Snopes on USAID
- Thread starter Politruk
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butters
High on a Hill
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Melania promoted USAID on her 4 country tour, talking about the great and necessary work it did like supplying books and writing materials for students... it was her 'pet project', touring the world (away from trump) and trying to make herself look like she cared for little foreign kids with brown skins
- While Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk said he was working to "shut down" USAID, it wasn't clear whether the official position of President Donald Trump's administration was to shut it down or merge it into the U.S. State Department.
- The president does not have the legal authority to shut down USAID or merge it into the State Department, according to several constitutional scholars. That is because USAID was enshrined as an independent agency by an act of Congress, despite first being established by executive order. The White House did not return a request for comment and an explanation of its legal standing as of this writing.
- Trump does, however, have the authority to move some functions of USAID to the State Department — given proper notification to Congress, which Democratic lawmakers say he has not done.
Chelsea Clinton received $84 million in taxpayer dollars from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Rating:
https://mediaproxy.snopes.com/width/200/https://media.snopes.com/2018/03/rating-false.png
False
About this rating
Context
A graph that social media users claimed showed Chelsea Clinton received $84 million from USAID is actually a reference to the Clinton Foundation. Further, government data from fiscal years 2008-24 showed that USAID had not given more than $7.5 million to that foundation. Finally, tax returns show Chelsea Clinton does not receive any compensation for her work at the foundation.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided over $8 million in funding to the news and policy media company Politico LLC.
Rating:
https://mediaproxy.snopes.com/width/200/https://media.snopes.com/2018/03/rating-false.png
False
About this rating
- 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."
On Jan. 28, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump's White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, claimed that the administration had just stopped millions of dollars in funding for condoms in Gaza. Calling the expense a waste of taxpayer funds, it was one example Leavitt gave of the benefits of Trump's temporary pause on foreign aid, grants and loans, which included funds for the World Health Organization (WHO).
Per the White House transcript, Leavitt said: "[The Department of Government Efficiency] DOGE and [the Office of Management and Budget] OMB also found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza. That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money."
Numerous Snopes readers asked us if the U.S. government had indeed planned to spend $50 million on condoms for Gaza. The story spread far and wide, amplified by tech entrepreneur and DOGE appointee Elon Musk, who shared a clip of Leavitt making the statement with the caption, "Tip of the iceberg."
Leavitt offered no evidence to back up her claim. We looked through documents detailing funds spent on contraceptives and family planning initiatives by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and found no evidence that tens of millions of dollars were earmarked for condoms in Gaza. We regard the claim as unproven.
ChloeTzang
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Snopes? An extremist left wing spin facilitation organization with zero credibility
You are an idiot.
Lathanar1
Really Experienced
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I was a little surprised it took almost 4 hours for this to show up.
ChloeTzang
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Well, it shouldn't be necessary to point it out but there are the credulous who actually believe Snopes misinformation
YDB95
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This would carry a lot more weight if you or any of the other wingnuts here had ever produced any evidence that they get things wrong.
EXACTLY.
I get so tired of this crap. Anytime someone's dystopian fantasies are exposed as "False" these people don't have the mental or emotional maturity to accept that "Well, maybe I was wrong." Oh no. They attack the debunkers, claiming it's "Biased."
Truth isn't biased. Facts aren't biased. Facts are facts- whether you are emotionally mature enough to accept them or not reflects only on you.
Playwithmee
Formerly Twistedkink
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And was being investigated by the over his actions in Ukraine, a clear conflict of interest from the word go!
MOST people actually believe Snopes- because their job is to DEBUNK misinformation, not perpetuate it.
For some reason, this seems to have been lost on you.
ChloeTzang
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Your "most" people are lefties who are useful idiots.
Snopes job is to push leftist and woke misinformation and hide the truth.
And you know this how?
You do realize that that term originated as a lie?
A useful idiot is someone who supports one side of an ideological debate, but who is manipulated and despised by the leaders of their faction, or who is unaware of the ultimate plan driving the ideology they support.[note 1] The term originated in early 1950s America in reference to members of the Socialist Party, allegedly promoted by the malevolent KGB to weaken America as a nation.[2] The closely related term fellow traveller (Russian: спутник, sputnik)[note 2] refers to someone who sympathises with and is willing to support the publicly stated goals of the party while not being a dues-paying, card-carrying member. The origin of the phrase has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin,[3] but there is no evidence that Lenin ever said or wrote it.[4][5]
In actual fact, the Socialist Party was not promoted by the KGB -- calling them "useful idiots" was a lie. The Socialist Party of America was always anti-Soviet -- that is what distinguished them from the CPUSA.
As for Snopes:
Anyone who insists that their personal myth is fact, whether that be moonhoaxers, 9/11 truthers, or bigfooters, will insist that Snopes is wrong because everyone but themselves is biased against the "truth". FactCheck.org, a nonprofit website dedicated to, umm, checking facts, reported that Snopes was completely unbiased.[8] According to Media Bias/Fact Check, Snopes has a rating of "left-center".[9] This of course proves that both FactCheck and Media Bias/Fact Check are also part of the conspiracy.[citation NOT needed]
In an extraordinary example of media eating itself, fake news merchants have distributed a meme on Facebook saying that FactCheck.org had condemned Snopes as an "extremely liberal propaganda site". The meme also claimed that Snopes was associated with George Soros (supposed boss of the international Jewish conspiracy) and the Democratic National Committee. FactCheck.org duly published another article praising Snopes's lack of bias and totally debunking this claim and associated photographs that wrongly identified Hungarian ex-PM Gordon Bajnai as Mikkelson.[10]
Accusations of bias[edit]
For more detail on the way cranks always react to skeptics, see our articles on Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia and the shill gambit.Anyone who insists that their personal myth is fact, whether that be moonhoaxers, 9/11 truthers, or bigfooters, will insist that Snopes is wrong because everyone but themselves is biased against the "truth". FactCheck.org, a nonprofit website dedicated to, umm, checking facts, reported that Snopes was completely unbiased.[8] According to Media Bias/Fact Check, Snopes has a rating of "left-center".[9] This of course proves that both FactCheck and Media Bias/Fact Check are also part of the conspiracy.[citation NOT needed]
In an extraordinary example of media eating itself, fake news merchants have distributed a meme on Facebook saying that FactCheck.org had condemned Snopes as an "extremely liberal propaganda site". The meme also claimed that Snopes was associated with George Soros (supposed boss of the international Jewish conspiracy) and the Democratic National Committee. FactCheck.org duly published another article praising Snopes's lack of bias and totally debunking this claim and associated photographs that wrongly identified Hungarian ex-PM Gordon Bajnai as Mikkelson.[10]
Thing about Snopes is that they show their work. All the sources are laid out for people to refuse to read & check themselves, then they can just blindly post 'FAke NeWs' any time they don't like the facts.
When Trump owed money to New York bankers, just Putin.How many people does it take to write a check?
When Trump owed money to Putin, just Musk.
It's very efficient that way.
ChloeTzang
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Yeah yeah yeah and when you check their sources, they're other woke media, or they skirt around the truth or they only address half the issue and play deliberately dumb. Nope, Snopes is a waste of space and has an extreme left bias.
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