USAID’s ‘long list of crap’: Karoline Leavitt cites millions in wasteful spending

Washington Examiner



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.

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
T 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.”