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The latest chapter in the Trump administration's feud with the press is about government subscriptions to media outlets. NPR's Jude Joffe-Block reports that the saga began with misleading claims on the social media site X.
JUDE JOFFE-BLOCK, BYLINE: Influencers on X have been sharing screenshots from a website that tracks government spending to highlight what they say is government waste. This week, the false claim emerged that Politico was receiving millions from USAID, the federal foreign aid agency that Elon Musk has been working to dismantle.
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BENNY JOHNSON: Politico, a news company who've spent the last 10 years trying to destroy the MAGA movement, being massively funded by USAID, among many other government organs.
JOFFE-BLOCK: That was right-wing influencer Benny Johnson on his show on Wednesday. Later that day, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt took up the issue.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: I was made aware of the funding from USAID to media outlets, including Politico, who I know has a seat in this room, and 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.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Politico put out a statement clarifying that it had not received one dime of government grants or subsidies. Rather federal agencies use the procurement process to purchase subscriptions to Politico Pro, a service that tracks legislation and other policy minutiae. But the saga has continued to escalate. On Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social, accusing what he called the, quote, "fake news media" of being paid off by federal agencies for, quote, "creating good stories about the Democrats." He said this could be the biggest scandal of them all.
JOSH TUCKER: This is a new accusation, and it shows the ways in which information about government payment services can be harnessed for political reasons.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Josh Tucker co-directs New York University's Center for Social Media and Politics. He says it's been a long-standing tactic of Trump since 2016 to discredit the news media.
TUCKER: So is this taking it to another level? It's bringing in, you know, new types of rumors and it's bringing in information about payments. And one thing we know is that people tend to trust numbers
JOFFE-BLOCK: Now a misleading nugget has progressed to a broad antimedia message.
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JOHNSON: At what point do we start pulling the press credentials of journalists?
JOFFE-BLOCK: That's Benny Johnson again from his show on Thursday. Johnson was talking to Republican representative Scott Perry, who then relayed an exchange he says he had with a reporter from Politico.
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SCOTT PERRY: He questioned me on the conflicts of interest with Elon Musk taking a look at the books but didn't get the irony of the fact that Politico was just outed as taking federal money to report propaganda that they see fit. Like, he didn't see that as a problem. It's - it actually is breathtaking.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Axios reported Thursday that the White House directed the U.S. General Services Administration to end government contracts with Politico and Bloomberg, among others, and cancel all of the GSA's media contracts.
CHRIS MOORE: The government can, of course, choose what sources it wants to subscribe to.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Chris Moore is the president of the Software and Information Industry Association, a trade group that represents some business-to-business media companies, many of which have long had government subscribers. Moore says people who work in the federal government need this kind of specialized information to do their jobs.
MOORE: The idea that it would be cutting off intelligence completely is - would be extremely concerning and ill-advised.
JOFFE-BLOCK: Moore's trade group includes Bloomberg, which declined to comment. Jude Joffe-Block, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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