The Trump administration said that the United States has stopped funding for “Condoms in Gaza” after the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) discovered that about USD 50 million was used to fund ‘condoms in Gaza’.
In her first press briefing on Tuesday (local time), US Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt termed the funding “preposterous”. She said it was a waste of taxpayers money. The US Press Secretary said that the government is focussed on being good stewards of US Dollars.
“DOGE and OMB also found that there was about 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza. That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So that’s what this pause is focused on – being good stewards of tax dollars,” the press secretary said.
DOGE Leader Elon Musk raised his doubts on the huge amount of money. In a post on X, he said, “My guess is that a lot of that money ended up in the pockets Hamas, not actually condoms,” adding, “Yes, even in the unlikely event that the money was actually spent on condoms, we should NOT be sending US taxpayer money to buy condoms for foreigners.”
In the same context, Musk shared a meme on his X handle.
In the context of Trump re-declaring the Houthis a foreign terrorist organisation, Leavitt called a reporter’s query “not a bad idea.” The reporter asked if there was an investigation on why did the Biden administration remove the terrorist organisation status from Houthis.
Leavitt sounded impressed and said, “Well that’s a very good point. I haven’t heard discussions about such an investigation but it wouldn’t be a bad idea considering that the Houthis certainly are terrorists. They have launched attacks on US naval ships across this world and so I think it was a very wise move by this Administration to redesignate them as a terrorist group because they are. I think it was a foolish decision by the previous administration to do so, as for an investigation I’m not sure about that but it’s not a bad idea,” she said.
