Last week, Free Presser Eli Lake reported that an order from the DOGE to the U.S. Treasury had blocked the disbursement of funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a government-funded organization tasked with promoting democracy around the globe.
“It’s been a bloodbath,” one NED staffer told Eli, revealing that the organization couldn’t meet payroll or basic overhead costs. Eli argued that NED was far from perfect, but its shutdown would be a mistake.
“For the right to turn against civil society groups that stand up to pro-Moscow authoritarians, formerly a proud conservative cause, is stunning,” wrote Eli.
Eli’s piece sparked a lot of debate among our readers, with many seeing NED as just the kind of bloated public body the DOGE should target. One of them was our friend and Spectator World editor-at-large Ben Domenech. He responded to Eli on his Substack, The Transom, and we’re republishing the post here:
Eli Lake has a piece in The Free Press complaining that Donald Trump (via Elon Musk) is defunding the National Endowment for Democracy, a prominent CIA front group that has been one of the worst actors on press freedom over the past several years and deserves not one dime of taxpayer funds.