Feds Gave Millions To Left-Wing Media Including Politico, NYT

Federal agencies have been funneling millions to leftist media outlets including The Associated Press, Politico, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, according to public grant disclosures. 

These legacy corporations have fashioned themselves the gatekeepers of information to the American public. But ever since 2015, when now-President Donald Trump announced his first campaign — and even earlier — they have spewed lie after lie in an attempt to control the political narrative.

While many media outlets that take federal funding may do so in the form of subscription services to federal agencies, their financial ties to the government show how much they really stand to gain from operating as a propaganda arm. These revelations stemmed from research into USAID, as Trump plans to rein in the agency that has apparently become a giant Ponzi scheme. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that government subsidies of Politico “on the taxpayer’s dime will no longer be happening.”

Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orbán wrote on X on Wednesday that USAID had “financed ultra-progressive Politico in Brussels and basically the entire left-wing media in Hungary.” “I think the world owes a debt of gratitude to President @realDonaldTrump for uncovering and putting an end to this dark conspiracy.”

Federal Media Funding

The Associated Press

The Associated Press, an “independent news cooperative,” has received $37.5 million from the federal government over the last 15-plus years, according to public spending data. 

The AP’s federal funding in 2008 was just above $200,000. But it began an upward trend in 2014 and reached a climax of $6.4 million in 2020. Since then, federal funding to The AP has gone down, but the outlet still received $1.7 million in 2024. 

The AP issues a stylebook that journalists have widely adopted for standards in style, formatting, and word choice. According to InfluenceWatch, the stylebook shifted in 2013 — just before The AP’s federal funding began to trend upward — to favor left-wing terminology. The problem has worsened in recent years.

The federal government spent more than 52 percent — or $19.85 million — of the money it sent to The AP on the category of “photo/map/print/publication – other,” while 20 percent went toward “Support – Professional: Communications.” 

Online access to the AP Stylebook and Merriam-Webster for a group of up to 5,000 employees — The AP’s highest public pricing bracket — costs more than $135,800 for the first year and more than $108,600 every year after. 

The top contributing federal agencies include the Agency for Global Media (which provided more than 76 percent of the AP’s total federal funding), the Department of State, and the Department of Education. The Agency For Global Media “trains hundreds of journalists, editors, broadcasters and media managers each year under its authority to support freedom of information around the world” to further “freedom and democracy.” 

The Agency for Global Media’s contracts office gave The AP a single award of nearly $20 million in 2017, according to public grant data.

Politico

Politico has received $34.3 million from the federal government since 2015, according to government spending data published by Liz Wheeler. 

The federal government spent more than $517,000 on a “Politico Pro subscription for 37 users.” Elon Musk, who is heading up Trump’s efforts with the Department of Government Efficiency, said, “This wasteful expenditure will be deleted.” As The Washington Free Beacon reported, an annual subscription to the service costs $12,000 to $15,000 — for just three users, and the majority of awards to Politico appear to be for Pro subscriptions.

As mentioned earlier, Leavitt announced on Wednesday that the White House is slashing spending on Politico subscriptions. The same day, the outlet paid its employees late, clearing payments that would have normally arrived on Tuesday.

Its top agency contributors include the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, and its top subagency contributors include the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The publication’s former parent company, the Capitol News Company, also took more than $3.8 million total in federal government payments — peaking at $710,044 in 2015 — which, again, is the same year Trump announced his first presidential campaign. Federal funding for Politico’s parent company began to taper off in 2020, the year before the outlet was sold.

Reuters

Reuters has received $10.6 million from federal agencies starting in 2020, according to government grant data. 

The Federalist analyzed contributions to “Reuters News & Media Inc.” The federal government spent more than 89 percent — or $9.45 million — of the money allocated to Reuters News & Media on the category of “Support – Professional: Communications.” 

The outlet’s top contributing agencies include the aforementioned Agency For Global Media, which contributed more than 89 percent of the publication’s federal funding, and the Department of State.

The New York Times

The New York Times has received $2.7 million total from federal agencies since 2008, according to government spending data. 

The federal government spent half of that amount on “newspapers and periodicals.” It spent another 11 percent on “web-based subscription[s].” The paper’s group subscription prices are not public.

Federal money to The New York Times varied from as little as $25,000 a year to $177,000 per year until 2022, when it skyrocketed to nearly $400,000. Annual federal funding for the paper remained near that level through 2024.

The top funding agencies include the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State, and the top subagencies include the Air Force and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Washington Post

The Washington Post has accepted $1.7 million from federal agencies starting in 2014, according to public data.

The federal government spent more than 61 percent — or $1.03 million — of its money to The Washington Post on “support-management: advertising.” Its second-highest area of spending on the paper was “newspapers and periodicals,” at more than 25 percent — or $425,918.

The Washington Post does not publish the price of its group subscription, otherwise known as an “Enterprise Subscription.”

The paper received the most annual federal funding — $305,000 — in 2015. The number has since generally gone down, though the paper has accepted more than $66,000 so far in 2025. 

The Washington Post’s top contributor agencies include the Department of Defense — which has provided nearly 60 percent of its federal funding — and the Department of Health and Human Services, while the top subagencies include the Navy, the Army, and the National Institutes of Health. 

CNN

CNN has received nearly $220,000 from the federal government, according to government grant disclosures. The outlet apparently only took the funding in 2015 and 2016 — during  Trump’s first presidential campaign, in which CNN viciously smeared the now-president. The outlet has maintained this approach.

Manipulating Public Opinion

Soon after Trump began his first term, outlets like The New York Times amplified and advanced the “Russiagate” collusion narrative, which turned out to be a hoax. Its website still features a section on “Trump and the Russians,” filled with hit pieces from 2017. In fact, all six outlets that have taken federal funding — The AP, Politico, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN — amplified this narrative. 

But it later turned out that the dossier of former British spy Christopher Steele — the impetus for many of these conspiracy theories, as well as the FBI’s spying on the Trump campaign — was fabricated, as The Federalist previously reported. And even more concerning, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign paid for it. 

Still, these outlets served as anti-Trump megaphones through his entire first term. CNN and Reuters repeated phony stories from anonymous sources, such as the smear that Trump supposedly called fallen U.S. soldiers “suckers” and “losers.” The New York Times amplified quotes taken out of context, such as when Trump referred to “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville, Virginia, protests — omitting his comment that “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

Such antics continued. In the crucial days before the 2020 election, CNN dismissed the New York Post’s story exposing the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and Politico editors allegedly buried the story at the time, designating it “disinformation.” It turned out the Hunter Biden laptop story was true, and as revealed in the Twitter Files, Democrats and federal officials worked with Big Tech to suppress it. A poll found 80 percent of respondents thought the story would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.

Fast forward to July 13, 2024, when a would-be assassin shot Trump in the side of the head in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump dropped to the ground, clutching his ear — but got back up, raising his fist and yelling, “Fight, fight, fight!” while blood streamed down the side of his face. Corporate media seemingly moved quickly to try to dismiss the events — with CNN claiming Trump’s rally was simply “interrupted by Secret Service” and The Washington Post claiming Trump was simply “taken away after loud noises at rally.”

Since multiple failed assassination attempts on Trump’s life, legacy media outlets have continued to demonize the now-president. MSNBC suggested his New York City rally in Madison Square Garden was similar to a “Nazi” rally, Politico claimed it featured “racist and vulgar remarks,” and The New York Times called it a “carnival of grievances, misogyny, and racism.” PBS — funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to which Congress allocated $535 million in the 2025 budget — compared Elon Musk’s gesture to the crowd at a post-inauguration rally to a “fascist salute.” 

The Federalist’s CEO Sean Davis explained the conflict of interest in federally-funded legacy media coverage, pointing out Politico as an example.

“It was Politico that maneuvered to have the Hunter laptop story banned and everyone discussing it censored. Politico peddled the illegal Supreme Court leak that led to the near-assassination of multiple Supreme Court justices,” Davis wrote on X. “And now we find out the regime was funneling tens of millions of dollars of our money to Politico?”

Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.