The Daily Populous Wednesday February 12nd, 2025 morning edition
Authored by snopes.com and submitted by AceMcLoud27

Claim: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided over $8 million in funding to the news and policy media company Politico LLC. Rating: About this rating False

After the Trump administration announced its intention to shutter USAID, rumors erupted that Politico, a digital media company, was being "massively funded" by the agency. Specifically, it was alleged that Politico had received over $8 million in USAID funding.

The above claim was false. Publicly available records showed that in 2023 and 2024, the USAID paid a total of $44,000 — not $8 million — to Politico, and the payments were earmarked for institutional subscriptions to E&E News, a Politico publication. No other transactions between USAID and Politico were listed for the entire previous decade.

The same records showed that since 2014, Politico had received $34.3 million from assorted federal agencies, the bulk of which appeared to have been payments for subscriptions to Politico publications (specifically E&E News and Politico Pro).

Dozens of members of Congress maintain pricey subscriptions to Politico publications as well.

Politico.com published a note to readers on Feb. 6, calling the rumors of USAID funding "misinformed" and "flat-out false," and stating that in its 18 years of existence, Politico " never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts."

In early February 2025, a false rumor circulated online, claiming the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — a government agency targeted for cuts or dismantling in the early weeks of U.S. President Donald Trump's second administration — provided over $8 million in funds to the news and policy media company Politico. Conservative social media users, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Trump himself and Elon Musk, who heads Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), all promoted false claims about this matter.

The usa.gov government website describes USAID as "the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty and engaging in democratic reforms."

At the beginning of February, the Trump administration closed the USAID offices in Washington and shut down the agency's website, leading to protests led by congressional Democrats outside the building. The closure followed Trump's signing of an executive order mandating a 90-day freeze on foreign development assistance, and several X posts by Musk in which he described USAID as "a criminal organization," said "Time for it to die" and talked about "feeding USAID into the wood chipper."

In our research, we found that the claim USAID had provided over $8 million in funding to Politico was false. The website usaspending.gov, an official, open-to-the-public resource for tracking government spending, displayed data for recent years indicating USAID had spent a total of $44,000 — not millions of dollars — for institutional subscriptions to the Politico publication E&E News. E&E News claims to offer "essential energy and environment news."

Our review of further records covering the previous 10 years found other government agencies paid a total of over $34 million to Politico (not just $8 million) over that decade. Again, however, the records displaying the biggest dollar amounts showed the money was spent on past subscriptions to E&E News, as well as to Politico Pro, a service designed for "professional policy makers," offering "critical news, alerts and tools that power policy." (The Politico Pro website did not publicly list the prices for services provided with its plans' subscriptions, indicating premium pricing.)

A list of disbursements (archived) of the U.S. House of Representatives reveals that dozens of members maintain paid subscriptions to Politico Pro and E&E News.

Politico.com published a note to readers on Feb. 6 about the rumors, in an attempt to "set the record straight." Goli Sheikholeslami, the CEO of Politico Media Group, and global Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris authored the note, calling some of the rumors "misinformed" and others "flat-out false." The bolded portions reflect sentences that Politco.com bolded:

Millions of people around the world read our journalism on POLITICO.com, POLITICO.eu and in newsletters like this one. It is supported by advertising and sponsorships. POLITICO Pro is different. It is a professional subscription service used by companies, organizations, and, yes, some government agencies. ... Government agencies that subscribe do so through standard public procurement processes — just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient. This is not funding. It is a transaction — just as the government buys research, equipment, software and industry reports. Some online voices are deliberately spreading falsehoods. Let's be clear: POLITICO has no financial dependence on the government and no hidden agenda. We cover politics and policy — that's our job.

By email, we requested further comment from both Politico and the White House, and will update this article if we receive any further information. Politico's About Us page describes itself as " the global authority on the intersection of politics, policy, and power. .... Founded in 2007, Politico has grown to a team of more than 1,100 working across North America and Europe. In October 2021, Politico was acquired by, and is a subsidiary of, Axel Springer SE."

Conservative users' claims about USAID funding Politico

On Feb. 5, a prominent conservative user posted (archived) on X, "Fun Fact: @Politico received USAID funds. Everything makes sense now." Beyond that text caption, the user's post featured three screenshots from usaspending.gov, with two displaying differing amounts of $8.1 million and $8.2 million. USAID did not appear in any of the screenshots. The combination of the post's text caption and the large screenshot's mention of $8.1 million made it misleadingly appear as if Politico received that amount of funds from USAID. The post received more than 12 million views.

Several replies later, that same user clarified (archived) — "just to be clear" — that the dollar figures in his initial post pertained to "all sorts of government agencies" and not only USAID.

Another conservative user posted (archived) of the rumor, "So let me get this straight… USAID has been spending millions of taxpayer dollars every year funding not only the BBC, but also Politico?" Again, USAID had not, in fact, spent millions of taxpayer dollars funding Politico. The user's post displayed over 4 million views.

Meanwhile, at least one BBC-affiliated organization received millions in government funding. The usafunding.gov website displayed a number of contracts and grants for BBC Media Action, BBC's international charity. BBC Media Action received millions in government grants, including for example $1.1 million for a "Nepal earthquake reconstruction lifeline radio project," $734,929 as one of several payments to fund an informational Libyan debate show and $750,000 for "stopping trafficking of people in south Sudan," among other funds. BBC Studios Americas, Inc. also received four contracts worth $138,208, and two grants totaling $2.

A different conservative commentator also falsely claimed records showed USAID "massively funded" Politico. That user posted (archived), "This is the biggest scandal in news media history: No employee at Politico got paid yesterday. First time ever the company missed a pay period. This is a crisis. Now we learn Politico — a 'news company' — which spent the last 10 years trying to destroy the MAGA Movement was being massively funded by USAID. Trump & Elon deleted their funding. Now Politico will go out of business. The corruption is endless. Good riddance." The post earned more than 11 million views.

The user's mention of payroll issues at Politico involved a "technical error," per an email reported (archived) by Semafor media editor Max Tani, who later the same day said (archived) Politico informed staff they resolved the matter.

Claims from WH press secretary and Trump

Hours after those conservative users posted their claims, Leavitt, the White House press secretary, addressed reporters in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. In an answer, she said, "Upon coming out here to the briefing room, I was made aware of the funding from USAID to media outlets, including Politico, who I know has a seat in this room, and I can confirm that the more than $8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers' dime will no longer be happening. The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now."

The wording of this statement made it appear as if the "$8 million taxpayer dollars" applied to USAID funding Politico, even though she did not directly make the assertion. Again, the dollar figure of $8 million originated from initial reports before users (and journalists) discovered a button on the usafunding.gov website that enabled them to see data for "all fiscal years," as opposed to only the "trailing 12 months" view.

Readers can view the full question-and-answer exchang from the briefing in this YouTube video, beginning at the 20:51 mark:

Trump himself also posted (archived) a claim about this matter on his Truth Social platform on Feb. 6. His statement, typed in all-capital letters, mentioned "other agencies" but did not directly address the fact USAID only provided $44,000 to Politico, LLC.

He posted, in part, "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."

Musk shared (archived) Trump's post as a screenshot on his platform, X:

For further reading, we recommend our earlier reporting about Trump's and Musk's actions pertaining to USAID.

Icy-Sir3226 on February 11st, 2025 at 18:06 UTC »

And it’s for PoliticoPro, which is separate from the news portion of the business. These are in-depth legal policy trackers and databases. Lots of government agencies have subscriptions.

StickAForkInMee on February 11st, 2025 at 17:47 UTC »

Where is all the data Elon is exposing? Is it not public? I haven’t seen any transparency

JaDonYoutube on February 11st, 2025 at 17:45 UTC »

Facts don't matter, everyone who approves of Trump and Musk already believe it was $8m. I feel like it's hopeless.