THE BROWNSVILLE OBSERVER : 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗧, 𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗫𝗖𝗨𝗦𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣 𝗛𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗢𝗟𝗗 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗨𝗦𝗔𝗜𝗗

From the editor: As an addendum to the article I just wrote and posted about Musk and Trump's shutting down of USAID, I want to share some of the misinformation, lies, Trump has spewed about the organization.

Lies are a key component of Trump's approach and have proven very effective over the years. During the 2024 election Trump doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on the overt, racist lie that Haitian immigrants,(Black people), in the country legally, were "eating the cats and dogs" of the residents of Springfield, Ohio.

Trump's followers, while not "deplorables" as Hillary Clinton referred to them, can be naive, less educated then the norm, easily influenced by someone using such catchy slogans as "Make America Great Again" or "Put America First."

So, Trump cultists tend to believe the lies, just as they believe Trump is working for their interests, while, in actual fact, he's working to increase the wealth of his billionaire friends, not the middle class.(Please note that many of Trump's second term cabinet members and those in his inner circle are billionaire oligarchs. That's no coincidence as Trump has long patterned himself after Vladimir Putin who operates and governs similarly.)

Anyway, here are several blatant lies Trump has mouthed recently about USAID as he and Musk initiated destruction to the program:

Hollywood stars paid by USAID

Claim: USAID sponsored celebrity trips to Ukraine, including visits by Hollywood stars Ben Stiller and Angelina Jolie, according to several social media posts, including this video that was reposted by X owner Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr., the son of the US president.

Fact check: False

The video bears the logo of E! News, an entertainment site owned by NBC Universal. In the video, a female voice explains the goal of those USAID-funded trips was to increase the popularity of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, especially in the US.

An E! News spokesperson, however, told French news agency AFP that the video is not authentic and did not originate from them.

And several of the stars involved have denied having received money from USAID. Stiller, for instance, said on his X account he "completely self-funded" his trip to Ukraine and said there was "no funding from USAID."

$50-million worth of condoms for Gaza?

Not only has USAID directly been a target of mis- and disinformation. Foreign aid in general is being used to spread false claims, as can be seen in this viral example, in which Trump claimed the US was sending shipments of condoms worth $50 million (€48.3 million) to Gaza.

Claim: "We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas, 50 million," Trump said.

Earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made a similar claim: "... about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza. That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money."

Trump and his spokesperson appeared to be referring to a $102 million USAID grant to the International Medical Corps (IMC), an NGO providing medical and trauma services in Gaza. Last week, a State Department spokesperson tweetedthat the agency had "prevented $102 million in unjustified funding to a contractor in Gaza, including money for contraception" thanks to a pause in foreign assistance.

USAID works closely with IMC, which issued a press release after the controversy. It stated that since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel, it had received over $68 million from USAID to support its operations in Gazabut clarified that "no US government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms, nor to provide family-planning services."

There is no evidence that the US ever sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza. The US foreign aid records show no such expenditure. It provides contraceptives, including condoms, worldwide, but according to USAID's report (page 9), its total spending in 2023 was a little over $60 million.

Jordan was the only Middle Eastern country to receive aid from this program in 2023, receiving $45,680 worth of injectable and progestin-only contraceptive pills (pages 21, 44). Gaza was not mentioned.

Did USAID pay sex offender Jeffrey Epstein?

Claim: Posts like thisone on X suggest USAID was paying American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The post shows a screenshot of a document with payments for Epstein under the name Kaiser Foundation health plan.

Fact check: False

The Epstein the document is referring to is not the American financier, but a namesake (Jeff Epstein) who was a high-ranking representative at the health care company mentioned in the document (Kaiser Foundation Hospitals).

Here and here are sites showing Epstein’s work at Kaiser.

Beyond this, the document that allegedly shows the payments refers to the tax year 2023 as the year in which Epstein received his money.

The convicted sex offender, however, died in 2019.