Senator Says The United States Paying For Iraqi Sesame Street Is “Smart” And Necessary To “Prevent Kids From Dying”

Wait, what exactly is going to happen if Big Bird doesn’t get paid?

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that the United States government spends a ton of money on crap that they shouldn’t. Most people would agree with me, and until this week I thought it was something that pretty much everybody on both sides of the aisle could find common ground on.

But it seems like I was wrong.

When he took office a few weeks ago, President Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to head up DOGE, the Department of Governmental Efficiency, to identify wasteful spending and reduce the size of government. Sounds like a pretty good idea, right?

Well the plan looked even better as we learned exactly what the government was spending money on. This week, the Trump administration announced that they would be closing USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, which had a budget of over $40 billion and was tasked with administering foreign aid all around the world.

In the process, we’ve learned some of the things USAID was spending money on, which gives us a better idea of why Trump wanted to shut down the organization and start over. Among other things, here are some examples the White House gave of the ridiculous spending from USAID:

• $1.5 million to advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam
• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
• $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt
• $20 million to create a Sesame Street in Iraq

Wait, what?

You read that right. While you were writing a check to the government, USAID was turning around and sending that money to a nonprofit group called Sesame Workshop to produce an Iraqi version of the beloved children’s show, called “Ahlan Simsim Iraq,” which was meant to “promote inclusion, mutual respect, and understanding across ethnic, religious, and sectarian groups.”

On their website (which has since been taken down), USAID justified the expenditure by claiming that it was meant to help communities “find a new sense of normalcy.”

“As Iraq recovers from years of conflict, communities struggle to find a new sense of normalcy while physical and emotional wounds remain. The legacy of Iraq’s conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) left many children without a stable home or displaced, especially those from Iraq’s ethnic and religious minorities. Additionally, Iraqi youth, who make up over half of the population, are unable to find jobs in an economy strained by war and corruption, creating vulnerabilities to radicalization.” 

Insane. I mean, I love Elmo as much as the next guy, but when we have homeless veterans on our own streets, why are we paying groups millions of dollars to produce a children’s show in a country that we were fighting for 20 years?

While normal people have criticized the wasteful spending, Democrats have been sounding the alarm on cutting USAID and defending their work around the world – including, yes, Iraqi Sesame Street.

During an interview on CNN, Delaware Senator Chris Coons attempted to justify the spending by pulling out the old “children will die without it” line that politicians love to use:

“This isn’t just funding a kid’s show for children, millions of children, in countries like Iraq. It’s a show that helps teach values, helps teach public health, helps prevent kids from dying from dysentery and disease, and helps push values like collaboration, peacefulness, cooperation, in a society where the alternative is ISIS, extremism, and terrorism.

And to your point, it’s pennies on the dollar. The US Department of Defense has an annual budget of about $850 billion. USAID was spending about $30 billion. It is a small proportion of our total federal spending, and…it’s not just soft power, it’s smart power.”

Insane. Only in Washington DC will you hear a politician say that $30 billion isn’t a lot of money. Shows how much they value your tax dollars, right?

Of course it’s not only USAID that’s come under fire for their insane spending. The State Department has also spent money under the Joe Biden administration on important projects like…a transgender opera in Colombia, a DEI musical in Ireland, and an LGBT comic in Peru.

But hey, it’s not their money so why do the people who represent us care where it’s spent?

WATCH: Sen. Chris Coons says “it’s smart” to spend $20M to produce Sesame Street in Iraq.

“It's a show that helps teach values…It’s pennies on the dollar.”pic.twitter.com/p0u7rAvI8D

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 8, 2025