Claims about USAID funding Malia Obama originated as satire

"Can someone explain why Malia Obama received $2.2 million in funds from USAID?" says text over an image of Obama shared February 12, 2025 on Threads.

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Screenshot from Threads taken February 14, 2025

Similar posts spread across platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, with some claiming to quote her saying she deserved the money for being a pen pal to children worldwide.

"Malia Obama says she deserved every penny of the $2.3 million she got from USAID: 'I provided penpal services for dozens of lonely kids in impoverished countries.' She wrote letters. To 'dozens' of kids. For $2.3 million," says one February 13 post on X. "She needs to pay that money back."

The allegations about the former Democratic leader's 26-year-old daughter spread as Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, tasked by the president with overhauling the federal government, have attempted to dismantle USAID, leaving employees and foreign aid contractors in limbo as courts take up cases opposing the plan. 

The giant humanitarian agency has for decades funded health and emergency programs as well as democracy promotion initiatives in about 120 countries, including the world's poorest regions. Trump and Musk have alleged the agency is rife with "fraud" but provided little evidence to support their allegations.

The viral online claims about Malia Obama also lack evidence.

A search of USAspending.gov, an official open data source compiling federal spending information, shows no USAID funds awarded or disbursed to her.

The only two records that specifically mention her by name relate to payments for Secret Service protection she received in 2016, when Barack Obama was wrapping up his presidency (archived here and here).

Keyword searches also return no credible news reports of the younger Obama saying she penned letters to children in poor countries as part of a government-funded program.

On the contrary, those searches revealed that the claims originated with a network of parody websites and social media pages called America's Last Line of Defense. An America's Last Line of Defense watermark also appears on the image of Malia Obama shared in some of the posts making the claims online.

Run by a man named Christopher Blair, America's Last Line of Defense sites publish false stories and hoaxes often mistaken for real news.

On February 9, a Facebook page associated with the network uploaded the same image of Malia Obama featuring the text claiming she received USAID funding. The next day, it posted the made-up quote about her allegedly working as a pen pal. It then recycled the claim once more on February 13.

The Facebook page's bio says: "Nothing on this page is real."

Blair previously told AFP that he thinks people share his content because it fits "their confirmation-biased narrative of the world." 

"Whether or not a thing is true no longer matters to about 35 million Americans," he said. "If it's what they want to hear, they'll pass it along."

AFP reached out to a spokesperson for former president Obama for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

AFP has fact-checked other misinformation about USAID here and here.