New York: US President Donald Trump has claimed that the USD 21 million funding to India for ‘voter turnout’ was a “kickback” scheme, as he continued to attack the previous Biden administration over the now cancelled financial aid.
Trump made these remarks while speaking at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Washington DC on Thursday.
“USD 21 million for voter turnout in India. Why are we caring about India’s turnout? We have got enough problems. We want our own turnout,” said Trump.
“I would say in many cases, many of these cases, anytime you have no idea what we’re talking about, that means there’s a kickback because nobody has any idea what’s going on there,” he said.
This is the third time within a week that Trump has questioned the funding.
Earlier addressing the FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami on Thursday, he had raised similar concerns over funding to India and suggested that they were trying to “get somebody else elected”.
On Wednesday, he questioned the purpose of providing USD 21 million to India for “voter turnout” as he reiterated that the US “can hardly get in there” because of high Indian tariffs.
His remarks came days after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk disclosed that USAID contributed USD 21 million to the Election Commission to boost voter turnout in India.
On February 16, DOGE listed items on which the “US taxpayer dollars were going to be spent” and the list included “USD 21M for voter turnout in India.”
DOGE noted that all of the items have been cancelled.
The list also included USD 29 million for “strengthening political landscape in Bangladesh”, USD 20 million for “fiscal federalism” and USD 19 million for “biodiversity conservation” in Nepal as well as USD 47 million for “improving learning outcomes in Asia”.
Trump during the speech at the Republican Governors Association meeting also questioned USD 29 million to strengthen the political landscape in Bangladesh.
“Nobody knows what they mean by the political landscape. What does that mean?” he asked.
“USD 20 million for fiscal federalism and USD 19 million for biodiversity in Nepal, USD 47 million for improving learning outcomes in Asia. What the hell do I care about? We got a lot. We got enough problems and all of this is terminated. We terminated this stuff and we’re on the track. And by the way, there were so many others I could have I could read all night long, but so many were so terrible, and were actually disgusting. And I know you’re eating your dinner, so I didn’t want to do that but we’re draining the swamp,” Trump said.
The DOGE has been put in charge of overseeing workforce reduction across the government, and as part of that, Musk announced that he would shut down USAID, which is responsible for humanitarian efforts around the globe.
According to USAID officials on February 7, all USAID humanitarian work worldwide was stopped, ABC News reported.
The agency’s website was shut down before Musk’s announcement. Later, a Trump-nominated judge announced a temporary restraining order that prevents the president and DOGE from placing 2,200 employees on administrative leave.
