’Fake’: Kevin Rudd hits back at USAID funding rumours

The office of former PM Kevin Rudd has responded to claims circulating online about funding from the USAID body.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has denounced “fake” claims circulating online that an organisation he led received funding from the US aid agency currently being targeted by Donald Trump.

Multiple X posts have shared what is purported to be a ledger show money was given to the Asia Society by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2022.

Mr Rudd was the chief executive and president of the Asia Society from 2021 to 2023, and was previously president of the its think tank from 2015.

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Ambassador to the US. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

In a statement released by Mr Rudd’s former prime ministerial office on X, Australia’s Ambassador to the US said the claims being made were “fake”.

“USAID doesn’t fund Kevin Rudd or Asia Society,” it said.

“Nor did Asia Society receive any USAID funding during Dr Rudd’s period as president.

“It’s a lie. Pure and simple.”

Kevin Rudd's former prime ministerial office comments on USAID rumours. Picture: X

The Asia Society is focused on educating the world about Asia and also included educational and fundraising arms.

The comments came after a federal judge ordered a temporary pause on Mr Trump’s plans to force more than 2000 workers to go on leave from USAID.

Mr Trump’s administration was set to stand down 2200 employees at 11:59pm on Friday, US time, after the agency became the latest target of his wrath.

The President this week accused USAID and other agencies of stealing “billions of dollars” to aid Democrats, calling it “perhaps the biggest scandal in history”.

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Workers group American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees asked the US Supreme Court to block the move in a 11th-hour bid.

The group asked Justice Carl Nichols, an appointee of Mr Trump, to order the president’s administration “to immediately cease actions to shut down USAID’s operations”.

News outlet CNBC reports the group’s court filing argued USAID “is suffering an onslaught of unconstitutional and illegal attacks, leaving its workers, contractors, grantees, and beneficiaries deserted in the wreckage and a global humanitarian crisis in the wake”.

US President Donald Trump has accused the agency of corruption. Picture: Roberto Schmidt/AFP

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They claimed the Trump administration has “deliberately dismantled USAID’s infrastructure” and is “poised for a near-final killing blow”.

Justice Nichols questioned Department of Justice lawyer Brett Shumate about why the Trump administration needed to put the workers on leave so quickly.

“What is the urgency of this?” the judge asked.

“The President has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAID,” Mr Shumate replied.

The court has also been asked to reinstate 500 USAID employees who were already placed on leave but has not yet ruled on that matter.

Tributes beneath the covered seal of the US Agency for International Development headquarters in Washington, DC. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

In the three weeks since he began his new term, Mr Trump has launched a crusade led by his top donor and world’s richest person, Elon Musk, to downsize or dismantle swathes of the US government.

The most concentrated fire has been on USAID.

On Friday, Mr Musk – who along with Mr Trump has spread blatantly false information about USAID’s finances – reposted photos on social media of the agency’s signage being taken down from its Washington headquarters.

The Trump administration has already frozen foreign aid and ordered thousands of internationally-based staff to return to the US, with reported impacts on the ground steadily growing.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been leading Trump’s assessment of public service roles. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

Mr Musk has posted on his social media platform X of how his Department of Government Efficiency body had “spent the weekend feeding USAID to the wood chipper”.

On Thursday, a union official confirmed reports that the USAID headcount of 10,000 employees would be reduced to around only 300.

The President this week praised Mr Musk’s efforts, highlighting “all the fraud that he’s found in this USAID” which he said was staffed by “radical left lunatics”.

“They have things that nobody would’ve even believed,” he said.

“With money going to all sorts of groups that shouldn’t deserve to get any money, with the money … I’d like to see what the kickbacks are. How much money has been kicked back?”

The US’ current budget allocates about $70 billion for international assistance.

People protesting Donald Trump and Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency". Picture: Drew Angerer/AFP

However while Washington is the biggest aid donor in the world, the money has only amounted to between 0.7 and 1.4 per cent of total US government spending in the last quarter century, according to the Pew Research Center.

USAID runs health and emergency programs in around 120 countries, including the world’s poorest regions.

It is seen as a vital source of soft power for the United States in its struggle for influence with rivals including China.

Samantha Power, the USAID chief under former president Joe Biden, dubbed the agency “America’s superpower” in a scathing New York Times opinion piece Friday.

“We are witnessing one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in US history,” said Ms Power.

Unless the dismantling is halted, Ms Power wrote, “future generations will marvel that it wasn’t China’s actions that eroded US standing and global security” but rather “an American president and the billionaire he unleashed to shoot first and aim later”.