WH press secretary justifies US aid freeze by suggesting taxpayers were on the hook for Gazan condoms



President Donald Trump ordered a pause in foreign aid on Jan. 20, eliciting backlash from beneficiaries abroad and vested interests at home.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt provided pearl-clutchers with a reality check Tuesday, identifying two damning examples of how tens of millions of American tax dollars were allegedly set to be squandered in distant lands: in one instance on condoms in a terrorist hotbed and in other instance on a scandal-plagued international organization the U.S. is leaving in the dust.

Trump, convinced that the U.S. "foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values," ordered a 90-day pause in foreign aid, affording his administration an opportunity to review relevant programs "for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy."

In accordance with Trump's order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

"Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative," Tammy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement Sunday. "The secretary is proud to protect America's investment with a deliberate and judicious review of how we spend foreign assistance dollars overseas."

'The aid community is grappling with just how existential this aid suspension is.'

Following the State Department's announcement, Trump noted during House Republicans' annual retreat Monday in Florida, "We get tired of giving massive amounts of money to countries that hate us, don't we?"

The possibility that the American government might condition foreign aid on whether a given initiative abroad makes the U.S. safer, stronger, and more prosperous rankled various activists and NGOs.

InterAction, the biggest alliance of international aid organizations in the country, condemned the funding freeze, alleging in a statement that it "creates dangerous vacuums that China and our adversaries will quickly fill."

"It stops assistance in countries critical to U.S. interests, including Taiwan, Syria, and Pakistan," continued the statement from InterAction. "And, it halts decades of lifesaving work through PEPFAR that helps babies to be born HIV-free."

Abby Maxman, the president and CEO of Oxfam, told ABC News in a statement, "The aid community is grappling with just how existential this aid suspension is — we know this will have life-or-death consequences for millions around the globe, as programs that depend on this funding grind to a halt without a plan or safety net."

"This decision must be reversed, and funding and programming must be allowed to move forward," added Maxman.

'Everybody rips off the United States.'

A reporter complained during the White House press briefing Tuesday that Trump's freezes and attempted freezes on federal funding were executed with "little notice," putting organizations on the back foot.

After noting in reply that Americans' "tax dollars actually matter this this administration," Leavitt provided examples of why quick action was warranted, noting that the White House budget office and the Department of Government Efficiency found that "there was $37 million that was about to go out the door to the World Health Organization."

Leavitt indicated that it is clear from Trump's executive order withdrawing from the WHO that such funding "wouldn't be in line with the president's agenda."

Trump set the ball rolling on severing all official ties with the WHO via executive order on Jan. 20, stating that the "WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries' assessed payments. China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO."

"World Health ripped us off," said Trump. "Everybody rips off the United States. It's not going to happen any more."

'We are protecting American taxpayers.'

"DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza," Leavitt added Tuesday. "That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money."

Some critics have questioned whether $50 million was actually earmarked for shipping condoms to Gaza, which only has a population of around 2.1 million people. Doubts were fueled in part by reports highlighting that in 2023, USAID allocated $60.8 million in funding for condoms and female contraceptives globally and that none of that funding went to Gaza. Only $45,681 worth of condoms were delivered to the Middle East that fiscal year.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce clarified in an X thread that the blocked funds for contraception were part of $102 million in planned "unjustified funding to a contractor in Gaza."

A Trump administration official confirmed to the Independent on Wednesday that the blocked grants were partly for contraceptives but also for the International Medical Corps, an America-based organization that operates field hospitals in Gaza, to provide "family planning programming including emergency contraception; sexual health care including prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections; and adolescent sexual and reproductive health."

Todd Bernhardt, a spokesman for the IMC, told the Washington Post that "no U.S. government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms."

While it's unclear whether taxpayers were actually on the hook for Gazan condoms, Bruce noted that the overall pause in foreign assistance has enabled the State Department to prevent $16 million in funding from going to institutional contractors in gender development offices; $4 million from going to the Center for Climate-Positive Development; $12 million from going to provide support services to the USAID Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security; $6 million from going to fund "administrative support for an already bloated 'Center of Excellence'"; and $600,000 to fund technical assistance for family planning in Latin America.

"We will not allow the bureaucracy to exploit a crisis and waste taxpayer dollars. We are protecting American taxpayers, safeguarding America’s national security, and ensuring actual lifesaving humanitarian aid continues," said Bruce.

Government data shows that the U.S. blew $68 billion on foreign aid in 2023 and had nearly $40 billion in obligations for fiscal year 2024.

According to the United Nations, the U.S. is far and away the biggest global provider of humanitarian aid, accounting for over 42% of funding worldwide last year. The runner-up was the European Union, which collectively accounted for only 8.1% of global funding.

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Biden judge who blocked Trump plan to pause federal funding has wild history of radicalism on the bench



The Biden judge who threw a wrench in President Donald Trump's plan to eliminate ideological spending from the federal budget turns out to be something of an ideologue herself.

The White House Office of Management and Budget ordered a pause on tens of billions of dollars' worth of federal grants and loans on Tuesday to afford the Trump administration time to "review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President's priorities."

Acting OMB Director Matthew Vaeth's corresponding memo to department and agency heads underscored that whereas federal spending "should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending 'wokeness' and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again," funds are being squandered advancing "Marxist equity, transgenderism, and Green New Deal social engineering policies."

The White House's attempt to "ensure that Federal funds are used to support hardworking American families" evidently did not sit well with the National Council of Nonprofits, the liberal small business group Main Street Alliance, and the activist group Services and Advocacy for Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Elders, which together filed a lawsuit, or with U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, who obliged the plaintiffs' desire for a temporary pause in the spending freeze until Feb. 3.

AliKhan, whose December 2023 confirmation required a tiebreaking vote from Kamala Harris, has a track record of not only of being overruled by higher courts but of making extreme arguments, particularly against members of faith groups she apparently doesn't like.

Months ahead of AliKhan's confirmation, the First Liberty Institute and various other conservative groups highlighted her "long record of advocacy against religious freedom" in a letter to lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

They noted, for instance, that AliKhan asked the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to strike down the ministerial exemption, which ensures that churches are free to conduct their internal affairs and choose their own ministers without government interference, unlike in communist China. All nine justices on the high court — including then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor — deemed AliKhan's position "untenable" and "hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations."

'Her arguments were "without a basis in text or precedent."'

In the pandemic-era case Capitol Hill Baptist Church v. Bowser concerning D.C.'s denial of a church's application to return to in-person worship, AliKhan reportedly argued on behalf of the district that masked and socially distanced Christians meeting outdoors posed a greater threat of exacerbating the pandemic than the mass leftist protests the city had permitted.

AliKhan elected not to bring in a medical expert to reinforce her claims but instead appealed to the insights of a supposed "doctor" who actually turned out to be Christopher Rodriguez, an academic with a specialty in political science. Rodriguez proved more than willing to furnish the leftist with unscientific insights; however, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia did not buy what he and AliKhan were selling and ruled in the church's favor.

AliKhan, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, apparently also defended the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue's denial of a property tax exemption for a Sikh religious organization. A court determined in Jaswant Sawhney Irrevocable Trust, Inc. v. District of Columbia that AliKhan's arguments ran afoul of the First Amendment.

Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for the First Liberty Institute, noted in a 2023 op-ed that the court steamrolled AliKhan's legal analysis, noting that her arguments were "without a basis in text or precedent" and that she had made a "quantum logical leap."

Besides working to erode religious freedom in America, AliKhan has also had a prior run-in with Trump.

While still serving as the District of Columbia's solicitor general, AliKhan argued before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 that the president had operated his Trump International Hotel in D.C. in violation of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause and requested a declaration that Trump had broken the law.

Then-Fourth Circuit Judge Dennis Shedd apparently picked up on AliKhan's desire to put Trump in a lose-lose situation and to potentially expose him to greater consequence. Politico reported at the time that Shedd asked the future Biden judge what she was really trying to get out of the lawsuit beyond a declaration that Trump was breaking the law.

Shedd asked AliKhan, "Do you think that will be a basis for a high crime or misdemeanor or impeachment?"

The judge also asked the leftist, "I think you even want him fired from 'The Apprentice,' don't you?"

In response to Shedd's second question, AliKhan said, "I don't think so."

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Republican-backed bill would prohibit performing gender transitions on minors, slap violators with fine and/or imprisonment



Some congressional Republicans are backing a bill to prohibit performing gender transition measures on minors.

And another proposal would prohibit spending federal funds on gender transitition services, irrespective of the patient's age.

The bill to ban sex-reassignments for children stipulates that violators would face punishment, while those subjected to the cross-sex measures would not.

"Any physical or mental healthcare professional who knowingly performs or provides a referral for any gender transition procedure on a minor shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both," the text of the measure states.

"No person on whom the gender transition procedure under subsection (a) is performed may be arrested or prosecuted for an offense under this section," the bill reads. "A person on whom a gender transition procedure is performed under this section may bring a civil action for appropriate relief against each person who performed the gender transition procedure."

Prior versions of these commonsense proposals have been put forward in the past to no avail.

"Doctors must be prohibited from performing or assisting in child mutilation procedures," GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said, according to a press release. "Enough is enough. These procedures can cause severe and irreversible damage to children’s bodies and have long-term detrimental health risks. We must protect our kids and make sure American taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for these dangerous procedures."

"Across the country, vulnerable children are being exposed to radical gender transition ideology and pressured into going through invasive and irreversible medical procedures. Minors should not be making these permanent decisions as minors," GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California said, according to the press release. "Both the Protecting Children from Experimentation Act and the End Taxpayer Funding of Gender Experimentation Act would protect children and taxpayers from paying the high price of these unethical medical interventions."

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