million to an Armenian LGBT group.
- $1.2 million to the African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency in Washington, D.C., to build “a state-of-the-art 440-seat auditorium.”
- $1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers.
- $1.5 million to promote LGBT advocacy in Jamaica.
- $1.5 million to “rebuild” the Cuban media ecosystem.
- $1.5 million for “art for inclusion of people with disabilities.”
- $2 million to promote “LGBT equality through entrepreneurship … in developing Latin American countries.”
- $2.1 million so the BBC can strengthen the media ecosystem in Libya, “designed to value the diversity of Libyan society.”
- $2.3 million for “artisanal and small-scale gold mining” in the Amazon.
- $2.5 million to promote “inclusion” in Vietnam.
- $3.9 million to LGBT causes in the Western Balkans.
- $5.5 million to LGBT in Uganda.
- $6 million to advance LGBT in “priority countries around the world.”
- $6 million to “Transform Digital Spaces to Reflect Feminist Democratic Principles.”
- $6.3 million to men who have sex with men in South Africa.
- $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion.”
- Another $16.8 million to a separate group in Vietnam for “inclusion.”
