USAID Paying for Politico Is a Nontroversy
There are many legitimate criticisms of both USAID and Politico; this is not one of them.
Conservatives and libertarians are correct to draw attention to all sorts of reckless spending within the federal government. President Donald Trump has deputized Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. DOGE has recently fixated on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which spends billions of dollars on foreign aid to other countries. Foreign aid is an unpopular category of government spending—even though many Americans mistakenly believe that it constitutes a large proportion of overall spending—and it makes sense to closely scrutinize USAID's activities.
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However, some critics of USAID have seized on a misleading claim: Namely, that the organization was funneling millions of dollars to Politico. In reality, it appears that government agents were paying for subscriptions to Politico's premium product. That may or may not be a worthwhile use of government funds (more on this in a moment), but at any rate, it does not represent some kind of direct subsidy to the news outlet.
Many conservative social media personalities seem to feel differently. On Wednesday, rightwing pundit Benny Johnson—among others—circulated the rumor on X that Politico had received $8 million from USAID. Johnson clearly thought this was a big story; he appended the caption "biggest scandal in news media history," with no further qualifications.
???? This is the biggest scandal in news media history:
No employee at Politico got paid yesterday. First time ever the company missed a pay period. This is a crisis.
Now we learn Politico — a "news company" — which spent the last 10 years trying to destroy the MAGA Movement was… pic.twitter.com/DwHqEp6gjp
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 5, 2025
Johnson also speculated that without such funding, Politico would go out of business.
Adding fuel to the fire was an apparently unrelated mishap concerning Politico's payment processing services: Due to a technical error, employees of the news website were not paid for the most recent pay period. Kyle Becker, an independent commentator on X, implied that this had something to do with Musk shutting off USAID payments. Suddenly, all the Trump-critical coverage that has appeared at Politico over the years seemed like part of some Deep State plot, funded by American taxpayers in order to spite the MAGA movement. "Everything makes sense now," wrote Becker.
Unfortunately, these theories are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Politico's business model.
Fight Like a Pro
First, the $8 million figure represents total government expenditures to Politico since 2016, not USAID dollars specifically. The amount paid by USAID to Politico totals $44,000.
A government agency directly transferring cash to a journalistic outlet that's supposed to cover it impartially might still constitute a scandal; in general, the feds should not subsidize journalistic projects. But importantly, USAID was not generously donating the money to Politico—the government paid the money in exchange for subscriptions to Politico's premium content. This is a pretty important difference; USAID is paying for the service Politico provides, in much the same way that a government agency has to pay for janitorial services, electricity, or office supplies. If a federal office buys a new printer, it isn't necessarily malicious. It could be malicious, if the printer costs too much money, is defective, or was purchased as part of some kickback scheme—but the reality that government offices need printers isn't really up for argument.
When confronted with these facts, many of the conservative social media accounts asserted that something must be awry, since $44,000 is still way too much for a Politico subscription. They assume that USAID is overpaying in exchange for favorable coverage of progressive causes and unfavorable coverage of Trump.
But that's not what USAID and the other government agencies are paying for. In truth, Politico's premium product isn't political news coverage, progressively slanted or otherwise: It's minute-to-minute updates on regulatory decisions that impact specific industries. This is information that political and government agencies need and that Politico supplies, for a premium price. As independent journalist Lee Fang points out, Politico isn't the only game in town: Bloomberg and LexisNexis run similar services. Politico's price tag is comparable to theirs.
"Politico provides paywalled 'pro' subscription services that cost over $10,000 per login for up-to-the-minute, detailed reporting on policy decisions and regulations," writes Fang. "The $8.1 million in Politico subscriptions referenced above relates to years of subscriptions by agency officials across the government."
These services are clearly valuable—in fact, Republican legislators pay for them, too. Customers of Politico's services include Rep. Lauren Boebert (R–Colo.), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R–N.Y.), and even Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R–La.). Republicans want their staffers well informed of legislative updates. Corie Whalen, a communications director for former Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.), notes that it would be both impractical and ultimately more expensive to expect legislative staff to gather the necessary information some other way.
Well, as a former congressional staffer, I can tell you that we are given extremely bare bones info and resources. If people don't want the government paying for contracts with private companies like this, things have to be developed in-house. And I bet that would cost more.…
— Corie Whalen (@CorieWhalen) February 5, 2025
In a day and age where subscriptions to news and entertainment products cost individuals around $10 to $20 a month, I understand why people are suspicious of subscription costs in the thousands of dollars. But the pricing tiers for organizations are simply more expensive. For instance, consider X. An individual seeking the perks of official verification on the social media site can expect to pay $3, $8, or $22 per month depending on the desired level of premium access.
For businesses and governments seeking verification, the cost for full access is $10,000 per year.
Maybe government agencies should be pooling resources more aggressively, like family members all sharing one Netflix account. But that would be an issue of government efficiency—not some attempt to pay Politico for favorable coverage.
Pay It Forward
None of this means that either USAID or Politico are blameless entities. It is entirely fair to criticize Politico for slanted coverage; for instance, no outlet is more responsible for foisting on the American people the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop story constituted Russian disinformation. In October 2020, after The New York Post published the story in question, former national intelligence experts signed an open letter declaring that the laptop resembled Russian disinformation. Politico went even further, publishing a headline that made this claim much stronger: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say."
When Joe Biden was asked about the laptop during the subsequent presidential debate, he dismissed it with reference to Politico's false characterization. This was a massive error on the news outlet's part—but it is not explained by some secret financial payoff on the part of USAID.
This Week on Free Media
I am joined by Amber Duke to discuss Trump's plan to gut the Education Department, DOGE cuts to USAID, and the latest news on tariffs.
Worth Watching
I finished the third season of Marvel's What If…? The finale did a great job of tying all three seasons together, and ended up telling a more coherent story than I expected. I enjoyed it. That said, Marvel needs to come up with a more inventive style of combat between its heroes and villains. I'm getting real sick of the good guys and the bad guys shooting beams of light at each other; every fight is some punching and kicking, and then tons and tons of lasers. It's becoming visually uninteresting. I don't know whose fault this is; even the later Harry Potter films—which similarly feature way, way too many laser light showdowns—make use of more original concepts. See the Voldemort/Dumbledore battle at the climax of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
