Fact or fiction? Trump repeats false claim that US sends condoms to Gaza
Fact or fiction? Trump repeats false claim that US sends condoms to Gaza
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Claim was first made in press conference, prompting Fox host to say condoms were also being used to bomb Israel. Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Donald Trump boasted that his administration had “stopped $50m being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas”, doubling down on a claim first made by his press secretary which appears to be contradicted by the facts.
As the Guardian reported on Tuesday, a comprehensive report issued in September by the US Agency for International Development (USAid), not a penny of the $60.8m in contraceptive and condom shipments funded by the US in the past year went to Gaza. In fact, the accounting shows, there were no condoms sent to any part of the Middle East, and just one small shipment, $45,680 in oral and injectable contraceptives, was sent to the region, all of it distributed to the government of Jordan.
The claim was first made by White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, as she tried to justify Trump’s sweeping order to freeze federal funding by citing what she called important new research from Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (or Doge), a special group that Trump has created, and the office of management and budget (OMB).
“Doge and OMB also found that there was about to be 50m taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt claimed. “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So that’s what this pause is focused on: being good stewards of tax dollars.”.
While Leavitt did not offer any evidence to support this claim, and did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the Guardian, the idea that the United States government planned to spend $50m to send condoms to Gaza quickly went viral, with an assist from Musk himself.
