White House $50m condom claim doesn’t hold up under scrutiny

The Trump administration’s claim to have stopped $50 million worth of condoms from being shipped to Gaza doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, according to federal reports.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s new 27-year-old press secretary Karoline Leavitt raised eyebrows by claiming that Trump backer Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the White House Office for Management and Budget had found and blocked “$50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza” and called the alleged expenditure “a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.”

It was a blockbuster claim that seemed to exemplify the exact sort of profligate spending that Trump’s self-styled “America First” administration was elected to prevent.

Unfortunately, what Leavitt said about the alleged condom shipment doesn’t match what the government has said about its aid efforts in Gaza.

A September 2024 U.S. Agency for International Development report says not one dollar of the $60.8 million used to fund condoms and contraceptives distributed by the agency worldwide was allocated to the Palestinian territory.

The same report shows that the only contraceptives sent to the Middle East were distributed to the Jordanian government in the form of $45,680 worth of oral and injectable medications — not condoms.

Andrew Miller, the ex-Biden administration State Department official who served as deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, told The Times of Israel on Wednesday that Leavitt’s claim was “outlandish” and “a feverish dream” on the part of the new administration.

“It’s possible that $50 million is put aside for sexual health or something of that nature, which would include gynecology and many other services, but definitely not condoms alone,” he said.

Social media influencers will now be invited to White House press briefings, Leavitt announced (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Musk, who is also the owner of X, posted that the false condom expenditure was the “tip of the iceberg” for waste and claimed that “a lot of that money ended up in the pockets of Hamas.” There is no evidence to support either of those assertions.

Leavitt also announced on Tuesday that the Trump administration had blocked a $37 million pending payment to the World Health Organization after the president signed an executive order cutting ties with the global health body on his first day in office.

The blocked funds are being withheld under an Office of Management and Budget memo that White House officials have said temporarily pauses grants, loans and federal assistance programs so they can be reviewed to see if they align with Trump’s political priorities.

Leavitt’s condom comments came at the top of her first White House press briefing, during which she said that “new media voices” including “independent journalists, podcasters and social media influencers” would be welcomed into the sessions held in the iconic James Brady Briefing Room. The room has always been open to any person who asks for and receives a “day pass” to enter the White House grounds for the purpose of attending briefings.

She also announced that she’d be allocating two seats normally used by staff for podcasters, influencers, and other “new media” outlets that aren’t among the news organizations that have been assigned use of one of the room’s 49 seats that are managed by the White House Correspondents Association.

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