The beltway insider news site Politico is facing a major blow to its bottom line after the White House said it was going to cancel subscriptions government agencies have to its “Pro” service, which provides data and granular reporting about the business of government to corporate and government clients. 

The brouhaha began when inquiries from Elon Musk’s DOGE operation disclosed millions of dollars in payments to Politico, whose free news product, which is separate from Pro, has long been accused of liberal and anti-Trump bias. Most recently, Politico aggressively covered the various allegations against Secretary Hegseth during his confirmation process. Earlier this week, the Pentagon kicked Politico out of its Pentagon office space, along with NBC News, who took the lead on the Hegseth reporting, and other liberal outlets. 

DOGE uncovered that Politico, which is owned by the German press conglomerate Axel Springer, received nearly $30 Million in taxpayer money from numerous federal agencies in the years during the Biden Administration. Conservatives on social media pointed out that the payments were essentially subsidizing Politico’s journalistic operations. Later on Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced that the federal government would stop making payments.

“I can confirm that the more than $8 million in taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers’ dime will no longer be happening,” Ms. Leavitt said from the podium in the White House briefing room in response to a question from one reporter.

“The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now,” she added. “Again, this is a whole of government effort to ensure that we are going line by line when it comes to the Federal government’s books, and this President and his team are making decisions across the board on, ‘do these receipts serve the interest of the American people? Is this a good use of the American taxpayer’s money?'”

“Trump & Elon deleted their funding,” wrote the conservative press personality Benny Johnson. “Now Politico will go out of business. The corruption is endless. Good riddance” 

According to data from USASpending.gov, the news organization received $8.2 million in 2024 alone from agencies like USAID, the Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The payments appear to be for subscriptions to “Pro,” a database service used by federal officials, consultants, lobbyists, and other professionals for in-depth analysis and granular information on a wide array of laws and issues concerning the federal government. A single subscription to the service costs approximately $10,000 per year, and it is known as a “B2B” or business-to-business product that is nonpolitical.

As news of the payments broke on Wednesday morning, employees at Politico did not receive their paychecks, a first in the company’s history. In a memo sent companywide, Management blamed the issue on a “technical error.”

Officials with Politico did not immediately return requests for comment from The New York Sun.

A search of USASpending.gov shows that other press organizations have received millions from numerous government agencies.

In 2014, the New York Times received more than $14 million, nearly $8 million of which was given by the National Science Foundation.

The UK’s BBC received $3.2 Million from USAID from 2023 through 2024, according to a financial report released by the broadcaster.

The Times and the BBC do not have B2B services and it’s unclear what the payments were for.