Staff Reports
Political figures often find themselves juggling public trust with the interests of legacy media. In recent days, former President Donald Trump’s bold move to hit the brakes on USAID has sparked a media frenzy, particularly among those outlets now at risk of losing their taxpayer funded perks. The Trump administration is taking a hard look at the $8 million hefty price tag that has been used to subsidize subscriptions to outlets like POLITICO. This decision, apparently made with the American taxpayer in mind, has drawn the ire of legacy media, which is typically accustomed to receiving government cash for their so-called “journalism.”
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took center stage at a White House briefing, addressing the $8 million taxpayer dollars that had been funneled to POLITICO and other media companies and asserting that this free ride was coming to a halt. The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it is cheekily called, is getting to work by ending these payments posthaste. However, for POLITICO and its ilk, the idea of losing such funds appears as sharp as a paper cut—painful, annoying, and downright unacceptable.
🚨White House spokeswoman Levitt 🇺🇸:
🚀“I realized that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had funded media like Politico. I can confirm that more than $8 million went to subscription support won't happen anymore. We're going line to… pic.twitter.com/qZCecxu4Al
— ❀ N ✿ (@8zal) February 5, 2025
Not surprisingly, some left-leaning outlets took to the airwaves to paint this as nothing more than a conspiracy concocted by right-wing fringe groups. According to CNN, the entire affair was branded a ‘false conspiracy theory,’ a term the left loves to use when defending their beloved sources of information from top-notch scrutiny. Their denial of receiving federal funds might hold water, but let’s not ignore the fact that POLITICO has enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle funded by government subscriptions—a detail that seems to conveniently get lost in commotion.
It’s worth mentioning that the Associated Press quickly joined the chorus of media outlets clamoring for attention, reminding everyone of its long-standing relationship with the federal government, likening it to any other unsuspecting customer. The AP might want to rethink this argument, given the perception that most “customers” aren’t usually swallowing taxpayer funds to prop themselves up. Meanwhile, POLITICO officials have taken to sending memos to staff defending their work, insisting they have received no government “handouts” but merely subscriptions from various agencies. To many, this sounds strikingly similar to a child claiming they aren’t stealing candy if they pay for it with their parents’ cash.
Behavior like this often leaves one scratching their head about the motives behind such vehement defenses. After all, if there’s nothing sinister about these subscription payments, why is the reaction so overblown? A journalist from The Dispatch was quick to acknowledge that calling these funds “humanitarian assistance,” as some left-wing commentators did, is quite a stretch. Let’s not forget that this money could have been spent elsewhere—perhaps toward something that would actually benefit American citizens instead of securing favorable coverage for Democrats?
With Trump’s administration vowing to comb through federal expenditures line by line, it remains to be seen how far this investigation will go and how tightly former media darlings will cling to their government-granted lifelines. Outside the echo chamber of the mainstream media, conservative voices echo a chorus stating the obvious: taxpayer dollars should not be funneled to media companies that engage in blatant bias, especially when they have a curious way of downplaying inconvenient truths. And if POLITICO is going to operate on the government’s dime, it may want to reassess its reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop and similar controversies before it cries foul over funds being cut.
