One of the most significant steps President Donald Trump has taken to address government waste thus far in his second term has involved ending the millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on pet projects around the world by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
As White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt broke down to reporters earlier this month, USAID has a long record of funding a litany of controversial international programs:
🚨HOLY SMOKES: Karoline Leavitt just EXPOSED USAID by laying out exactly what taxpayers money is being wasted on:
– $2.5 MILLION to DEI in Serbia
– $70,000 onan Irish DEI musical
– $47,000 on transgender operas in Colombia
– $32,000 on a trans comic book in PeruSHUT IT DOWN! pic.twitter.com/WA2MNrPDDK
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 3, 2025
While leftist leaders in D.C. have decried the Trump administration’s crackdown on USAID, many others are applauding the apparent return of fiscal responsibility to the federal government.
Podcaster Joe Rogan was one of those cheerleaders, as Breitbart reported:
“What’s fascinating right now is we’re getting a chance to see what happens when you take a business approach to the government in the White House,” Rogan said during the show. “We’re seeing right now with this whole USAID thing where they’re uncovering massive amounts of corruption and waste and just a lot of weird shady shit with NGOs and where an enormous amount of money is going, and you’re seeing someone look at this thing that is incredibly efficient, almost by design. And instead of saying like, well, this is just how it is and this is how these politicians get funded, so let’s just keep this thing going the same way it is and make some incremental changes to try to make people happy so we still get elected.”
Rogan also noted that Trump doesn’t have to face re-election, so he can go hog wild to cut corruption and waste with no repercussions on a re-election campaign.
“We need radical change. Okay, well, here’s your radical change. We don’t need this! But you do. The government does,” Rogan continued. “They need oversight, and they haven’t had that. And because of that, you’re seeing this not just waste. You could call it waste, but it’s deeper, it’s deeper than waste, it’s corruption. And you’re seeing that that corruption get weeded out.”
ADVERTISEMENTRogan then said he hopes Trump succeeds and is able to put an end to all this corruption.
Here’s a small sample of some of the social media response to the effort to expose waste and corruption within USAID:
Thank you @POTUS @elonmusk and his team of 6 for exposing the USAID tax money going to the enemy. pic.twitter.com/qavx8fnqJ3
— Dr. Interracial 🇺🇸 (@billysandytodd) February 7, 2025
Elderly American Citizen has just seen the news about what Elon Musk and DOGE have exposed with USAID
Her response:
“I want back every goddamn tax dollar I ever paid in, ever.”
Same. We all feel the exact same way. pic.twitter.com/mkPCFhq1tO
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) February 7, 2025
Black lady NOT concerned about Trump but she IS concerned with the info coming out about how USAID was spending our money pic.twitter.com/1sawGInbRu
— 🇺🇸 ʟᴇғᴛ ᴄᴏᴀˢᴛ ᴠᴀɢʀᴀɴᴛ 🇺🇸 (@Baklava_USA) February 8, 2025
And the administration is doing a lot more than just talking about the problem, as AP News reported this week:
Two current USAID employees and one former senior USAID official told The Associated Press of the administration’s plan, presented to remaining senior officials of the agency Thursday. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to a Trump administration order barring USAID staffers from talking to anyone outside their agency.
The plan would leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of what are currently 8,000 direct hires and contractors. They, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired international staffers abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for the time being.
It was not immediately clear whether the reduction to 300 would be permanent or temporary, potentially allowing more workers to return after what the Trump administration says is a review of which aid and development programs it wants to resume.
BREAKING: USAID signs are being taped over and removed.pic.twitter.com/11BarlOMFq
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 7, 2025
And here’s what Ron Paul had to say about USAID’s insidious influence on the media:
Nearly all mainstream media – WORLDWIDE – has been funded by the US government under USAID
No wonder they all repeat the same things! pic.twitter.com/Cc1I5JZlm6
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) February 6, 2025
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