The White House says it will cancel $ 8 million in Politico subscriptions after a false right-wing conspiracy theory.

Cnn
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The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who answered Wednesday on a question of a right -wing conspiracy theory, announced that the federal government would cancel $ 8 million worth of political subscriptions.

Leavitt raised a false claim that spread on social media about the fact that Politico and Associated Press received millions of dollars from the US Agency of International Development for years, which President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have targeted by placing staff on leave. In fact, the payments represented the entire federal government’s subscription to the services of the news sites. All federal agencies combined spent $ 8.2 million last year on Politico Pro, according to UsePending.gov.

By a press briefing in the White House, Leavitt journalists told her she had been made aware of USAID financing for media, including Politico, and noted that taxpayers’ dollars that have been awarded to “essentially subsidize subscriptions to Politico on the US taxpayers’ crown will not anyone. Longer spoon. ”

“The DOGE team is working to cancel these payments now,” Leavitt said.

However, as journalists quickly pointed out in response to false statements on social media, the payments are not exclusively USID funds.

“I looked at these contracts and I have my own fun fact,” said Byron Tau, an investigative reporter at Associated Press, via X. “This occurs because agencies (not only USAID) buy subscriptions to Politico’s Pro -editorial, not because Politico receives reimbursement or other federal funding.”

Trump -Administration’s focus on the false narrative that Politico received USAID -Funds follows A wrong claim from Kyle BeckerA conservative political commentator, Wednesday. In an x ​​-thread tied Becker A Tuesday Report from Semaphor It showed that Politico employees had not been paid over a “technical error”, which was subsequently established for a USAspending.gov page showing that Politico received $ 8.2 million across 237 transactions.

“Fun Fact: @politico received USAID — funds,” Becker said via X. “Everything makes sense now.”

Becker tried to tie the “technical error” reported by Semaphor to USAID funds, claiming the funds have burned Politico’s premium subscriptions. In the threadBecker also claimed that Associated Press has received millions of taxpayers’ dollars for years.

Beckers’ positions quickly got the attention of right-right media personalities including Benny JohnsonAt Charlie Kirkand Dana Loeschof which the latter called for protests outside Politico’s offices. In one X PostWill Sommer, a media port at The Washington Post, pointed out that Johnson, who helped bend the fake theory, ironically received secret, illegal payments from the Russian government

Musk that oversees the Department of Government Efficiency, also chimed into Becker’s post, Calling the alleged payments “A huge waste of taxpayer money!”

In a statement, AP said the federal government has long been an AP customer – through both democratic and Republican administrations. ”

“It does not licenses ApS -Partisan journalism, like thousands of news sites and customers all over the world,” said AP. “It is quite common for governments to have contracts with news organizations about their content.”

Politico did not respond to a request for comment.

It is not uncommon for federal employees to expenses premium news subscriptions that provide the facts and analysis they need to do their jobs. Isaac Saul, who founded the independent Tangle -Newsletter, called the false tale “DOGE -WORLD.”

“Politico has a super expensive pro -subscription with very valuable info that lots of US agencies and employees want and pay for,” Saul said further X. “The same thing does other news organs.”

This is not the first time that the Trump administration has caused a voting of federal employees’ subscriptions to news organizations. In 2019, the Trump administration called on all federal agencies to complete their subscriptions at the Washington Post, and the New York Times after the White House announced it would “end” its subscriptions to the newspapers. It is unclear whether federal employees were actually forced to complete their subscriptions to news sites at the time.