The left has made the federal government its “personal piggy bank,” and that’s why Democrats and their bought-and-paid-for media are squealing like stuck pigs at DOGE’s exposure of it.

That’s the considered opinion of Missouri’s two U.S. senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, shared in separate exclusive interviews with The Heartlander.

“They’re paying off their favorite newspapers with it,” Hawley says of what he calls a Democrat piggy bank. “They’re using it to promote transgender surgeries in Zimbabwe. I mean, it is unbelievable what they have done with these agencies. 

“It’s what we’ve known all along, but now we’ve got the receipts. Now we can see it. They are funding every left-wing project – and I think we’re only scratching the surface. They’ve got a money laundering program on their political side like nobody’s ever seen, and I hope we get to dig into that too. 

“This is why we’ve got to cut back these agencies. We’ve got to bring bureaucracies to heel. We’ve got to cut out the waste and the fraud and abuse, because the Democrats and the Democrat machine, their donors, their machine is profiting off of this like nobody’s business.”

“I’m glad they’re digging into all the waste, fraud and abuse in our federal government,” Schmitt says of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by entrepreneur Elon Musk.

“I think people have waited far too long for this kind of accountability. I don’t think if you presented the facts in front of the American people they would approve of millions of dollars being sent to Burma for DEI trainings. 

“And I think permanent Washington is terrified of this kind of transparency. But I’m glad it’s coming. I think the American people support reform. They voted for reform. 

“President Trump’s a disruptor, and that’s what you’re seeing in a lot of these agencies that just, quite frankly, for far too long been unaccountable to the American people.”

Schmitt took to the Senate floor this week to enumerate some of the most outrageous examples of federal spending that’s been discovered.

Government-subsidized media?

Among them, DOGE has unearthed the fact that the Biden administration was funneling nearly $10 million to left-wing media outlet Politico alone, largely in high-priced premium subscriptions for federal employees to get its skinny on the federal government.

“What’s amazing is, they concealed it,” Hawley says of government payments to various left-wing media outlets, “and even now they won’t report on it.

“Politico is a great example. It’s a lefty journal in D.C., and they have so many reporters on their payroll. I’ve always wondered, how do they afford to do this? Now we know: They’re getting millions of dollars in taxpayer money, and none of us knew it. And none of us have any control over it, none of us being voters. And now it’s going to stop.  

“They need to be honest. All these outlets, whether it’s Politico or the New York Times or you name it, they need to tell us how they’ve gotten taxpayer money. And they need to disclose how much and from whom. They ought to come clean. What was it that the Washington Post said? ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’? Yeah. So does accountability for journalists. Let’s see the facts.”

Even as the Biden administration subsidized left-wing media, it created a “vast censorship regime” to marginalize or silence conservative views online about COVID-19, the 2020 election and more.

So, basically the Biden administration was helping fund left-wing liberal news while censoring conservative views?

“Yes,” Schmitt says. “They were doing it with cash, as you can see with some of the revelations here recently. And of course, when I was attorney general of Missouri, we brought the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit that uncovered this vast censorship enterprise, where you had all these agencies – agencies, people never heard of, like CISA – that were coordinating with some of the biggest companies in the history of the world, these Big Tech giants, to censor conservatives.  

“There’s been a lot of abuse, and so you’re never going to be serious about fixing a problem unless you’re serious about what the problem actually is. 

“And the truth is, there’s a lot of these agencies that have worked against the interests of the American people. These bureaucrats have been funding NGOs, non-government organizations, that have been funneling illegal immigration into this country too, ignoring our laws. There’s a lot of waste, there’s a lot of fraud, there’s a lot of abuse that I think can be uncovered here and rectified.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what they’re doing,” Hawley agrees. “I mean exactly what they were doing. They were using the FBI to censor conservative voices, or just independent voices, in the media. The Hunter Biden laptop story, let’s not forget; the COVID vaccine story they suppressed. 

“And they did that with the force of law. They used law enforcement to do it. Now we know they were using taxpayer money to subsidize left-wing journals, left-wing news outlets. 

“It’s unbelievable. They are howling because they’re getting exposed. That’s the real deal here. They’re melting down because their gravy train is getting exposed and it’s getting cut off. And we need a lot more of that.”

“Maybe it explains why Politico’s had such biased coverage,” Schmitt adds, “because they’re getting paid for it by this [U.S. Agency for International Development] USAID scandal. I just think that, in any other time, this stuff would be a huge scandal. I think it is revealing, though, of the people who are coming to the defense of this kind of abuse. And as far as I’m concerned, like I said, this is a fight worth having – and bring it on.”

Democrats want spending fought over ‘in the streets’

Democrats have been “losing their minds,” as one conservative pundit put it, over the hard-to-defend spending and Musk’s involvement in exposing it.

“Elon Musk is a Nazi nepo baby, a godless lawless billionaire, who no one elected,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Massachusetts wailed at a rally this week. “We will see you in the court, in Congress, in the streets.”

“We are gonna be in your face, we are gonna be on your a–es, and we are going to make sure you understand what democracy looks like, and this ain’t it,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, cried.

“”God d— it, shut down the Senate!” screamed Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-New Jersey. “We are at war!”

“Elon Musk is seizing the power that belongs to the American people,” claimed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts.

Is that true? Is Musk seizing power from the people?

“No,” Hawley scoffs. “Listen, the person in power is who the American people elected, and that’s Donald Trump. These are his decisions, let’s not forget. These are his actions. This is his administration. And the Democrats want to say, ‘Oh, it’s this guy over here. It’s that guy over there.’ 

“It’s Donald J. Trump who the American people voted for, and he’s delivering on his campaign promises. He said he would do this. He said he would go in and he would cut out fraud like has never been done before, and he’s actually doing it. And the media can’t believe that. They can’t believe he is keeping his promises. And I think the American people are delighted about it.”

The media – rather than join in on the investigation into wasteful and fraudulent spending, are following the Democrats’ lead in decrying the transparency.

“It’s sad, but not surprising,” Schmitt says. “I think that the legacy media’s grip on the narrative is gone, and the American people are smart enough to make their own decisions, and they’re getting their information from different news sources, which is a good thing. 

“I think this consolidation of middlemen who decided what people could see or hear every day did our republic a disservice, and so all of this stuff now is being disrupted. And that’s a positive.”

The Democrats’ incongruous vitriol toward the probe of government spending is nothing less than a hazard to the republic, Hawley argues.

“Well, I have to say to some of my Democrat colleagues in Congress – saying stuff like ‘we need to fight this in the streets’ – I mean, in the streets? – do they not remember that President Trump was nearly assassinated twice in the last seven months because of, in part, rhetoric like that? 

“They need to tone it down and have some respect for the rule of law, No. 1, and for the will of the voters. The American people elected this guy. So, if they don’t like him, that’s fine. You can go make your case at the ballot box.

“But to say stuff like we need to have uprisings, I mean that’s really ridiculous and it’s dangerous. I hope they realize that. And I hope that they get called to account for it.”

“I think we need to have accountability,” Schmitt adds. “And before you have accountability, you have to, again, have the transparency to see what’s actually going on. 

“I think that’s really why the Democrats and many in the media are terrified of this, is because they can’t justify it. Like, there’s just no way you can tell the waitress in Missouri who’s busting her rear end working double shifts of why it’s important for us to send millions and millions of dollars to a foreign country for DEI skits, or subsidizing in Baghdad a Sesame Street, LGBTQ, DEI agenda. 

“It’s insane. And they don’t want to have that debate, so they’re going to pout and they’re going to stomp their feet. But I think change is coming.”

Schmitt’s list of outrageous spending, as heard on the Senate floor:

• $45 million for diversity and inclusion scholarships in Burma; $112,500 per student 
• $3 million for “girl-centered climate action” in Brazil.  
• $1.25 billion to racialized public health 
• $288,000 for diverse bird watcher groups 
• $1.5 million to ‘advance diversity equity inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.’ 
• $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland.  
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam. 
• $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. 
• $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.  
• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala. 
• $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt.