Facts or fiction? Trump repeats false claim that the United States is sending condoms to Gaza | Trump -Administration

Talking in the White House Wednesday, Donald Trump boasted That his administration had “stopped $ 50 million to be sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas” and doubled a claim first made by his press secretary, who appears to be contradicted by facts.

As The Guardian reported Tuesday, A comprehensive report Issued in September by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), not a $ 60.8 million krone. In birth control and condom shipments funded by the United States in the past year went to Gaza. In fact, the accounts show that there were no condoms sent to any part of the Middle East, and only a small shipment, $ 45,680 in oral and injectable contraception, were sent to the region, all distributed to Jordan’s government.

The claim was first made by the press secretary in the White House, Karoline Leavitt, when she tried to justify Trump’s sweeping order to freeze federal funding by quoting what she called important new research from Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (or DOGE) , a special group that Trump has created and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

“DOGE AND OMB also found that there were 50 m taxpayers dollars that went out the door to finance condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt claimed. “It’s an inappropriate waste of taxpayer money. So this is what this break is focused on: being good managers of tax dollars. “

While Leavitt did not provide any evidence of supporting this claim and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Guardian, the idea that the United States government was planning to spend $ 50 million from musk themselves.

Fox Pundit Jesse Watters Self claimed that the condoms were used by Hamas militants as balloons to float explosives to Israel.

However, a review of the available evidence suggests that the requirement is almost certainly not true.

For the financial year 2023, the latest for which data is available, only approx. $ 7 million Condoms distributed globally by USAID, and the vast majority of family planning funds, 89%, were spent on programs in Africa.

No USAID financing for family planning was budgeted for Gaza.

In a thread on Musk’s Social Media Platform X, spokesman for the state department Tammy Bruce quotedAs “Example 1” of “unjustified and non-emergency situations” that had been blocked: “Condoms. Prevented $ 102 million in unjustified financing to a contractor in Gaza, including money for birth control.”

Bruce told CNN The contractor to get $ 102M is the International Medical Corps-One US-based organization that runs two field hospitals in Gaza. But the International Medical Corps submitted A statement On his site with details of his emergency work in Gaza with this clear denial: “No US government financing was used to obtain or distribute condoms.”

CNN also reported that experts in the US help with Gaza were confused by the claim. “We have asked around, and no one is sure what this is referring to,” Steve Fake, a spokesman for Angera, a non-profit who has worked with USAID on a Five-year-old, $ 50 m Health Initiative in Gaza told the TV station.

Fake added that the Angera program has “certainly no purchase of condoms”.

As Dan Evon from Non-Profit News Literacy Project pointed out In a comment on the USAID financing for family planning in other parts of the world: “It is also worth noting that this is not a bit program. Trump also used funds to send contraception across the globe. In 2019, about $ 40 million was spent on contraception by Trump administration. “