KAROLINE Leavitt criticized the expenditure of US taxpayer funds on a transgender opera in Colombia while praising Elon Musk’s leadership.
The recently appointed White House press secretary denounced the allocation of more than $2 million to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs abroad.
The controversy surrounds the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as President Donald Trump suggested its closure.
The USAID was set up by President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s to administer humanitarian aid programs on behalf of the US government around the world.
President Trump said the shutting down of USAID “should have been done a long time ago,” something tech tycoon Musk, the head of the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), agreed with.
“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk posted on X on Sunday.
While addressing reporters outside the White House on Monday, Leavitt seethed as she read out a list of project initiatives the organization reportedly spent taxpayers on.
“These are some of the insane priorities that that organization has been spending money on,” Leavitt claimed.
“$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces, $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.
“I don’t know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going towards this crap, and I know the American people don’t either.
“That’s exactly what Elon Musk has been tasked by President Trump to do. To get the fraud waste and abuse out of our federal government.”
The USAID’s website was offline on Saturday and while staffers were told via email that their Washington DC headquarters would be closed on Monday, according to Fox News Digital.
DOGE took control of the agency’s money, locked out workers, and removed leadership.
Demonstrators and Democratic lawmakers gathered outside USAID’s headquarters in the Nation’s capital on Monday after employees were frozen out of its systems without warning.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that he was now the acting administrator of USAID.
Rubio said the agency’s programs would continue under the Department of State, but blamed the change on its workers’ high levels of “insubordination.”
Atul Gawande, who served as head of global health at USAID for three years under President Biden’s administration, criticized Musk for shutting down the agency.
“This is a gift to our enemies and competitors,” Gawande told Fox News Digital.
“This pause is not a pause. It’s the destruction of the agency. Two weeks ago I was combating diseases.
“We had 21 serious outbreaks at the time worldwide. Three are serious now: an Ebola outbreak in the capital of Uganda.
“Bird flu has broken out in 49 countries. Our efforts to contain them have all been shut down.”
