MAGA spokespersons Wednesday claimed that news company Politico was funded by the United States Agency for International Development — the agency that Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to shut down. Conservative commentators like Beny Johnson, Charlie Kirk on X claimed that no employee at Politico got paid for the first time in a crisis that they called the “biggest scandal in news media history”.
“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,” Benny Johnson posted sharing a screenshot of USA Spending.
“This is the email Politico sent to all employees yesterday. No one got paid. Politico’s corrupt management blame this on a “glitch” and not their government gravy train ending. State propaganda collapsing,” Johson wrote sharing the email that the news company sent to its employees.
What is the truth in this viral claim?
Politico has not yet issued any statement reacting to the viral claim. “Due to what we believe to be a technical error, employees did not receive their paychecks as scheduled. We understand the urgency of this matter and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Our team is working diligently with our systems vendors and the bank to identify the rppt cause and implement a solution as quickly as possible. We will keep you updated as we learn more and work to resolve the problem as quickly as possible,” the purported email sent to the employees read.
“A major news outlet was getting $8 million a year in taxpayer money and never once disclosed that in its reporting. That’s a huge scandal. Politico shouldn’t survive this.,” one social media user wrote.
What happened to USAID
After Elon Musk announced on an X Space that he would recommend shutting down the agency, Donald Trump said he is also of the opinion that the agency should be shut down. Secretary of state Marco Rubio has become the acting director of USAID and all employees of the agency will now be placed on leave by Friday night — including the overseas staff who have been asked to return.
USAID provides humanitarian funds to foreign countries recovering from some crises.
