White House confirms 'Politico' received $8 million USAID funds: 'DOGE will cancel those payments'

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Wednesday confirmed that many media outlets including Politico received funds from the US Agency for International Development -- the agency that would be shut down soon on the advice of Elon Musk's Department of Government Agency.
"I was made aware that USAID has funded media outlets like Politico who I know has a seat in this room. I can confirm that more than $8M taxpayers' dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions on the American taxpayers' dime will no longer be happening. The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now."

"This is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that We are going line by line when it comes to the Federal Government's books. This president and his team are making decisions across the board on: Do these receipts serve the interests of the American people? Is this a good use of the American taxpayer's money? If it is not, that funding will no longer be sent abroad and American taxpayers will see significant savings because of that effort," Leavitt said.
MAGA commentators made the claims against Politico on X and cited an unusual delay in payment for the first time at the news organization. This, according to them, happened because of DOGE's action on USAID. Politico has not issued any statement yet but it sent a mail to its employees blaming the delay in payment on a technical error.
"Due to what we believe to be a technical error, employees did not receive their paychecks as scheduled. We understand the urgency of this matter and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Our team is working diligently with our systems vendors and the bank to identify the root cause and implement a solution as quickly as possible. We will keep you updated as we learn more and work to resolve the problem as quickly as possible," the mail said.