‘US Funded 6,000 Journalists To Spread Liberal Agenda’, AI Used To Uncover Spending (Worthy News Investigation)
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – U.S. President Donald J. Trump has directly called for the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) after his eccentric government efficiency czar Elon Musk uncovered that more than 6,000 journalists at some 700 media outlets worldwide were paid to allegedly spread its liberal agenda.
Musk is believed to have been using high-tech, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to reveal hundreds of millions of dollars spent on these and other projects at USAID, which reportedly manages $40 billion annually.
“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Trump wrote of USAID on his Truth Social media platform over the weekend, accusing the agency of unspecified rampant corruption and fraud. He had previously asserted that the agency was “run by radical lunatics.”
The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) advocacy group said the USAID aid freezes may have delayed $268 million earmarked for funding “independent media and the free flow of information” in 2025.
USAID previously reported that its funding supports over 6,000 journalists, about 700 newsrooms, and almost 3,000 civic society groups in roughly 30 countries.
RSF said the full impact of the freeze is hard to quantify as recipients of the funding fear risking future aid or political retribution if they speak out.
The non-profit also claims that troubles at USAID may have severe consequences for Ukrainian journalists—where 90 percent of news organizations rely on USAID funding for operations.
The editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent, Olga Rudenko, said last week that the freeze “has caused harm to independent Ukrainian journalism on par with the COVID-19 pandemic and the onset of Russia’s full-scale war.”
Advocacy groups also fear consequences for journalists from Belarus, Cambodia, Iran, Moldova, and Myanmar, also known as Burma.
In Myanmar, the freeze of USAID’s funding has already plunged one outlet into “uncertainty exactly four years on from a brutal coup that forced Myanmar’s independent media into exile or underground,” journalists said.
In Hungary, where Worthy News has its Europe Bureau, independent media fear their future without USAID funding. They say the government of increasingly “authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán” closed or took over critical outlets. Orbán welcomed Trump’s crackdown on USAID.
Yet Worthy News also discovered that media projects at USAID alone included $20 million for a local Sesame Street version in Iraq and $8 million for Politico Pro subscriptions of the political news outlet Politico.
In Libya, $2.1 million went to Britain’s broadcaster BBC for “media ecosystem.”
Communist-run Cuba saw $1.5 million for media rebuilding while in Colombia, $47,000 was transferred for a “transgender opera,” and in Peru, $2 million “for a transgender comic book.”
Additionally $75 million was allocated for “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs in foreign countries besides $10 million for meals to forces linked to al-Qaida, a designated terror group.
Earlier, Worthy News reported that the U.S. Department of Defense was pressured to explain why it had paid over $9 million to the company that owns the Reuters news agency for activities that included “active social engineering” and “large-scale social deception.”
While most of that money was spent under the previous Biden administration, the contract’s start date was in the first term of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, according to records reviewed by Worthy News.
The first roughly $2.1 million was allocated to Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC between September 2018 and February 2020, according to graphics on the USASPENDING.GOV website, which tracks how the government spends taxpayers’ dollars.
Commentators quickly said it was part of Biden’s misinformation campaign. Still, experts and officials suggested that Reuters was asked to help defend against large-scale social deception rather than participate in it.
Besides sponsoring media, “U.S. taxpayers should know that their government is using their money to fund communist movements against a democratically elected (and with a 90% approval rating) government in El Salvador,” wrote President Nayib Bukele on social media platform X.
He also noted Sunday that very few people turned up for a protest against mining. A drone picture seemed to confirm his assessment, though Worthy News could not independently verify the footage.
“Every political party joined the call, along with 90% of all NGOs, universities, churches, and activist groups. They ran a month-long mainstream media and social media campaign, had the backing of the country’s most powerful news outlets, chose a holiday (Sunday) so no one had to work, organized preparatory events, and more. This is what they achieved. It’s clear there is no opposition without USAID money,” he wrote, adding a smiley.
More is expected to be uncovered, with officials confirming that Tusk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is using AI to investigate the U.S. Department of Education and expanding it to the U.S. Department of Health.
Officials have privately expressed concern that using AI to uncover sensitive and potentially classified data may make government agencies more vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Additionally, there are security concerns about USAID staff working in dangerous regions, including war zones, who have been told to come back within 30 days.
There were protests by Democrats against DOGE’s crackdown, but so far, they have done little to stop the Trump-Musk train ravaging bureaucratic Washington.
Republicans seem to support the efforts in a nation where the national debt has ballooned to more than $36 trillion.
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