White House says it will cancel $8 million in Politico subscriptions after a false right-wing conspiracy theory spreads

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, responding Wednesday to a question about a right-wing conspiracy theory, announced that the federal government would cancel $8 million worth of Politico subscriptions.

Leavitt elevated a bogus claim spreading on social media that Politico and the Associated Press for years received millions of dollars from the US Agency for International Development, which President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have targeted by placing staff on leave. In reality, the payments represented the whole of the federal government’s subscriptions to the news outlets’ services. All federal agencies combined spent $8.2 million last year on Politico Pro, according to USASpending.gov.