In the first chaotic press briefing of the second Trump presidency, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made the baffling claim that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency discovered that the United States was sending $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza.
“DOGE (the Department for Government Efficiency) and the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) found that there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Leavitt said in defense of the Trump administration’s soon-reversed decision to freeze foreign aid. “That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.”
However, the claim was quickly questioned by officials, especially after Leavitt didn’t provide evidence to support the statement, and the White House has refused to provide any in the hours since. Did the Biden administration allocate $50 million for condoms in Gaza? Let’s unpack the claim.
Are these claims about condoms in Gaza true?
While it can’t be confirmed, as the Trump administration has refused to give evidence that this funding was planned, funding reports from the Biden administration point to the claim being incorrect.
Since it’s been announced, economists have scratched their head on where this figure came from. Condoms cost less than $1 in the U.S., and that number significantly drops when bought in bulk. If this report is correct, the U.S. spent more than six times the global value of condoms to a small territory of only 2 million people, roughly $23 per citizen exclusively spent on condoms.
A detailed report issued by The U.S. Agency for International Development — the agency that would be responsible for distributing the alleged condoms — found that $60.8 million was allocated for contraceptives and condoms in 2023, but none of it went to Gaza or the West Bank.
The report found that the only shipment that went to the Middle East was $45,680 in oral and injectable contraceptives sent to Jordan.
The majority of USAID funding went to contraceptive implants — like IUDs and arm implants — costing $23 million, followed by injectable birth control (worth $17 million). Out of the entire funding, condoms only accounted for $7 million. The vast majority of these funds, according to the report, went to African countries.
Andrew Miller, the former deputy assistant secretary for Israeli-Palestinian affairs in the Biden White House, labeled the Trump administration’s claim as “outlandish” and a “feverish dream.”
“It’s possible that $50 million is put aside for sexual health or something of that nature, which would include gynecology and many other services, but definitely not condoms alone,” he specified.
A former senior official in the Biden administration who focused on aid to Gaza told CNN that Leavitt’s claims were “imaginary,”
“It’s a lie; they are making s–t up,” they said.
Reports from the USAID program — which the Trump administration also funded in 2019 — show that the U.S. reportedly never sent contraceptives to Gaza. The Middle East was not even included in the program in 2021 and 2022.
Trump, his administration doubles down on claim
In a speech following the signing of the Laken Riley Act Wednesday, President Donald Trump bashed the “tremendous waste and fraud” in federal spending and repeated the claim that he stopped a $50 million payment in condoms “sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas.”
Trump claimed that the terrorist group was using the condoms to create bombs, a tactic Hamas has been previously used. The terrorist group has been known to use latex condoms as makeshift balloons to carry makeshift explosives over the Israeli border.
“You know what’s happened to them?” Trump said, “They’ve used them as a method of making bombs. How about that?”
When CNN asked Leavitt and other members of the administration for evidence, she refused to provide any, pointing toward State Department comments that did not address contraceptives in Gaza.
The State Department comments Leavitt referenced were social media posts from State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, who was speaking broadly about foreign spending that was preventing the U.S. from being “safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”
“Example 1: Condoms. Prevented $102 million in unjustified funding to a contractor in Gaza, including money for contraception,” Bruce said, not specifying how much funding was intended for condoms, or family planning services more broadly.
Bruce told the media that the International Medical Corps — the U.S. organization that is currently operating two field hospitals for civilians in Gaza — was the NGO that had its funding frozen.
A Trump official told The Independent Wednesday that $50 million was not going to condoms in Gaza, but instead part of a larger aid package for medical services. The $50 million was part of one of two “buckets” of aid, with some of it going toward “family planning programming including emergency contraception; sexual healthcare including prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections; and adolescent sexual and reproductive health.”
International Medical Corps claims the funding was not for condoms but rather “lifesaving medical care” for the 33,000 civilians it treats per month, including 30 surgeries a day, delivering babies, and running one of Gaza’s last remaining neonatal intensive care units. In addition, the organization claims to be running the only remaining centers for malnourished children in Gaza.
The organization clarified its sexual health services, telling CNN, “no US government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms.”
Pro-Trump conservatives continue to echo claim
Conservatives immediately bashed the Biden administration over the claim.
“I’m convinced that many of these programs are just money laundering and that America has been running the largest scale money laundering scheme in modern history to benefit Democrats,” Conservative influencer Robby Starbuck said. “The math is not mathing for me.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told CNN similar claims, “Millions of dollars were being sent to Gaza for, like, condom programs that they found. So they want to put a freeze on some of that stuff.”
Fox News commentator Jesse Watters agreed with Trump’s claim that the condoms were being used by Hamas to float explosives into Israel as balloons.
Musk echoed that the supposed condom funds went into the pockets of Hamas, calling these reported findings “the tip of the iceberg,” writing, “My guess is that a lot of that money ended up in the pockets [of] Hamas, not actually condoms.”
Far-right activist Chaya Raichik, who runs the controversial Libs of TikTok account, commented, “There’s like a 99.9999999% chance that the condom to Gaza thing is actually just money laundering.”
