Trump To Cut Off Politico From Federal Funds, Press Sec Says

As The Trump administration continues cutting waste from the federal government, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the left-wing media outlet Politico will no longer receive millions of dollars from the federal government that she said was “essentially subsidizing subscriptions.”

“I was made aware of the funding from USAID to media outlets, including Politico, who I know has a seat in this room,” Leavitt began. “I can confirm that the more than $8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers’ dime will no longer be happening. The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now.”

“Again, 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. And 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 taxpayers’ money? If it is not, that funding will no longer be sent abroad and American taxpayers will be seeing significant savings because of that effort,” she stated.

.@PressSec: "I can confirm that the more than $8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers' dime will no longer be happening." pic.twitter.com/9uA1imuKtt

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 5, 2025

The exact details of how Politico receives the large sum from the government is unclear. Politico isn’t receiving government grants, but rather has a large number of employees at various federal agencies subscribing to Politico’s premium product, Politico Pro, on the taxpayer’s dime. A subscription reportedly costs $10,000 a year.

We can talk about whether its wasteful for government to spend so much on Politico Pro subscriptions, but this is not federal grants to Politico. https://t.co/BTb4xtxy6d pic.twitter.com/8jYRaY7wfI

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) February 5, 2025

…and USAID seemed to have 2 subscriptions to politico products–both their Energy & Environment product. pic.twitter.com/J3SW76FJQ1

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) February 5, 2025

Politico was founded in 2007 by two former Washington Post columnists: John  F. Harris and Jim VandeHei. VandeHei later co-founded and became the CEO of Axios, another left-wing media site.  In 2022, Politico published the leaked draft of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

“Politico and Axios, which share founding members, also share first prize in producing election coverage that reads more like Democratic National Committee press releases. In this area, they have no serious competition,” Becket Adams opined last August, as he delineated headlines showing the media outlets’ biases. “A brief review of Politico’s social-media feeds during the Democratic National Convention revealed a profoundly unserious and ideologically tilted newsroom, one whose copy contained all the unbridled glee and excitement of a teen fan magazine.”

I looked at the entire list, there are over 237 examples of politico pro subscriptions at outrageous prices.
Here are the agencies involved: pic.twitter.com/LtqgGAPulp

— Jellenne ???????????????? (@jellen805) February 5, 2025

And it’s not just Politico:

The US Government gave the New York Times tens of millions of dollars over just the past 5 years despite paying relatively little money to the NYT in the years preceding 2021. For instance, in August 2024, the US government awarded $4.1 million to the NYT.

The bulk of the funds… pic.twitter.com/XWvv3CplI8

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 5, 2025