The Trump administration on Thursday ordered the General Services Administration (GSA) to “cancel every single media contract” by the end of the day.
The email follows shocking findings from DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, namely that legacy media outlets were taking in millions of dollars from the federal government through mass subscription contracts. For example, the federal government paid more than $8 million to Politico last year alone for the outlet’s Politico Pro service.
“GSA team, please do two things,” the email, which was first obtained by Axios, reads. “Pull all contracts for Politico, BBC, E&E (Politico sub) and Bloomberg. Pull all media contracts for just GSA – cancel every single media contract today for GSA only.”
It’s unclear how many subscriptions GSA was paying for, but the agency, which manages federal property and technology services for the federal government, has about 12,000 employees.
Additionally, an X account for DOGE posted Wednesday that “Treasury leadership verified that their NYT (New York Times) contracts were cancelled today.”
Treasury leadership verified that their NYT contracts were cancelled today. https://t.co/cd3STUgrzF
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 6, 2025
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week that the White House can confirm that they are canceling payments for Politico Pro subscriptions across numerous agencies.
The controversy started when DOGE highlighted waste from USAID, which had an annual budget of about $40 billion dollars and around 13,000 employees. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that the initial goal was to reform USAID, but they were met with so much resistance from the agency that they were forced to take drastic action.
🚨RUBIO: USAID rife with “rank insubordination” — “we had no choice but to take dramatic steps to bring this thing under control.”
“They have basically evolved into an agency that believes that they’re not even a U.S. government agency…they’re completely unresponsive. They… pic.twitter.com/LQOKRDUlBk
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) February 4, 2025
The White House released a preliminary list of wasteful projects USAID has funded, including giving millions of taxpayer dollars to a group involved with research at the Wuhan lab, hundreds of thousands to a non-profit linked to terror groups, $2 million for LGBT activism in Guatemala, and $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia.
Nearly all staff at the agency will be placed on leave by Friday night and all overseas missions have been ordered to shut down.
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