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USAID: The Truth & Lies (When Did Reality Stop Mattering?)
In this in-depth episode, we analyze a video of the 'Doge' meeting with the USAID team. The discussion tackles the misuse of funds, with millions allocated for controversial programs like promoting LGBT rights and atheism in countries with opposing cultures, and even alleged inefficiencies and cases of funds being diverted to terrorist organizations. The episode delves into the broader implications of USAID's spending, and examines arguments from both sides of the debate. We also explore the impact of these spending practices on U.S. relations with other countries, and the potential cultural and diplomatic fallout. Tune in for a thorough breakdown of how USAID's budget is being used, or misused, and what it could mean for the future of U.S. foreign aid.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): [00:00:00] We found a video of the Doge meeting with USAID's team.
Speaker: Give us a little more information surrounding the deficits that you're running this year.
Speaker 2: Ooh, gosh. We don't really like to talk about money. We find it a little gauche.
Speaker 3: This is a budget meeting.
Speaker 2: Well, most of our files are in these boxes if you really want to take a look at how much
Speaker: that we've spent.
Why don't we just dig in and see what we're up against?
Speaker 2: Yes, and thank you. We really appreciate your help.
Speaker: Are you tipping me?
Speaker 2: Is that a hundred? Euros?
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be with you here today. We have talked about the USAID controversy, but I hadn't had a time to do the deep dive into both sides of the argument before this into the specifics because you see a lot of crazy numbers being thrown out there.
And honestly, if you've just been watching white wing media, some of these numbers have inaccuracies or misconceptions in the way they're presented. Others, when you dig into them, are even crazier than you [00:01:00] thought they were on a surface level.
Simone Collins: Okay, because, yeah, my default here as a listener is Okay, everything I'm hearing is a little exaggerated.
It's not exactly that bad, but it's bad. And you're saying that actually, some of it's even worse? Some of it's dramatically worse, some of it's
Malcolm Collins: dramatically less bad.
Okay.
And, and if I'm gonna start with just one that's dramatically less bad. Okay, yes. It's a story about the U. S. Government funding media organizations like the 4 million to the New York Times, the 8 million to Politico.
If you look at this there was a few sort of misconceptions that are bundled in the way this is presented. It's presented as if this is only coming from USAID, which actually isn't true. , the money that came from USAID, for example, last year for Politico was 25, 000. Now, when I hear 25, 000 and I hear this is for the special subscription.
Keep in mind, this isn't for like the public subscription, like premium business
Simone Collins: subscription with like
Malcolm Collins: analysts. Similar to what you would get was like God, what was that report that I used to read?
Simone Collins: They had like, I think many people who went [00:02:00] to
Malcolm Collins: business schools used to work for them.
I was thinking of the Stratford report, which costs like a thousand dollars a year depending on what subscription you're using.
But they're like
Simone Collins: anything I'm thinking about Bloomberg subscriptions and Bloomberg terminals at business schools that I went to, and those were like, really expensive.
It was such a big deal to have a Bloomberg
Published on 10 months, 2 weeks ago