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‘Are you conflating things? Are you talking about the $50 million that was supposedly meant for condoms in Gaza? Are you conflating those two things, sir?’ anchor Boris Sanchez wonders. CNN anchor Boris Sanchez was left flabbergasted when a Republican member of the Congressional DOGE Caucus repeatedly insisted that the United States had set aside millions of dollars in foreign aid to purchase condoms for the Taliban.
This was just one of the wild claims that Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) made during an interview with Sanchez on Thursday afternoon, prompting the anchor to wonder if the Georgia lawmaker would like to retract his wild assertions, as they would be fact-checked and he’d be asked about them later. “That’s fine,” Carter shrugged, declining to amend his claims. With Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency currently facing legal challenges for seeking access to the systems that handle trillions of dollars in government payments, the Trump administration finally agreed to limit the Treasury Department’s DOGE-affiliated employees to “read-only” access to the system.
Throughout his interview with Sanchez, Carter brushed off any concerns that Musk – the world’s richest man who was made a “special government employee” by Trump – has too much control over the federal government and access to Americans’ personal information. “DOGE Employees don‘t have access to sensitive information. They have read-only access, preliminary access, and they are just looking for inefficiencies,” he declared. “They don‘t have access to your personal information. Only federal employees have that. And the Treasury. So that‘s not something we should be concerned about.”.
While Carter continued to defend Musk and his team as merely looking for wasteful spending and “inefficiencies,” the CNN anchor brought up DOGE demanding that the Treasury cut off USAID payments. “Those are funds that had already been disbursed by Congress, appropriated by Congress. So does DOJ‘s authority supersede your own and your colleagues?” Sanchez wondered. “Of course it doesn’t. The U.S. aid that was cut off should have been cut off. I mean, $15 million for condoms for the Taliban,” Carter declared.“Sir! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! $15 million for condoms for the Taliban?” Sanchez fired back.
“That’s what we’re hearing! That’s what they discovered,” the congressman maintained. “Are you conflating things? Are you talking about the $50 million that was supposedly meant for condoms in Gaza? Are you conflating those two things, sir?” Sanchez retorted, offering Carter an opportunity to back away from his claim. “I am not! I am not,” the lawmaker stood firm while Sanchez chuckled.
Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted in her debut press briefing that DOGE had “found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.”. Trump would later repeat this claim during the Laken Riley Act signing ceremony, saying his administration had “identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas.” Later on, he would double this total to $100 million.
There is no evidence, however, to support these claims. It would appear that Trump and Leavitt were referring to $102.2 million in grants USAID awarded to a group that provides medical and trauma services in Gaza. However, USAID’s 2023 financial year report found that only one Middle Eastern country – Jordan – received any contraceptive aid, and that was valued at just $45,680 in government programs.
Additionally, for the first three quarters of 2024. USAID reports found that only Yemen and Jordan had received any family planning programs – and they didn’t come close to $50 million (or $100 million). “That supposed $10 million for condoms for the Taliban. It sounds a lot like the false claim that we‘ve heard about $50 million for Gaza that was way incorrect. Actually, it was $100 million the last time I heard President Trump say it,” Sanchez reiterated.
The CNN afternoon host then issued a different fact-check on a false claim Carter made earlier in the interview when he stated that only six percent of federal workers now go into the office following the COVID-19 pandemic. “These are previous OMB statistics that say that 54% of federal workers don‘t actually telework at all,” Sanchez noted. At the end of the chaotic interview, Sanchez circled back to Carter’s assertion about the Taliban apparently getting hundred of millions of condoms on America’s dime.
