After decades of failure in its efforts to conserve American culture and rein in the federal bureaucracy, the GOP under President Donald Trump has finally struck at the heart of the progressive advocacy cabal by reviewing government funding of non-government organizations (NGOs) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) oversight into the latter this week revealed deep financial links between the federal government and left-wing journalism outlets that repeatedly push narratives supporting Democrats and progressive causes while demonizing Republicans and their objectives.

It further found hundreds of millions of dollars going to seemingly ridiculous projects such as an Iraqi version of Sesame Street and a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-themed musical in Ireland. While such projects may seem absurd, they play a critical role in shaping social narratives globally and manufacturing support for progressive reforms.

NGOs, meanwhile, are often charity-activism hybrids that ostensibly work on projects to help the disadvantaged, but are notorious for overspending on management salaries and employee perks. In what critics have described as “money laundering” of taxpayer dollars to left-wing advocates, USAID often distributes taxpayer money to NGOs that support liberal causes, some of which the government would not be able to advance directly, either due to legal constraints or political ones. Funding for online censorship advocacy, for instance, was prevalent among the DOGE revelations about USAID.

“A non-governmental organization, an NGO, that relies on government funding is by definition, not an NGO,” wrote Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman. “Rather, it is a subterfuge for the then leadership/controlling party of the government to effect change that it desires without the disclosures and approvals required if it attempted the change directly.”

The end product is a streamlined system in which taxpayer funds enter USAID, which then distributes them to media outlets (often through expensive mass subscriptions) that shape left-wing narratives, and to NGOs that advance them on the ground. 

President Trump on Friday ordered executive agencies to review all funding of NGOs in a sweeping memo, asserting that "[t]he United States Government has provided significant taxpayer dollars to Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), many of which are engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people. It is the policy of my Administration to stop funding NGOs that undermine the national interest."

The initial DOGE review of USAID sparked frantic reactions from Democrats, many of whom demonstrated outside of the USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C., and vowed to challenge the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since assumed the post of acting USAID director and the organization appears poised for integration into his department.

“USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY, AND THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT BECAUSE THE WAY IN WHICH THE MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT, SO MUCH OF IT FRAUDULENTLY, IS TOTALLY UNEXPLAINABLE. THE CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE. CLOSE IT DOWN!” Trump posted on Friday.

Curiously, the international world has been relatively silent and world leaders have generally not objected to the disruption of USAID funding to their nations.

“The people inflamed at closing USAID seem to be the NGOs and private sector grantees with a vested interest in USAID operations,” posted Foundation for Freedom Online founder Mike Benz. “The people very weirdly not inflamed at closing USAID are the leaders of countries those NGOs and private sector grantees are paid supposedly to help.”

Mass media manipulation

USAID alone was a major financier of international media, much of which espoused support for left-wing causes or reportedly favorably on them. A Wikileaks breakdown of USAID funding further found that 6,200 journalists received funding, as did 707 media outlets and 279 media NGOs.

“6,000 journalists and 700 newsrooms received USAID money? It's a wonder all of them parrot the same news,” wrote former “Fox and Friends” host Clayton Morris.

Among the most high-profile of DOGE finds was millions that went to Politico, a formerly moderate news outlet that has moved demonstrably to the left in recent years. The outlet itself put out a statement highlighting that it received the funds through paid government subscriptions to Politico Pro, insisting that the transactions had been legitimate. The revelation also came amid the company missing a pay period for the first time in its history, which the company attributed to a technical error.

Many appeared skeptical of Politico’s explanation, however. Convicted fraudster-turned-forensic accountant Sam Antar, for instance, wrote in response to the issue that “[t]he basis of money laundering is to channel cash through supposedly ‘legitimate’ transactions (e.g. subscriptions).”

The subscriptions issue comes at a bad time for Politico as former editors and reporters have scrutinized the outlet for blocking negative stories about the Biden administration. The public, meanwhile, has highlighted its past reporting calling the Hunter Biden laptop Russian disinformation and its leaking of the Dobbs decision that sparked protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices.

Abroad, roughly nine in ten Ukrainian news outlets received USAID funding. Another pro-Ukrainian media influencing operation, NAFO, appears to have received financial support. NAFO is an online pro-Ukrainian movement of trolls that ostensibly works to counter Russian narratives and features users with profile pictures of the late meme dog Cheems. Its members refer to one another as “fellas.”

Social engineering

Outside of the Western world, many progressive social causes do not enjoy broad public support. Some of USAID’s funding has gone toward changing that as a means of providing a cultural foothold for U.S. influence, especially through LGBT-related causes. The DEI musical in Colombia presents one of the more outlandish examples, but such efforts are pervasive and spread across the ocean, as far as Serbia and the Balkans.

“So George Soros has the Open Society, foundations and organizations, and he's not only active here in the United States, but in other countries,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “And conservatives in these other countries are disturbed about his advocacy for left-wing values, and he's often been able to partner with the State Department, USAID, to advance these values.”

“And we've exposed how government money was sent either to [or] in partnership with Soros, operations directly, or groups he supports in countries like Macedonia, Albania,” he went on. “It doesn't take a lot of money to sway policy in a country like Albania or Macedonia. And of course, they're able to leverage the money, any of these left-wing groups. It's not just Soros, it's the whole, it's the whole transnational left.”

“They leverage USA ID money to lend credibility and political power to their advocacy for the radical left in these various countries,” Fitton asserted. “So they get the rubber stamp of approval and the tacit support of the US government through USAID moneys.”

“The rabbit is out of the hat!” posted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “We had to endure for years that the ultra-progressive, self-proclaimed human rights champions of the mainstream media demonized Patriotic political forces for years. They did it because they were paid to do so by USAID and the previous, left-wing US administration.”

Vehicles of regime change

USAID and its funding of NGOs has long faced accusations of working to undermine foreign regimes and foster regime change through paid or manipulated opposition. In a very recent example, the Georgian government blamed demonstrations in Tbilisi on foreign-backed organizers. Though derided as Russian propaganda at the time, USAID did, in fact, fund NGOs for the Georgian elections.

“USAID spent, through political NGOs, USD 41,7 million on Georgian elections,” posted Georgian Parliament President Shalva Papuashvili. “In terms of US/Georgia population ratio, this would amount to USD 3,78 billion foreign money injected in US elections. These numbers are even more grotesque if compared with GDP ratio as well.”

The Georgian Dream party won 54% of the vote in that country’s recent elections, though now-former President Salome Zourabichvili, a French-born politician and former French ambassador to Georgia, refused to accept the results and called for protests, which speedily materialized.

Prior to the elections, the Georgian Dream government pushed through a foreign agents law comparable to the U.S.’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), alleging that foreign-funded NGOs were working to undermine Georgian society. It further passed a bill restricting advocacy for LGBT causes that led to similar protests. After the election, demonstrators rocked the streets of the capital, with footage of rioters igniting firecrackers and hurling them toward the parliament building going viral.

Amid the protests, Georgian authorities raided the offices of several NGOs and found stockpiles of firecrackers and incendiary devices. Following the raids, the protests became demonstrably more subdued. The government further declared that roughly 30% of those arrested were foreign-born.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously blamed the 2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine on Western-backed NGOs, alleging a similar operation to the failed Georgian protests. While details of that accusation remain unclear, DOGE did find that roughly nine in ten Ukrainian news outlets received some measure of USAID funding.